Archive of Our Own ^beta

The only reason Jean applied for the job in the first place was because he was flat out, irrevocably, without a doubt broke. The sort of broke where he found himself scrabbling down the back of the sofa cushions for loose change when rent was due and when his parents asked him what he wanted for Christmas he found himself asking for laundry detergent and toilet paper and whether or not it was possible to get a gift card for a gas bill. He’d laugh, had it been anyone else. But post-grad hadn’t been all that kind to him, and he wasn’t exactly in a laughing mood about it.

Armin had mentioned that the bookstore he had worked weekends at whilst they were at university and continued to do so, now he was done with his first degree and had moved on to his second (or third? Had he completed two in the space of time it had taken for Jean to finish one? He couldn’t remember) was hiring for Christmas, and with much assurance that he didn’t need a functional knowledge of all the literary greats or even that much of a back catalogue of books he’d read (much less enjoyed) in order to apply, Jean thought what the hell, it’s not like he had anything better to do besides work the counter of the grim little café that refused to give him much more than part time hours no matter how much he implored. He could use the extra cash—maybe there’d be enough for him to factor something into his budget that would actually allow him to get people gifts this year.

What he didn’t expect was to actually get the job.

“Did you have anything to do with this?” he asked Armin over the phone, the night before his first day.

“Doesn’t matter,” Armin said, in a deliberately, mildly infuriating vague manner. And then, “You’ll be fine, Christmas is the easiest time of year to work there. People know what they’re looking for so they barely ask you for advice, and if they do, it’s not like you’re on your own. I’ll still be there most weekends and there’s everyone else. Do you remember Marco? He works here now.”

“Marco?” Jean echoed. He did remember him—the studious guy sat at the front of the lectures they shared, so diligent in his note taking there was always a stack of spare notebooks at his elbow, no matter how dull the subject. They didn’t speak much, beyond the occasional exchange of notes here or a conferring of frustration at an essay there. But Jean hadn’t seen him since graduation—perhaps not even then. He didn’t remember much about his graduation; beyond accepting a certificate he remembered didn’t feel as expensive as he felt it should and standing for a lot of photographs he didn’t have copies of whilst people shook his hand and slapped him on the back, mouthing congratulations that rang hollow in Jean’s skull around the knowledge that none of the internships he had sent applications for had responded.

“Yeah, he’s been there… about a year now? Something like that. He was surprised when he found out you’d applied and got the job.”

“That makes at least two of us.”

“I think he’s looking forward to seeing you again.”

…

Marco was working on Jean’s first day.

He waved from where he was stood behind the counter, all earnest smile and ease as Jean was led around the store by the manager, a slight figure beneath several layers worth of obnoxiously clashing, blanket-like clothing. They introduced themselves with a far too vigorous handshake for Jean’s liking as “Hange, but don’t let that put you off,” and before Jean had time to ask what they meant, they took off around the store, leaving Jean to stumble after them as he was given a tour of the shop floor and the staff room and the locker with the missing key that was now his, the cash office where Hange said he could find them at any given time, and the storeroom down a short flight of stairs at the back of the shop.

“There used to be a code,” Hange explained, gesturing at the keypad, then pushing the door open as they groped about in the dark for the cord to the light switch. “But it’s been broken for a while.”

A naked bulb blinked on, illuminating a storeroom that had a little more space than could fit on a postage stamp, but not by much. What little room there was had been constricted by the racked shelving lining all four walls like ribs, piled with stacks of extra stock; uncreased books pressed flat like lips pressed together. Half-torn cardboard boxes stood in wobbling piles around their feet which Hange attempted to wade through to gesture to the back door, where deliveries were accepted, but quickly gave up and ushered Jean back out onto the shop floor, where they had room to breathe.

“That’s about everything. I’ll pass you off to Marco now—he’ll show you how to use the till and get you used to all the sections, won’t you, Marco?”

Marco looked up from where he was serving a customer and beamed as Hange clapped Jean on the shoulder and headed back upstairs into the cash office from whence they came.

“Hi,” Marco said once his customer had left and Jean approached the counter. “Fancy seeing you here,”

Jean gave him a weak, half-grin in response. “I could do without the tone of surprise, thanks,”

“Sorry. It was well-intentioned.” Marco beckoned for Jean to join him behind the counter. Like everything else in this shop, there wasn’t a lot of space, even though there were two tills crammed behind there. “I didn’t know you were the bookish type.”

“I’m not,” Jean said automatically, but it came out less snarky than he intended, and given where they were, just ended up sounding pathetic. “I mean—I haven’t really had time to read. Not since graduating. You know.”

“I get it.” Marco nodded sagely. “Reading nothing but academic texts for three years really does sort of make reading anything else lose its lustre for a while.” He turned to the till and began explaining the system, showing Jean how to make a transaction and how to check stock levels from the computer should a customer ask. His fingers danced across the screen, tapping on icons as he went. His fingernails were painted emerald green, the same colour as the sweater he wore with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

They were in the shop together over the next couple of days, giving Marco chance to get Jean accustomed to everything, showing him how to book in deliveries and how to identify a book’s genre by the merest glance at its front cover.

“That’s easy,” Jean initially scoffed, as Marco raised an eyebrow.

“You’d be surprised,” he said, holding up a bright pastel pink and yellow book adorned with a winsome face in one hand, then a thicker book in the other, with a black and white jacket slashed open to a door standing ajar on its front cover containing its title in narrow, unremarkable font against a dash of yellow. “Quick, tell me which one is for teenagers.”

Jean blinked. He pointed at the candy-coloured face with its eyes pointed skyward, lips pouting and puckered. Marco grinned.

“This,” he said, brandishing it, “Pure smut. One of the filthiest books we deign to carry. I wouldn’t try and sell it to a fifteen-year-old if I were you.”

“Because fifteen-year-olds are renowned for their chasteness.”

“Fair point.” Marco ducked his head, still smiling. The left corner of his mouth deepened into a dimple in his freckled cheek. “’S a good book though,”

“Yeah?”

“There’s a good story in there. You know, amidst all the… Yeah.” Marco slotted it into place on the shelf. “Good book.”

It was a slow few days to begin with, although Marco remarked that this was the busiest he’d seen the shop in a while. December had only just begun, and the official Christmas panic still had plenty of time to set in, so the iron grey skies and the forbidding encroach of frost kept the foot traffic at a minimum.

“Of course,” Marco said, when Jean remarked on this, “most people buy online now.”

“Yeah, but you can see why. It’s easier than making the effort to come into town. And cheaper.”

“But it’s not the same,” Marco implored. “Bookshops are one of the few shops nowadays that you’re not expected to be just another customer—bookshops are part of every person they serve, part of the experience you get to go through in the process of discovering a story you might love. Sure, you can scroll through a website and read all the summaries you want online and make an educated decision as to what you think you’ll like best, but it’s nothing compared to walking into a store, carving perhaps an hour, two hours out of your day—”

“Two?”

“—to just explore and hunt and physically feel the pages, the weight of the book in your hand. Have you noticed how people browse in here?”

“How?”

“Watch.” Marco inclined his head from where they were stood behind the counter over at a couple who had come in and were murmuring to one another, periodically pausing their conversation to run their fingers across the spines on the shelves or over the surface of a newly released hardback on a table between them. When one of them stopped to pick up a book and flip it over in their hands to read the back they fell silent, as they opened the book at its midpoint, and not a second later flipped through the rest of the pages in a flurry. “See?” Marco continued, “You wouldn’t think you could decide how good a book would be based on flicking the pages too fast to read—but it’s like getting acquainted with someone new, taking in the appearance and the typeface and the layout and deciding whether or not you’re willing to commit.”

“To a book?”

“Have you seen the size of some of these? It’s a commitment.”

Jean didn’t see it. When Marco went on break and the shop was quiet, he tried, wandering down the shelves and plucking out a book at random, weighing it in his hands and letting it fall open and his eyes glaze over the text without taking a single word in, but he just didn’t feel it. He didn’t feel anything. He flicked through the pages, eyes trained on their numbers, watching the page count soar from 200, 350, 500, 800… Who had the time? And the money? This flimsy little paperback in his hands cost almost the entirety of an hour’s wage—which, if he were frugal enough, would be enough to keep him fed for the better part of the week.

He pushed the book back onto the shelf, almost a little surprised at how sour he felt. He’d watched Marco come alive during that little speech of his—alight, almost. He wasn’t the solemn student he remembered from their university days. Nowadays he always seemed like he was quietly smouldering, just waiting for a flint to strike at the right moment and allow him to burst into flame, to exude warmth and passion, to ignite the fire in his eyes when he talked with an eloquence that, even though, to Jean’s mind, was speaking little but nonsense, had the innate ability to keep him rapt.

Jean felt a shudder go through him as he went back to the counter. Intensity, that was the word for it.

Part of him wondered how anyone had any of it left nowadays.

…

He wasn’t due in at the bookshop for a couple of days, in which he returned to the monotony of his other job, punching orders into a till and pressing buttons on coffee machine and mopping up every other spilled drink and staring mindlessly into space whilst a customer fished through their pockets, insistent on using up their change when he could see a perfectly adequate bill in their fist. His co-worker due on with him on the afternoon shift called in sick, leaving him to close on his own, emptying coffee grounds from the machine and rinsing down the sink and wiping down the counters in silence.

He walked home under a sky swollen with light-polluted clouds like bruises, his breath misting the air in front of him and his nose feeling tight and pinched in the cold air as he let himself into his building and sifting through the post on the doormat, seeing nothing under his name before he crept upstairs and into his flat. It had been months since his last application, and he knew it was stupid to still be holding out hope, but there was still a shred or two of it clinging to him like a cold he couldn’t shake.

His flat was dark, and empty, and there were still bills on the table, and he hated it, he hated it, he hated this place, he hated what it had made out of him.

He just wanted to feel like he could breathe again.

…

“I’m looking for a book.”

Jean glanced up from the box he was in the process of opening. “Well, I have excellent news for you. You’re off to a good start.”

A dark look passed over the woman’s face hovering above him, like she couldn’t decide if he was joking or not. She had her phone in one hand, shopping bags slung over the other, and had the air of someone in a hurry.

“It’s for my daughter. She’s eleven.”

Jean spun the scissors he was using to slice open the tape sealing the box shut in his hands and pointed with them towards the back corner of the store. “All the kid’s books are there.”

“Right.” The woman’s gaze narrowed at the kaleidoscope of colour lining the shelves amidst the cardboard cut outs of popular book characters, darkening rapidly towards the teen section. “I don’t have time to look through everything. Can you recommend something?”

Jean grimaced. “Uh… What does she like to read?”

“Anything. I’ve got to get back to the car in ten minutes,” she added, glancing at her phone, “anything is fine.”

Jean came out from behind the counter and slid the first book off the shelf he recognised. “This is—”

“She’s read that.”

He put it back. He selected the first pink spine he saw. “How about—”

Her eyes darted up from her phone. “Too girly. She’s a girl but not a girly girl, you know?”

“OK then—”

She sucked in a breath that hissed between her teeth, not even bothering to lower her phone this time, “Isn’t that one for boys?”

Jean suppressed a deep sigh of exasperation and pushed the book back onto the shelf before he’d even had chance to pull it out.

“Are you having trouble?”

Jean tipped his head back in relief as he whirled around. “Yes. Marco. Thank you.”

Marco had come back from the stockroom with a pile of that week’s new releases balanced beneath his chin which he set down at the counter and came over to where Jean and his difficult customer were standing, a serene smile on his face. “What are we looking for?”

“Can you recommend a book for an eleven year old girl who isn’t a girly-girl but doesn’t want something for boys that she probably hasn’t read before?” Jean asked.

Marco pushed his sleeves up as his brows knotted together, placing his hands on his hips and scrutinising the shelves. “Hm, let me see… Does she like fairy tales? Fantasy?”

“She’s eleven,” The woman interjected, perhaps more snippily than necessary.

“You can never be too old for a good old fairytale. I personally would recommend anything by Diana Wynne Jones—she’s an excellent children’s author who really doesn’t get the attention she deserves, but I think we’ve only got one of her books in store at the moment—oh, how about this?” He reached up to the top shelf and retrieved a chunky paperback with a pale cover lacerated with grey brambles. “The main character in this is twelve and it’s about her spending the summer with her uncle’s family on the edge of this wild forest…”

Jean glanced over to the woman who was watching Marco, nodding a couple of times, before she blinked, shook her head slightly, and then flipped her phone case open and produced a credit card from within. “It’ll do. I’ll have that one.”

“Great,” Marco said, his smile never once faltering as he led her over to the counter and slid her purchase into a paper bag. “Hope she enjoys.”

The woman left in a rustle of plastic and the hammer of her keyboard as her thumb flew across her phone screen.

“Was she giving you grief?” Marco asked, once she was out of earshot.

Jean shrugged and went back to the box he’d been unpacking on the counter. “Just vague. How am I supposed to know what kid’s books to recommend? I’m not a kid. I don’t know any kids.”

“And?” Marco looked amused. “Some of the greatest books I’ve ever read have been kid’s books. I wasn’t kidding about Diana Wynne Jones, by the way. Wicked sense of humour. If you get a chance I really do recommend you give her stuff a go.”

“Yeah, sure,” Jean scoffed. “I’ll think about it.”

“Come on. What did you like to read as a kid? You had to have read at least… I don’t know, Harry Potter at some point? Percy Jackson?”

“Probably, but hell if I remember. Reading’s never been that high on my list of priorities.”

Marco was quiet for a moment or two before he turned and slipped out from behind the counter. Jean watched him cross the store and return to the children’s section, where he ran one finger with it’s chipped emerald green nail down and across the spines of the books lining the shelves, huddled together like a congregation, until he found what he was looking for and plucked it from its place. He came back over to the counter and handed it to Jean, “Here,”

Jean took it, one eyebrow raised. “‘Inkheart’?” he said.

Marco grinned, the dimple at the corner of his mouth appearing. “There’s no other book like it when it comes to inspiring a love of stories. Trust me. Give it a go. It’s a super quick read, you’ll be done in a couple of days.”

“Thanks.” Jean put it down on the counter, not even bothering to read the synopsis. “I’ll think about it.”

Marco pushed the book back towards him. “Trust me. If you’re going to work here, you might as well act like it.”

Jean gave him a sardonic look. “Armin said I didn’t need to read to work here for Christmas.”

“Well, Armin’s not here, and without him there’s only me to give recommendations, and that’s exhausting.”

“What about Hange?”

“Oh, you don’t want to know what they read. They only like the really obscure non fiction sort of stuff or these weird pulpy novels from decades ago. And I’m not saying weird to be mean, I mean weird. One of our regular customers bought one once and haven’t come back since.”

“So you think one kids book is so magical and revolutionary it’ll turn me to the dark side.”

“I didn’t say revolutionary. I said it’s a start. I’m trying to help you cultivate a love for books and literature and—you know, make my job a little easier.”

Jean slid the book back across the counter. “You’re so aggressive today.”

“It’s called selling.”

“All right, whatever. I’ll think about it.” Jean sliced the box open and put the scissors down, pulling the protective stuffing away from the contents.

“What’s that?” Marco said.

“Not sure. Here.” Jean handed him the delivery note.

“Oh, cool, it’s from the publishers. They send us free books sometimes.”

Jean pushed the box over to him. “All yours.”

“You don’t want to see what there is? There might be something you like.”

“Marco.” Jean tried not to let a note of exasperation slip into his voice. “I don’t read. I don’t have the time.”

Marco pressed his lips together. He took the box and began sifting through the contents in silence. “I’ll take these,” he said, eventually. “See if Armin wants any. If not I can drop them off on my way back tonight.”

“Drop them off?” Jean echoed.

“Sorry. Talking to myself.” Marco looked up and smiled again. “I… I volunteer at the crisis centre. I like to bring in the extra books we get and pass them out to residents, you know? Something a bit more exciting than a Bible. Depending on your viewpoint, of course.”

“Of course you do.” Jean leaned against the counter. “The Saint of the Local Bookshop.”

“Don’t,” Marco said, but he was still smiling, and Jean managed to ease himself to smile in return.

“Are you seeing Armin tonight?”

“Hm? Oh. Yeah. Well…” Marco’s cheeks visibly coloured before he turned his face away. “I—we’re actually—I’m staying with him? At the moment?” He reached up and scratched the tip of his nose. “So I’ll just bring these back with me tonight.”

“Oh.” Something Jean couldn’t name slid down the back of his throat and coiled, wet and darkly into the pit of his stomach. “Yeah. Makes sense.”

The early evening drew in cold and prematurely dark and Marco took the tills upstairs to the cash office whilst Jean finished tidying the counter for the following day. When Marco came back down, he had Jean’s bag and jacket with him.

“Here,” he said. “Thought I’d save you the trip. Hange and I are going to cash up so you can go, if you like.”

Jean took his things with a gruff thanks as Marco gave him that serene smile and let him out of the store.

“Have a good night,” he said.

Jean didn’t realise until he got back to his flat and unzipped his bag that there was a paper bag inside that he definitely didn’t put there. He pulled it out and knew what it was instantly. He gritted his teeth and inwardly cursed Marco, but he didn’t have it in him to be angry. He switched on the light, stuck a ready meal in the microwave, and propped himself up on the sofa, letting the paper bag fall away from the copy of Inkheart in his hands. The receipt came fluttering out from where it had been tucked in the front cover.

Jean cracked the spine.

…

Something made Jean’s stomach twist when he saw Marco and Armin arrive together at work that weekend. Hange had called everyone in, anticipating a busy weekend (They were, of course, still holed up in the cash office, nose deep in whatever obscure text on the discrepancies between migration habits of those of the Metasia genus (Jean had asked (Jean had regretted asking)) they had got their hands on).

The two of them were talking and Marco had his head bowed as Armin spoke, only briefly lifting his eyes to raise a hand in acknowledgement of Jean as they came in. Jean turned away and went back to sorting out the customer orders behind the counter. He caught a brief snippet of their conversation as they walked by toward the door to the back,

“I don’t want you to feel like I’m kicking you out,” Armin said.

“No, no, it’s fine. I completely understand.”

“I mean I’m sure Eren wouldn’t mind, but—”

“No, it’s OK, honestly. I’d hate to…”

The door swung shut behind them and cut Marco’s voice off.

Jean stared after them. Did he hear them right?

“Did I hear you mention Eren?” he said when Armin back down and out onto the shop floor.

“Yeah, I did. Why?” Armin gave him an odd look. “I was just telling Marco he’s coming back here for Christmas, that’s all.”

“Oh, he is? Bastard.”

“Jean!”

“What?”

“What—you know what, never mind. I was going to say what have you got against Eren, but stupid question, I know.” Armin shook his head in disdain. “You really know how to hold a grudge, don’t you?”

“Why thank you.”

“It’s not a compliment!” Armin said, pointedly. “Eren got onto that scheme just like anyone else would—”

“Yeah, only once he knew I was applying for it,” Jean said. He shoved a book onto the orders shelf a little more fiercely than he intended and the whole row slid and toppled over. Jean dropped into a crouch to right them. “That was the one graduate scheme I really wanted. I mean, politics, come on. You can hardly call Eren the diplomatic type. He didn’t even study International Politics and Policy—”

“He studied Sociology,” Armin said, gently.

“Which I’m sure there are a million other graduate schemes he could get on with. He didn’t even have a plan until he heard me, running my mouth like some idiot. How you lived with him as your roommate is beyond me.”

“Anyway,” Armin said in a diplomatic manner no amount of studying could get Jean to emulate. The door to the back opened and Marco emerged. “He’s coming back here for Christmas, since he doesn’t fancy going back home to spend time with his Dad. That’s all.”

“Jean, you look furious,” Marco said as he approached the counter. He had a mug in his hands, cupped in both of his hands so his shoulders hunched, ever so slightly. “What are we talking about?”

“Nothing,” Jean muttered.

“Jean’s mad about Eren coming back to stay at mine.” Armin said.

Marco raised his eyebrows and took a sip from his mug.

“Yeah, whatever.” Jean straightened the fallen books up and stood up, dusting off his knees. “Tell me when he arrives. I’d like to pay him a visit.”

“Excuse me?”

The three of them looked over to see a little old woman the front of the store gesturing to the top shelf, where she couldn’t reach.

“Would one of you gentlemen mind lending me a hand?”

“Of course!” Marco put down his mug and leapt around the counter, hurrying over.

Armin turned back to Jean. “Are you threatening Eren?”

“Pre-emptively.”

“God, just be nice. You don’t even have to see him. It’s not like he’s going to show up here.”

“Right.” Jean smirked. “Because he can’t read.”

Armin rolled his eyes whilst Jean cackled to himself.

A customer came over and Arming began to serve them, quickly departing from the counter to go through the new releases to help them find something, leaving Jean to finish the customer orders in peace by the time Marco came back.

“What time’s the delivery due?” he asked as he picked his mug up again.

Jean peered at the computer screen. “Not until this afternoon,”

“Cool. Slow morning it is.” Marco took a sip.

Jean glanced over at him. He appeared to be surveying the shop, watching the few early morning shoppers milling about outside on the street and the customers drifting in and out of the front door, bundled up and shuddering as if they could shake the cold off of them as they stepped over the store’s threshold. But there was distinctly glassy look to his eyes, a distance that made Jean take a look a him, properly. His eyes were rich and dark and devoid of that light that Jean had found so remarkable not too long ago.

“You OK?” Jean said after a while.

“Fine,” Marco said, a little too fast to be convincing.

“Something on your mind?”

“Not really.” Marco shook his head. “Time of year, you know. Busy.”

“Is this at the crisis centre?”

“Oh, definitely. It’s a horrible time of year for people needing help. You hear some properly grim *stories there.”

“I can imagine,” Jean tried to sound empathetic. He paused. “What… made you want to work there?”

Marco glanced over at him. He lowered his mug onto the counter and folded his arms, leaning against the wall behind them. “There’s no big reason,” he said, slowly. His voice sounded close and guarded. “I have time to help. I like to help.”

“Unpaid?”

“It’s volunteer work.” Marco tipped his head in Jean’s direction. “Why do you ask?”

Jean bit the inside of his cheek. “I don’t know. I just—ah, how to say this without sounding like a dick—it’s not that I think it’s a waste of time or anything but… Maybe I’m just selfish. Maybe I just think my problems deserve more attention than others.” He picked at a loose thread on the hem of his shirt. “I just can’t imagine having the time—or the energy—to focus on other people when I don’t even have my shit in order.” He cringed. “Yeah. That makes it sound like I’m a dick, doesn’t it?”

Marco inclined his head and thought for a moment. “No,” he said. “I think a more… dickish person would be more dismissive. I don’t think it’s wrong to have different priorities. And if your main priority is yourself, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that either.”

“Isn’t that the dictionary definition of selfish?”

“I don’t know. Shall we check?” Marco disappeared round the corner and came back with a pristine new dictionary, laying it open on the counter and flipping through the pages, running his finger down the page. His nails, though still green, were chewed almost all the way down to the pink. “Selfish-+,” he read aloud, “Concerned chiefly with one’s own profit or pleasure at the expense of consideration for others.”

“So…yes. I’m a selfish bastard.”

“Hang on—” Marco pointed at the entry below. “Selfism: concentration on ones own interests. Derivatives: Selfist. There you go.”

“That’s basically the same thing.”

“At least it doesn’t have the same negative connotations.” Marco straightened up from where he was bent over the page. “I don’t think you’re selfish. It’s hard work. Taking care of yourself.”

There was such a poignance to the silence that followed as the dictionary snapped shut Jean felt like there was something he should say, or ask, but he had no idea what, as if whatever direction the conversation had been steering had suddenly been obscured in thick fog.

Armin came back with his customer and took over one of the tills as Marco went back to put the dictionary back on the shelf. Jean waited until Armin had finished ordering books and the customer had left until he spoke again.

“So, explain to me how it works. You and Marco and Eren.”

“How what works?”

“It’s yours and Eren’s apartment, right?”

Armin nodded. “Yes. Eren left a few months ago on his graduate scheme but he didn’t know when he’d be back because it had a chance of being extended, so he’s been paying his rent a few months in advance. That’s all.”

“And Marco factors into this?”

At this, Armin’s cheeks visibly pinked. “I… I don’t know if I should say.” He hesitated, then continued in a much lower voice, after a furtive glance over his shoulder. “I- I don’t think I should tell you without Marco’s permission.”

Jean raised an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

“What does what mean?”

Shit. Jean cringed inwardly. Marco had reappeared at the edge of the counter and had clearly caught the tail end of their conversation. His gaze darted between Jean and Armin’s rapidly pinking face expectantly.

“Eren,” Jean said.

“Again?” Marco said.

“Jean’s obsessed,” Armin said, with a knowing glance in Jean’s direction before he went back to the computer to look something up. “He and Eren are as bad as each other.”

“Oh.” Marco’s gaze dropped to the floor. Jean watched his fingers loop around each other before picking up his mug again, seemingly just for something to do, and lifted it to his mouth to drain it. He tipped his chin back, his throat bobbing in four quick gulps before he lowered the mug from his face and made a vague gesture behind him. “I’m going to stick this upstairs and then tidy up the back—give me a shout if you need me, won’t you?”

“Sure,” Armin said. Marco’s gaze darted to Jean— dark eyes lingering for a moment before they went back to Armin for even longer before he spun on his heel and headed to the back.

Jean steeled himself. “Hey. Marco.”

Marco looked back over his shoulder, one hand on the door.

Jean cleared his throat. “You didn’t have to get me the book.”

A smile spread itself across Marco’s lips. “You’re welcome,” he said, as he vanished.

…

Jean ended up working on his own again at his café job. Someone had quit last week, making the already understaffed rota spread all the more thin, and the afternoons dragged quiet and long when everyone was at work. Someone would drift in occasionally for a coffee to go, or to brood over a newspaper with a lightly charred panini in the window, but for most of the time, Jean was on his own, watching the achingly long minutes stretch into insufferable hours.

The radio on the back shelf fuzzed and spluttered and periodically grumbled out snatches of what might have been a song. He didn’t raise a hand to change the station. He didn’t switch it off.

I could scream, Jean thought to himself. I could scream and no one would come running. I could set fire to this place and no one would care that I was still inside. The next person to walk in here could strangle me and the person behind them in the queue would complain I didn’t take their order before asphyxiating.

The floors were swept and mopped and still glistening. The drinks cabinet had been restocked. The prep area had been wiped down. Everything in the fridge was sealed and dated and there were still hours left to go and all Jean wanted to do was leave and…

And what? What else was there, beyond this miserable counter and this hideous apron? Trailing round the supermarket trying to make the contents of his wallet stretch as far as it could until next payday, having to put orange juice and deodorant back on the shelves when his card declined and asking for the cashier to put it through again. Followed by an evening spent hunched over his laptop scrolling through internships and graduate schemes he was rapidly aging out of and couldn’t remember if he’d already applied for. Surrounded by little else but the oppressive silence of the poky little flat he’d tried, so many times, to call home, but felt more and more like a cage he was chained to.

He leant against the glass countertop, burying his chin in his folded arms and watching the passers by through the window; people in dark suits with phones clamped to their ears on their way to and from the train station; people in colourful coats and hats weighed down with paper bags in the midst of rapid conversation with their friends; kids in school uniforms wheeling bikes, bouncing footballs, laughing with indomitable spirit Jean could only wistfully recall.

He’d been lied to. They’d all been lied to. He’d shed blood for his degree and a fat lot of good it did him—it sent him straight into this stupid uniform in this stupid café, serving sandwiches and hot drinks like he wasn’t about to be sliced open from the inside by ambition.

But it wasn’t as if he was special. God knows how many others there were; people his age with a myriad of colours in their heads, rage in their hearts, screaming, screaming for the freedom they were promised, only to be thrown scraps and told to survive. Like him. Like Marco.

He had a degree, too, and no doubt for something more aspirational than a bookseller. Jean had seen him sat at the front of those lecture halls for years, diligent as a worker bee that would die for its purpose, all set for amazing things, on the right track to greatness. And yet here they had both ended up, still stuck in the same town the university had spat them out into, careening back into each other’s lives as if by design. As if the years of grinding and breaking themselves to fit into the moulds they wished to fill had smoother their edges and suddenly they fit nowhere.

The difference being, of course, Marco could smile about it. Maybe his place was in that bookshop—maybe it had been all along—and maybe Jean was correct in thinking he was mad to be content to settle for something so… menial.

He shut his eyes and buried his forehead into the crook of his arms, the cool glass of the counter pressing into his chin.

He’d never seen someone come alive over something as mundane as a book.

He’d never listened to someone talk so rapturously about something as mundane as a stupid, fucking book.

He’d never stood behind this counter and gazed into space, all thoughts dashed from his skull by the memory of a pair of dark eyes set aglow by a self-kindled spark meeting his, the lopsided smile filling out freckled cheeks, as if delight could be prescribed; the steady rumble of a voice preaching a sermon he didn’t believe in but couldn’t help but be enchanted by.

Chills ran across the surface of Jean’s flesh. He dug his fingers into his arms and sunk his teeth into the back of his hand.

Stood behind this counter he’d stood behind a thousand times before, he’d never felt more lonely.

…

The nearer Christmas drew, the colder it got, and business at the bookshop picked up along with it. Hange had Jean working every day he wasn’t working at the café, and now Armin had finished at university for Christmas, he was in almost everyday too, meaning he had to watch he and Marco arrive side by side almost every morning.

Jean didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what was clenching itself around his throat, like fangs puncturing his windpipe, but he fought it off, and stayed away from them both. He played the part of the model employee in this shit pantomime he’d cast himself in; reorganising sections, sweeping the doormat free of dead leaves, walking up to customers and asking them what they were looking for, even if he had no clue what they were on about. He’d stand listening to an old man talk at length about two history books on the same war and why one was superior, nodding and pretending not to be watching Armin and Marco behind the counter out of the corner of his eye, pretending not to notice the grin on Marco’s face when Armin offered to fetch something for him; when he brought two mugs of tea down from the staffroom in a morning; when a book came in on the delivery that they’d both read and they launched into a conversation about as foreign to Jean as a completely different language. He hated the fact Armin could draw out that spark in Marco’s eye, far more easily than Jean could. He hated that Marco let him. He hated that Marco wouldn’t look at him. He hated that he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t breathe.

In the end all he could do was go home and read.

He finished Inkheart in just over a week. It wasn’t the masterwork Marco had purported it to be—just a kid’s novel, as far as Jean could tell—even though a small part of him had to admit there was a cosiness to it, a lilting quality a bit like a familiar fairy tale, and the routine of breaking it open when he got a minute here and there and taking just a moment to rustle through the pages and slip for a moment into the world of a child… Well. There was something nice about it. Much to his twenty-something-grown-man chagrin.

He shut the book and let it fall from his hands to his bed, sliding between the duvet as he rolled over and gazed at the empty expanse of white sheet next to him. He desperately wanted to tell Marco but what he wanted to say had no business being said in proximity to someone who meant so much more to him.

Watching them at work made him seethe with envy and he hated himself for boiling over, having green run from his lips and stain his bared teeth and grow in the beds of the claws he kept his fists curled over when all he wanted was to touch something soft, and dark, and emerald, instead of acid.

He found himself lurking in the storeroom under the guise of sorting through the deliveries that arrived through the back door, justifying himself to Marco and Armin that that was where he was most useful. It was easier to settle in this glorified cupboard, to keep himself from being sickened by himself, with nought but the stacks of books he’d never read and the single, flickering bulb for comfort.

“You doing all right, kid?”

Jean glanced up from the shelf he was reorganising. Hange had pushed the door open and was stood watching him with a mildly puzzled expression.

“You don’t have to alphabetise in here,” they said, followed by a soft chuckle. “It’s just extra space.”

Jean shrugged. “I like to keep things tidy.”

“Ha! I suppose one of us has to be. Ooh, is the delivery here? Let me at it!”

Jean stepped aside and let Hange descend on the pile of unopened boxes at the door, rifling through their contents before they withdrew with a handful of titles and the satisfied look of the cat who’d just eaten the canary. They caught Jean’s eye and winked.

“Quality control, as it were,” they said, drawing their obnoxiously patterned shawl about their shoulders and shuffling back over to the door, no doubt headed back up to the cash office where they’d bury their nose in their new bounty to divulge its secrets. They stopped by the door and looked back at Jean. “You doing all right?” they repeated.

Jean looked at them. “Yeah?”

Hange didn’t look convinced.

Jean picked up a pile of books and shuffled through them just for something to do with his hands. “Who spoke to you?”

“Can I not just check up on my staff? I’m a nice person. I like to make sure all is still ship shape amongst the crew. But now that you mention it, yes, Armin wanted to know why you aren’t talking.”

Jean wasn’t surprised to feel something resembling disappointment sinking into his chest.

“Well.” Hange gathered the shawl around them again, and with their owlish glasses, somewhat beaky nose and ratty hair pulled into a bird’s nest atop their head, Jean couldn’t help but be reminded of an owl puffing up and settling its feathers. “Armin may—or may not!—have mentioned that he wanted to make sure you were OK because he may—or perhaps he hadn’t!—been told that someone was worried—or concerned? Or perturbed? I forget—that they had done something to offend you. And Armin came to me to make sure you hadn’t complained or let something slip, just in case.” They pushed their glasses up their nose. “But we’re all peachy? No cannonballs sinking this ship, hm?”

Jean stared at them for a good long moment before deciding it just wasn’t worth the effort. “Yeah,” he managed. “I’m fine.”

“Oh, you young’uns. You forget I’m a grown up who’s been there, done that, seen it all! I can hear the resonating echo of angst rattling throughout the bones of this very building and stirring in the souls which inhabit it, as I, too, once was young and… therefore know exactly what that look you’re giving me means, so I’m going to leave before you ask to put in a complaint to HR. Which is me. So. Best of luck with that!”

And with that, Hange swept off, bounding up the stairs back to indulge in their bounty in the cash office they had claimed for their nest, leaving Jean only mostly unnerved and no less dejected.

So Marco had said something to Armin, who’d passed it onto Hange. Jean would be lying if he didn’t admit the thought of Marco being worried about him was at least a little gratifying—but even though he knew why, he pretended not to. He shut his eyes and pressed the heels of his palms to his eye sockets, pressing hard enough for the darkness behind them to whirl and blur with sparks of colour. A larger part of him was twisting itself inside out, writhing with the knowledge that all Jean knew how to do was disappoint and trouble those around him because he had no handle on any of this, whatsoever…

“Like fucking Eren,” he hissed between his teeth and kicked a box so savagely it crumpled, its torn midsection giving way and spilling all over the floor. He swore and dropped to the ground to pick up after himself, wincing over a dented corner, a crumpled page.

He thought he was done with letting his anger get the better of him. He thought he’d left that all behind when he’d accepted he’d wasted his time and money at university and all the universe had planned for him was this unremarkable existence he’d slid, blissfully unaware, into. He’d tried to carve out his own path, but his pickaxe had chipped at the first strike and he couldn’t make a dent without the whole thing shattered to piece. All he could do was scratch, and eke out something resembling an existence, and keep the fury quelled, and it all sounded so…

…lonely.

His fingers curled around the book in his hands.

The door creaked as it was pushed open, making Jean flinch.

“Are you OK? I heard a crash—”

It was Marco, stood in the doorway. His gaze immediately fell to the mess on the floor, his lips— mouse-nose pink, shaped with the elegance of a lyre—forming a soft, unspoken, oh.

“Accident,” Jean said, ducking his head.

“Let me help.”

“It’s OK.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I said—”

Jean cut himself off as Marco took a careful step forwards, trying to avoid standing on any of the fallen books, but his knee collided with the bundle of collapsed cardboard by the door, jamming it through one of the gaps in the shelf racking and sending a pile of neatly organised, just-alphabetised books teetering over and falling to the ground, tumbling all over Jean’s lap and across the floor,

“Sorry!” Marco winced. “Sorry! Sorry, that was my fault!”

“It’s fine,” Jean said automatically. He refused to meet Marco’s gaze. He set about gathering up the mess, smoothing out crooked covers and shuffling the books back into piles. “You can go back out front, I’ll deal with this.”

“No, no, I’ll help—are you OK?”

“Fine. Honestly, I can manage by myself.”

“You don’t have to.”

Something quivered in Jean’s chest. He peeked up at Marco through the fringe of his eyelashes to see him crouch down and begin picking up after himself, shoving the incriminating cardboard out of sight and plucking books out of the tidal wave they had made. Jean watched his shoulders shift, his sleeves shift up his arms, exposing several inches of freckled wrist and his dark hair fall forward, shading his forehead and the wrinkle in his concerned brow.

“Don’t frown,” Jean said. “It’s OK.”

Marco glanced up at him. He pressed his lips together, and Jean watched the pale contour in his throat bob.

There was a long pause.

“I finished, by the way.” Jean said.

“Inkheart?” Marco’s head lifted, ever so slightly. “What did you think?”

“That you know exactly how to be pushy when you want to be.”

A smile stirred at the corner of Marco’s mouth. “You said you didn’t have time, and as it turns out, you managed to find some. I’m not pushy. I just know.”

There was something about that look on his face—lingering remnants of sheepishness, illuminated by the merest hint of a challenge, a taunt, in that lopsided smile of his, made Jean want to press his fingers to the nave of his throat, cup the soft outline of his jaw.

Jean felt a shudder pass through him and forced himself to look away.

The walls felt too small and cavernous all at once, as if the ribcage of shelving around them shrunk and expanded with the pulse of lungs fighting for breath. When Marco spoke, Jean almost expected his voice to echo.

“Did you like it?”

Would Jean have chosen it for himself? Of course not. It was a kid’s adventure story, something he had grown out of needing years ago. He wasn’t enchanted by the world or bewitched by the tale—he found the villain hilariously comical, the whole situation farcical… But what could good could it possibly do Marco to be told all of that?

“Yeah.” Jean said. “I did.”

Because he had, in the end, read it cover to cover, and lain awake ruminating on it afterwards, and been taut for days, desperate to tell Marco he had finished. Just to get him to look at him like that again.

“I’m glad.”

Jean let his eyes dart up from his lap just to savour the brief smile that flitted across Marco’s expression. It fell a moment later as he picked up a book and turned it over in his hands, a look of recognition dawning on his face.

“What?” Jean said.

“Oh, nothing. Just this.” He held up a slim paperback with a mellow orange cover, warm oranges and yellows igniting a pair of opposing silhouettes and a figure walking on a path carved out between them. “This is one of my favourites,” Marco said, in a reverent tone. “I read it when… A few years ago. And for some reason I just keep coming back to it.”

“Some reason?”

“Well. I know the reason.” Marco grinned and held the book out for Jean to take. “I’ll tell you if you read it.”

Jean snorted. “This feels like you’re setting me homework.”

“This is the kind of homework that feeds you mind and enriches your soul.”

“You talk like a university prospectus.”

“I know how to make a good pitch.” Marco shrugged. “What can I say? I’m good at my job.”

Jean reached out and took the book, his knuckles brushing against Marco’s fingers. He swallowed as Marco let go. “And he’s not conceited about it at all, nope, not in the slightest.”

Marco tipped his head back and laughed. “Let me have this. I’m not good at much else.”

Jean had started to flick through the book, but he stopped, and looked up. Marco had gone right back to clearing the floor, seemingly unfazed.

“Don’t say that,” Jean said. “You’re a smart guy. I know there’s loads of things you’re good at.”

Marco’s dark eyes flickered up and met Jean’s directly for a moment, holding his gaze so firmly all Jean could do was count the heartbeats it took until he looked away.

“Thanks,” was all Marco said. He turned away and put the books he’d gathered back onto the shelf behind him.

Jean slowly went back to the book in his hands, lifting it to his face and let his eyes wander over the synopsis. A coming of age premise, promising to remind its readers what it was to fall in love and watch your world fall to pieces simultaneously.

It was like the echo he had expected in the room had come to life and slapped him.

He lowered the book, letting it fall against his chin, inhaling the dusty scent of print and ink, the fibres of a story thread Marco had all but dropped into his lap, a taunting lead practically daring Jean to take it.

“Marco?”

“Yes?”

Jean wet his lips. “What did you study at uni?”

Marco had his back to him as he moved things around on the shelf, and his visibly stiffened at Jean’s question. There was a lingering silence that last a moment or two before he replied.

“Social and Political Science and Philosophy,” he replied, in a tone far too even to be comforting. “Why?”

“Just curious,” Jean mumbled. He pressed the book against his chin. “Do you miss it?”

“Miss it?” Marco turned around at this. “In what way?”

Jean forced himself to look Marco in the eye. He didn’t reply.

Marco withstood his gaze before he blinked and hastily averted his eyes, shaking his head.

“Yes and no,” he said eventually.

“I do.” Jean said.

“Yeah?”

“I miss feeling like I was in control.” Jean put the book down on the shelf closest to him and got to his feet, picking up a stack that had been sprawled over the floor. “I miss being smart enough to feel like I had everything figured out, but just delusional enough to have no idea what I was in for.”

To his surprise, Marco nodded.

“Yeah,” Marco said, a wistful note slipping into his voice. “That sums it up quite well.” He looked up and back over his shoulder at Jean. “Want me to take those?”

Jean held out the stack of books he carried for Marco to take. He wasn’t looking at Marco’s face, but he could feel those ink-dark eyes boring into him as Marco’s hands settled over his own, wrists twining around his own as the pile shifted from his grip to Marco’s. The top book slid from place and made a dive from the floor.

“Whoops—” Marco said, reaching for it, the same time Jean did, and their hands collided, and Jean felt Marco recoil instinctively, straightening up sharply just in time for the top of his head to collide with Jean’s chin. All the teeth in his skull jarred at the blunt force and tears sprung to his eyes as Jean reeled as far back as the tiny room would allow.

“Sorry! Oh my God, I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry—” Marco was gabbling.

Jean clutched his face, ears still ringing. “OK,” he admitted. “That one hurt,”

“I’m sorry! I’m an idiot, I didn’t realise—” Marco put the books down on the shelf behind him and turned back to Jean, taking a step forward. “Are you all right? I think there’s an ice pack in the first aid kit upstairs, do you want me to go grab it?”

Jean rubbed his jaw, working his mouth silently to ease out the pain. “I’ll be all right,” he said. “What about you? How’s your head?”

“Fine,” Marco said, far too quickly again.

“Don’t be stupid, that was a hard whack. Are you sure?” Jean automatically reached out, then realised what he was doing, and froze. Their eyes drifted to meet each other and the air in the room seemed to vanish, and suddenly Jean’s mouth was dry, and his tongue had shrivelled.

Marco’s eyes flickered across Jean’s face. Then, slowly, scarcely moving more than an inch, he inclined his head towards Jean’s outstretched hand.

He was taller than Jean so he had to reach up, to slip between the silken strands of Marco’s hair and run his fingers across the surface of his scalp, searching for a bump both of them knew he wouldn’t find, his touch featherlight. He was warm and reassuringly solid, as if now Jean were touching him, he knew he was awake and this wasn’t a figment of his imagination—but there was a frail, quivering air to the moment, with the same fragility as a dream.

There was so little space in the storeroom they were scarcely a foot apart, but as Jean took his hand away from Marco’s head and held it in the space next to Marco’s face, apprehensive, Marco shifted his weight, shuffled an inch closer, close enough that Jean could see the glow of his cheeks reddening beneath their freckles, cheeks cut with the sculpt of a Greek god; feel the heat radiating from him, and the smell of his clothes—

The smell of Armin’s clothes.

Jean’s hand curled in on itself and the frailty in the air seemed to gather all its mass in a breath and suddenly plummet to the ground, shattering, just as the door to the storeroom creaked open.

The two of them sprang apart, Jean almost colliding with the shelves behind him.

“Hey.” Armin stuck his head around the door. “Sorry, can I have a hand? There’s a queue,”

“O-oh. Yeah. Of course.” Marco ran a hand through his hair and Jean pretended not to notice the look thrown his way, pretending to be steadying the shelf he had almost careened into. He heard Armin leave and go back out onto the shop floor, but he didn’t hear the door shut.

“What?” he said, twisted his head over his shoulder to see Marco lingering in the doorway, holding the door open.

Marco visibly swallowed. “Eren’s back next week,” he said. “A few days before Christmas.”

Jean frowned. “O…K?”

Marco met his gaze one last time with an inscrutable look on his face. “Just… thought you might want to know.”

He left, leaving Jean to pick up the book Marco had implored him to read, and pressing the edge where Marco’s fingers had been to his mouth.

…

“Afternoon fellas, how are we doing?”

Hange had made a rare appearance on the shop floor, looking just a bedraggled and owlish as ever in a hideously festive approximation of what they usually wore, complete with full-size baubles on an enormous jumper and bells along the trim of a nattier than usual shawl. Jean wasn’t entirely convinced it wasn’t just a straight up piece of scrap tinsel they had wrapped around their neck. They came over to the counter, where Jean and Marco were working through the uncollected customer orders, packaging things up to be shipped out before the last day of postage and answering the phone to flustered customers desperate to get their hands on an impromptu gift they couldn’t rack down anywhere else.

“It came out in 1982,” Jean said into the phone, not for the first time as he averted his gaze from Hange and went back to the details on the computer. “The likelihood of finding it brand new is impossible. It’s out of print.”

“But it’s for a gift,” the wheedling voice on the other end droned in his ear, also not for the first time. “I can’t possibly give a secondhand copy, no, no, that just won’t do at all…”

Jean, massaging his temple whilst they continued to witter on, glanced over at where Marco was talking to Hange at the end of the counter, in the midst of parcelling up an order. He hadn’t heard what the two of them were saying, but Hange had an uncharacteristically worried look on their face, brows knitted together as they opened their mouth, and Jean hurriedly pulled the receiver away from his face to listen.

“I was going to ask if you’d be happy to work Christmas Eve, but—”

“No, no,” Marco said hurriedly. “I’ll work Christmas Eve, it’s fine.”

“Are you sure? You don’t need—”

“I don’t need anything, I’m fine, I promise. Thank you, though.”

Intrigue spiked at the back of Jean’s throat as he pressed the phone back to his ear.

“Can you check if you can get it anywhere else?” the customer asked.

“I checked online, and you can get hold of a secondhand copy very easily, but it’s not something—”

“Can you order that for me?”

“No, because it’s not with us, we only handle new books—”

“I’m not online, you see.”

 Jean let out a long stream of breath in an effort to keep his voice steady. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said between gritted teeth in the most mitigating voice he could muster. “And I’ll call you back, how does that sound?”

“That’ll be lovely,” the customer purred in an infuriatingly smug tone of satisfaction. “Oh, but you must call by tonight, I’m out all day tomorrow, and I really must send it off by—”

“OKthankyouverymuchbye,” Jean rattled off and hung up before he had to listen to another word.

Hange looked over at him. “Jean! I’m sorting out the rotas for next week, and I’m just checking if you’d be happy to work Christmas Eve?”

Jean shook his head. “I’m going back to my parent’s on Christmas Eve.” Back to a place with reliable heating and the promise of a substantial meal on Christmas day. The prospect was too enticing to decline, even though he wasn’t particularly looking forward to seeing his parents again, let alone the extended family, and having to go through the drudgery of telling everyone—again— that no, he hadn’t heard back from that company, and no, that graduate scheme didn’t accept people of his age, and yes, he was still working at the café, and no, he wouldn’t move back in with his parents, and no, he didn’t have a girlfriend, Grandma, we’ve been through this…

Jean glanced at Marco and tried, very hard, to ignore the pressure accumulating at the base of his throat.

“That’s what Armin said too.” Hange blew out their cheeks in mock frustration. “I’d do it, but I have someone I need to go bother—visit? No, it’s definitely bother— for Christmas.”

Jean and Marco exchanged a look before Marco cleared his throat.

“It’s fine,” he said, tearing a strip of tape from the roll on the counter and sealing the parcel shut. “I’ll do it by myself. I don’t mind.”

“No, no, no, don’t be silly. It’s one of our busiest days, you can’t work it alone,” Hange said. They put their hands on their hips. “Can you manage a half day, Jean? Before you have to leave?”

Jean hesitated. His gaze immediately drifted to Marco, who he could see was watching him out of the corner of his eye.

“…Let me think about it.”

“Wonderful!” Hange clapped, their shawl jingling. “Let me know before you leave tonight! Or tomorrow. You know what, I’m here all the time, you let me know whenever you’re ready, it really doesn’t matter when.”

And with a rustle of tinsel and chime of bells, they vanished into the back once more, leaving a shimmery residue on the carpet in their wake.

Jean snuck a glance back at Marco, who was hunched over the computer on his side, printing out the shipping label. There was so little space behind the counter their elbows occasionally knocked into each other, and even though Marco was probably used to brushing up against his coworkers all the time, it still made Jean’s knees quake when Marco shifted past him, when Jean felt his breath warm the back of his neck and he squeezed past; when he placed a hand near the small of Jean’s back to keep him in place as he went by…

“What are you doing for Christmas?” he asked.

“I,” Marco began, frowning at the screen and tapping at the keyboard. The printer began to churn beneath the counter. “am going to be working at the crisis shelter. They always struggle for volunteers this time of year, so I said I’d do Christmas day.”

“And Christmas Eve?”

“Same again.”

Jean watched as Marco bent down to take the shipping label the printer had spat out and stayed quiet as he taped it to the parcel.

“What about your family?” he said.

He had sensed this was—not dangerous ground, precisely, but certainly uncharted territory, the sort you traverse with caution, and a hand on the gun strapped to your waist. And judging by the look Marco gave him, he was right; the way he began to flinch, and then how his brows drew together and his mouth twisted itself into a bemused knot.

“I’m… sure they’re going to enjoy Christmas as usual. At home. With the family.” He dropped the parcel into the bag at the end of the counter with the rest, waiting for collection by courier. When he turned back, he was chewing his lip. “Like every year.”

“And…” Jean wanted to hesitate, but part of him sensed that maybe—just maybe—Marco didn’t want him to. “What about Armin?”

“Armin?” Marco blinked.

“Are you guys not… You know. Going to see each other? Over Christmas?”

“Probably not? Armin’s going back to spend time with his family, like Hange said. Like you.”

Jean swallowed. “And you didn’t go with him?”

Marco stared at him. “Why would I go with him?”

Jean felt his stomach twist as heat rose to his cheeks. “Forget it,” he said, turning back to his computer and clicking through the archiving system aimlessly, pretending to look busy.

A customer came up to the counter and Jean took their book, passed it through the till and stuck it in a bag, not even paying attention as she sifted through the gift cards in her wallet until she was practically pressing one into his hands. He put the transaction through and handed over her purchase and watched her leave. It was late afternoon, not much more than an hour before closing time, and the a frigid mist had descended, blotting out the remain streaks of light as the dark winter night set in. Gold lights twinkled from across the street, strung between lampposts, shimmering icicle decorations streaming down the opposite shops’ windows. There was periodic flurry of footsteps as person would hurry by, hands shoved deep in their pockets, bags jostling about their knees, faces pink over the tops of scarves and beneath hoods, punctuated with a thud, thud, thud.

Marco was drumming his fingers against the counter. His nails were still green, but only just. The colour had flaked off and grown out into little green archipelagos against the pink sea of the nail bed. He had his other hand raised up to his face, where he was pinching his lower lip, and he was staring at the till screen, but Jean could tell he was a thousand miles away.

Jean served another customer and Marco didn’t move.

“Marco,” Jean said, eventually. “Are you…”

“Huh?” Marco snapped out of his reverie when Jean spoke. “What?”

Jean’s fingers curled into fists against the counter. He cursed himself inwardly.

“Are you done packaging everything up?”

Marco snapped to attention. His fingers flew back to the diminishing pile of books at the end of the counter and went back to wrapping them in their paper sleeves before putting them inside a parcel, as he had before Hange had come down.

“Sorry,” he said, fumbling. “Sorry, I was just…”

“Something on your mind?”

Marco’s lips pressed themselves into a hard line. “Something like that.”

They were quiet for a moment, save for the crackle of the company-embossed tissue paper and the ragged rasp of the tape.

“Eren’ll be back soon,” Marco said, completely unprompted. “Either tomorrow or the day after.”

“Why are you telling me?”

“I…” Marco’s eyes swivelled over to Jean. He shrugged. “Just in case you wanted to know. That’s all. Armin… um. Armin made it sound like you might.”

“Armin?” Jean scoffed. “Armin doesn’t know what he’s on about. Which you can’t say about many things.”

Marco managed a weak grin. He typed something into the computer and the printer began to rumble again. “I haven’t spoken to Eren since uni. I think we did a project together at one point? He introduced me and Armin, actually.”

“Oh, really.” Jean couldn’t stop a shred of resentment creeping into his tone. The bottom of his stomach felt leaden, like stone. “And that worked out well.”

“That’s one word for it.” Marco made the smallest of grimaces as he taped the label to the second parcel and threw it in the courier bag after its predecessor. “But yeah, I hope I get the chance to see Eren whilst he’s back. I’d like to catch up.”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Jean raised an eyebrow. “You’re in the same apartment, aren’t you?”

Marco’s face visibly coloured and Jean immediately knew he’d been presumptuous.

“Um,” Marco stammered. “No, actually. Not… not while Armin’s away. Probably not whilst Eren’s there.” He cleared his throat.

Jean frowned. “Hang on,” he said, “Armin’s going away for Christmas—Eren’s coming back, and you’re… Where are you staying?”

Marco was chewing on his lip again, his whole freckled face flushed. “I told you,” he said in a small voice. Then he straightened up and tipped his chin up, as if it would help drain the blood from his fiercely rouged cheeks. “I’m going to… I’m… I’m going to go find something. In the back.”

Jean opened his mouth to reply, but before he had chance to the door to back had already swung shut in his face. He pressed his hands to his face—also hot with shame, he discovered—and let out a low groan, at himself, at his own complete lack of tact.

Marco didn’t emerge until ten minutes before they closed, in which time Jean had finished the customer orders he had left and was no longer in the mood to talk, which was just as well, because Marco didn’t seem to be either.

He watched Marco gather up his things in the staffroom—a backpack, stuffed to its absolute limit with an extra jacket looped through the straps as well a duffel bag he slung over the top. He told Marco to leave, made some excuse about having to mention something to Hange about a sale he’d messed up, and waited until Marco had gone until he headed down the short hall and stuck his head into the cash office. Hange looked up from an open binder that was part shop-related paperwork, part-personal project. Their face cracked into a smile.

“Had a think?” they asked.

“I’ll do it,” Jean said. “The full day.”

…

“Jean? Hello? It’s mum. Jean… Jean. Jean. Jean, pick up the phone. I know you’re there! Jean! Oh for goodness sake… He won’t answer, love, what should I say? Jean! Jean, please, talk to me, sweetheart. What do you mean you’re not coming home for Christmas? Is something wrong? Has someone…? Jean, you know Grandma didn’t mean what she said over Easter—come on, it’s Christmas, we want to see you. We all want to see you. You can’t not turn up now, not now that we’ve bought everything and—oh, Jean, please, please, talk to me.”

…

“Still playing games, all right then, fine, don’t come home. We’ll have Christmas without you. What on earth are you playing at? Just… just pick up the phone and talk to us. You’re making this unnecessarily difficult.”

…

“Jean. I know you’re there. I can see you reading my messages.”

…

“All right son… You’ve driving your mum round the bend, but don’t worry, she’ll calm down. You couldn’t just phone her could you, eh? Just to put her mind at ease, that’s all I’m asking. You don’t have to come home for Christmas if you don’t want to. That’s fine. You can come see us in the new year, or we’ll come see you. If you want, of course. But you know how she worries. Give us a ring, won’t you? Talk soon.”

…

“Jean. I… Hm. Jean. This isn’t about… ego, or something stupid, is it? You know we love you, son. No matter what. And if you need help, that’s what we’re here for. You don’t have to play around, shutting yourself away like this. You’re a smart kid—sorry, sorry, not a kid anymore. We know times are rough, they’re rough for everyone at the moment, but… I know you’ll talk to us when you’re ready. So you take care of yourself, all right? Keep working hard, keep yourself out of trouble. And you get back to us when you’re ready. Merry Christmas.”

…

His father’s voice cut out. Jean lowered his phone from his ear and stared at the ceiling.

He didn’t understand why he couldn’t just… do it.

He stared at the phone in his hand. The dial icon was right there. It would take two seconds, less than a minute to call and simply say something along the lines of I’ve made other plans or I’m fine, I’m just busy. But he didn’t because…

Because…

He swung his feet out of bed and got dressed, gathered up his things, and headed out the door for the last day.

He was the first one there. Hange wasn’t in—he checked the cash office when he went to fetch the tills, but true to their word, they had gone to visit—bother—whoever it was they had promised to. The cash office was strangely empty, save for the circular stack of books and papers and folders with a Hange-shaped crater in the middle—but Jean was surprised to find they had left three gift bags on the table in the staffroom, one for Jean, one for Marco, and one for Armin, whenever he’d be back. Jean stuck a finger inside his to see a single, book-shaped parcel wrapped in brown paper, and a few odd shapes, mystery items, rattling around in the bottom.

He was just unlocking the front doors to let in the swarm of last-minute shoppers already accumulating on the pavement outside when Marco arrived.

“Oh,” he said, blinking at Jean, key in hand. “You beat me.”

Marco’s eyes were ringed with pale lilac shadows and his clothes were distinctly rumpled, something he was keenly aware of, judging by how he was constantly fiddling with them, smoothing down his jumper and tugging at his collar. Nonetheless, he gave Jean an earnest, albeit weary, smile.

“Ready for the busiest day of the year?” he joked.

It wasn’t a joke. Jean thought he knew chaos working at the café on a busy morning, when there were hot liquids and bacon sandwiches flying about overhead and harassed-looking office workers bellowing they were running late for their train and always someone upset about the wrong sort of sauce and demanding a refund there wasn’t time to give—but this was chaos.

There were men shambling up to the counter, asking for women’s books, whatever they are, who stared blank-eyed and shrugged whenever Jean tried to suggest something; there were pensioners bringing hardbacks up to him and pointing accusingly at the price sticker to inform him that this was half the price in the supermarket last week; there were mothers dropping their children off in the kid’s section that had to be chased after as they headed for the doors to be informed that this, in fact, wasn’t a crèche, only to get screamed at and bemoaned with well, where ELSE am I meant to leave them?; there were toddlers having meltdowns because they didn’t understand Santa was coming tomorrow; there were people asking after books they had seen just last week, you know, that hadn’t been in store since the advent of smart phones; there were incredulous customers horrified that they couldn’t get next day delivery; there were people apparently oblivious to what day it was whilst trying to maintain a full-on discussion about how their sister’s friend’s husband’s mother had self-published a book whilst a seething queue built up behind them; there were people gazing in slack-jawed horror at the shelves, screeching you’ve sold out! When Jean dared to ask if he could help them; there were parents purchasing entire shelves worth of books as stocking fillers; there were stressed customers who simply deflated at the counter when they were informed their order hadn’t arrived in time; there were fellow, harassed-looking retail workers from the surrounding shops coming in with fistfuls of notes, and begging for change; there were three attempted shoplifters that Jean caught, and six for Marco; there was almost a physical fight over the last copy of Murder on the Orient Express; there were requests for this book, that book, what do you mean you don’t have those books, where can I get that novel, where else could I find this recipe book, do you have the box set, do you have them separately, do you sell CDs, do you sell DVDs, do you have a bathroom, how are the books organised, how do I get to the bus station, what time do you close, when does your sale start, when will you be open again, can I return this, can my mother return this, is this suitable for my niece, will my nephew choke on this, can I have a bag, can I have a bigger bag, will you carry these out to the car for me, can you post these to my home, can I borrow this, do you have a different cover, is this in paperback yet, do you have this in hardback, what’s the lowest price, is this cheaper because I bought two, is this everything you have?

“YOU’VE RUINED CHRISTMAS!” A customer bellowed, leaning so far over the counter Jean felt spittle fleck his face before they tossed their head and waltzed out of the store, voice full of contempt as they yelled over their shoulder, “I hope you’re happy!”

“Charming,” Marco remarked as Jean mopped his face with his sleeve and suppressed a shudder.

“Didn’t realise I was so good at it,” Jean said, dryly. “That’s the second time I’ve heard that today.”

“Second? I’m on my fifth, you lucky thing.”

By the time mid-afternoon came around, the festive pandemonium seemed to have finally come to an end as the sun began to sink and took every semblance of warmth with it, driving the stragglers home to shed their coats and scarves and gloves and curl up in front of the fire. Marco heaved the door shut pressed his back to it.

“And that,” he said, turning the key in the lock behind him, “was all she wrote.”

Jean laughed as Marco pantomimed exhaustion, but he could see it wasn’t all an act. Jean was tired, a deep, heavy, tired; the sort of tired he could feel in his bones and in the ache of his eyes; but Marco—Marco was heavy with it. There was a place beyond tired, past exhaustion, even further than fatigue, and it was the sort of debilitating weariness that clamped itself to your limbs, constricted your throat, took up residence in your lungs and your head and your poor, tired, heart.

Jean could see that now.

“Thank God it’s over with,” Jean said as they went upstairs, cashed up for the night, and collected their things and Hange’s gifts from the staffroom.

“Yeah,” Marco agreed, although he didn’t sound all that encouraging.

They made their way through the devastation at the front of the shop; past the gap-toothed shelves, the tiles muddy with countless footprints around the door, the sorry state the tables were in, the displays picked clean.

“When are you next in?” Marco asked as they put out the lights, set the alarm and locked the door behind them.

“I… Don’t actually know,” Jean said. Hange hadn’t said anything about his coming back post-Christmas. “Depends if you lot want me back, I guess,”

“Of course we do,” Marco said, automatically, and then his cheeks went pink. Or maybe that was because of the cold. Marco shook his head. “Anyway. I’ll… see you around, hopefully. Have a good Christmas.”

Jean raised his eyebrows and didn’t move.

Marco shuffled on the spot, cheeks darkening, visible even in the dark. “What?”

“You can come back with me, if you want.”

Marco blinked twice, rapidly, as if he wasn’t sure what he heard. “I beg your pardon?”

Jean stuffed his hands into his pockets and brought his shoulders up, allowing his gaze to drift. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t have a place to stay right now, do you?”

Marco opened his mouth but no sound came out. His jaw just worked silently until he pressed his lips together and swallowed.

“I’m not—I’m not trying to embarrass you,” Jean added, “or anything like that, I swear. I just… I like you, man. I hate the idea of you having nowhere to go.”

Marco shook his head. “Jean I—that’s very kind of you, but honestly, I’m fine. I’ll be OK.”

“You have somewhere to stay?”

He nodded.

“The crisis centre?”

Marco hesitated and Jean knew he’d guessed right.

“Jesus, Marco.” He passed a hand over his face. “Have you paid?”

“No I— um, because I volunteer, I’m not a resident. But one of the organisers know how… um, how things are at the moment. For me. So he’s been letting me sleep on the couch for a little. Just until I figure something out.”

Marco’s face was practically glowing in the dark, and his voice got quieter and quieter until it was scarcely a mumble. His broad shoulders hunched forwards, making him look tiny beneath the bulk of the backpack that carried all the possessions he needed to survive going to and from work.

Jean swore. “That’s almost worse.”

“It’s not. It’s not bad at all, honestly. It’s warm and safe and—”

“Please just… just come home with me.” Jean took a step forward. “Please, Marco, let me do something for someone who isn’t me for once in my life for a goddamn change.”

“I…” Marco was still hesitating. He glanced over his shoulder. His dark eyes caught the gold shimmer of the twinkling lights around them, sparkling like stars caught in the pitch dark void of an ocean by night. He bit his lip. Eventually, his shoulders sagged. Either Jean had made a more compelling argument than he realised or Marco just didn’t have the fight in him to disagree. “All right,” he agreed. “And… Thank you.”

…

“Don’t get too excited,” Jean warned, as he unlocked the front door and led Marco up the flight of stairs to the door to his flat. “It really isn’t much.”

The lease called it a one bedroom flat, but it wasn’t that far being deemed a studio. There was a single wall between the bedroom and the combined kitchen and living space (which took about four not particularly long strides to cross) that could easily be knocked down by a stiff breeze. There was no door in the frame, nor any evidence of there ever having been one, and the bathroom, with its coffin-sized shower and narrow sink, truly was little more than a glorified cupboard.

All the same, Marco treated it with the reverence of a temple. He slipped his shoes off the moment he got in the door even though Jean didn’t bother. He kept blinking, rapidly, taking everything in, like he was expecting to wake up, and for Jean’s measly little flat and its shabby contents to fall out of reality.

“You really didn’t have to do this,” he said.

Jean shrugged as he switched on the heating and the overhead lights, hoping to breathe some warmth into the place. “I wanted to,” he muttered, catching Marco’s eye and hastily averting his own as he shed his jacket and dumped it on the kitchen counter. Marco laid his things down carefully next to the door, folding his coat and tucking all the straps and baggage out of sight.

Jean was alight with questions but he didn’t know where to begin, much less how to ask without coming across as too forward, or dredging up something painful Marco would rather forget. How someone like him— smart and sweet and intelligent—could end up having nowhere to go for the holidays, much less spending it sleeping in the office of a crisis shelter.

“You do have a bookcase,” Marco said, pulling Jean out of his thoughts. He crossed the room to the unit that had come with the flat when Jean moved in, propped up against the adjacent wall, crouching down to get a closer look.

“Not much to fill it with,” Jean said, trying to sound at least semi-humorous, but his tone rolled away from him and came out flat.

There were half a dozen textbooks left over from his uni days lined up on the bottom shelf, tattered covers and curling pages still earmarked with faded page tabs. Inkheart stood at the end of them, as well as the second book Marco had recommended to him, Release.

“Oh. I didn’t realise you’d bought it.” Marco glanced up. “Have you read it yet?”

“Not yet,” Jean admitted. “I’ve been… You know. Life.”

“Yeah.” Marco turned back to the shelf. “Life.”

Jean came out from behind the kitchen counter, holding a mug. “Here,” he held it out. “Tea, right?”

“Oh! Thank you.” Marco’s fingers curled around the cup, his frigid fingers brushing against Jean’s for just a split second. Jean took a step back and sat down on the couch, furtively rubbing his thumb and forefinger together, out of sight.

“I take it you don’t have a bookcase of your own, then,” he said, attempting to be more tactful this time.

Marco was quiet for a moment before he spoke, “I have one at home.”

“Home?”

“My parent’s house.”

“Right.” Jean nodded, hoping he looked understanding, or at least some semblance of it.

“Well. I did. Not sure if it’s still there. I haven’t been back for… A while, now.”

“Me neither,” Jean said.

Marco took a sip from the mug, steam curling from his breath. “Didn’t you say you were going back for Christmas? Oh.” Comprehension dawned on his face as he went to put the mug down. “Oh, Jean you didn’t—? Not on my behalf—”

“Ah, ah, ah, hey, hey, hey, hey. Don’t assume anything, all right? I wasn’t looking forward to Christmas back home anyway.” He brought one leg up onto the sofa and laced his fingers around his knee. “I take it you weren’t either, given… you know. Circumstances.”

Marco gave a conceding sort of half-shrug, twitching his shoulders. “You could say that.”

“I…” Jean’s voice rang out into his flat. He’d never noticed the echo in here before, the same sort he’d expected to hear in the storeroom the other day, his words hanging in the air a little longer than he wanted them to. He’d never spoken to anyone in here long enough to ever notice before. He hadn’t had visitors since he’d moved in. He licked his lips, “I don’t think I’ve ever said it out loud, but going back home… to all the people who’ve known me my whole life, who are watching everything I do—somehow, I don’t know it feels like… failure.”

Marco inclined his head towards him, indicating he was listening. Encouraged, Jean went on,

“I don’t even know why. It’s just for a couple of days, it’s not like I’m moving back in with them but I—I don’t even want them to see me like this, you know?”

“Like what?”

Jean made a broad gesture at the state of the apartment, and the grubby second, third, probably fourth-and-beyond-hand furniture, the view out of the blindless window overlooking a grotty street of terraced houses converted to grim little flats like his.

“Sorry,” he said, realising. “Oh, God, sorry, I didn’t mean it like—”

But Marco was shaking his head. “No, no, it’s OK. I get it. The whole… not ending up where you’re supposed to be. Where you think you should be.” He picked his mug up again from the floor, looping his fingers around the rim and staring into its murky contents. “When you put it like that, I think that summarises my situation quite well, actually.”

Jean waited for a moment or two to see if he would continue. He didn’t, not right away, not until Jean prompted him with, “What… happened?”

“Good question. I wish I had a better answer.” Marco brought his knees up to his chest. “My last year at uni went… Well. It didn’t, let’s just put it that way. I don’t know how it happened, I just… The new year started and I didn’t have it in me to focus anymore. I couldn’t read, I couldn’t sleep. I went to class and tried to take notes but nothing stuck. I didn’t know where I was heading from one moment to the next, or in life. I was just tired, and angry, I was so angry all the time and I didn’t understand why.” His fingers flexed against the ceramic of the mug. “But I was OK, right? I was still eating and I wasn’t sick and people still wanted to be around me. It was just stress, I told myself, and we were all stressed, weren’t we?”

Jean nodded. He’d had horrific dreams of missed deadlines and overdue papers and failed exams that had persisted even to now, with him almost a year out of further education. “I remember being at graduation after it all and the adrenaline from it all sort of dying all at once,” he said. “and being left there thinking… what now?”

Marco bowed his head. There was a small, sad smile on his lips. “See, I wasn’t there,” he said. “I didn’t graduate.”

“What?”  The word fell out of Jean’s mouth before he could stop it. He covered him mouth and mumbled an apology, before lowering his hand. “You? How?”

“I failed my modules. The whole year. I know, how embarrassing.” Marco was fiddling with a loose thread at them hem of his jeans. “To go from a straight-A student to one who barely remembers how to study anymore.”

“What were you planning to do? When you left?”

“Not work in a bookshop, surprisingly. I was looking at law or maybe even going for a doctorate in psychology—I hadn’t decided. And in the end it didn’t matter. Anywhere I’d have to go to pursue either one of them wouldn’t take someone who didn’t have a degree. Which,” he put his mug back onto the floor with a soft thunk, “I do not have.”

“I—wow. I didn’t know.” Jean leaned back against the sofa. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’ve got no one to blame but myself.”

“Surely you get something—I mean, you studied for three years—”

“A certificate of higher education. But that just proves I went to university and wasn’t successful. I don’t think it’ll get me far.”

“Can’t you just take the year again?”

“I could, but I don’t know whether you noticed, Jean, but I don’t exactly have the funds for it right now. I can’t take out another student loan, not when I haven’t even started paying my first one back yet.”

“What about your parents?”

“What about them?”

“Couldn’t they…? I don’t know, help?”

“Ah.” Marco grimaced. “That’s the thing. They… they don’t actually know I’m still here.”

“Sorry?”

Marco cringed and covered his face with his hands. “I know, I know, it was stupid, but I was so embarrassed when I failed, I couldn’t bring myself to tell them so I—I told them I skipped graduation to go for an interview at a solicitors for a year-long scholarship course. They think I’m on the other side of the country, learning how to… sell houses and manage divorces and… gah, whatever else solicitors do. See? I’m such a bad liar I’ve never even figured out the details.”

“And they believed you?”

Marco emerged from behind his hands, freckled and flustered. “I never lied to them before. They have no reason to believe why I’d start now.”

Jean rubbed at his temple. “Holy shit. You don’t do things in halves, do you?”

“Guess not.” Marco managed to muster a smile. “I didn’t want my world to just fall apart, I wanted it to really go to pieces. Anyway. That’s how I ended up sleeping on Armin’s couch for a year.”

Jean nearly choked. “A year?” he spluttered. “Jesus Christ, when was the last time you slept in a bed? You can have mine tonight. And no,” he interrupted Marco before he had the chance to protest, “that is not a suggestion.”

“Thank you,” Marco mumbled into his knees.

“Hang on, where does Armin fit into all of this? He knew? This whole time?”

“More or less.” Marco shrugged again. “After Eren moved out he said there was space for me to move in, if I wanted to, just while I figured things out. Eren had already paid for rent, so as long as I contributed to bills and food he was happy to let me stay, and then… Yeah, a year had suddenly gone by.”

“If Eren wasn’t there, why didn’t you just have his room? Instead of sleeping on the couch?”

“Because that’s weird, isn’t it? Sleeping in someone else’s bed without their permission? I didn’t want to ask. I wasn’t planning on staying as long as I ended up doing.”

It suddenly began to dawn on Jean. “So you and Armin aren’t…?”

“Aren’t what?”

“Never mind.”

“He’s there now, by the way.”

“What’s that?”

“Eren. He’s back at his flat now. You know, just in case—”

“Marco,” Jean interrupted. “I’m not sure where you got it from, but you seem be under the impression that Eren and I are friends.”

“You’re not?”

“I can’t think of a single person I detest more than Eren fucking Jaeger. If I had to choose to either go see Eren right now or skewer my own eyeball I would ask you to pass me a fork.”

“Eren isn’t that bad,” Marco said, but he was smiling, properly, not one of those sheepish, withdrawn smiles; it was a smile that spread across his face and made the dimple appear at the corner of his mouth, made his beautiful dark eyes mellow and bright all at once. He looked up and when he spoke again his tone was much brighter, “So, what did Hange get you?”

Jean reached behind him picked the gift bag off the kitchen table behind him. “No idea. Let’s find out.”

Marco went and fetched his and together they opened the parcels inside. They both had small tubs of sweets and chocolate, a can of something alcoholic, and a jar containing something that Marco guessed was jam or chutney, but Jean thought, knowing Hange, could just as well be a wet specimen.

Marco opened his book first. He peeled away the paper to reveal a colourful cover, red and yellow and blue intermingling into greenish smears of paint around the title printed bold, front and centre. Marco’s mouth widened into a grin. “The Idiot,” he said, sound thoroughly delighted. “I’ve been meaning to get this for ages.”

“Are they insulting you?”

“Shhh, don’t be rude. What did you get?”

Jean tore off the paper and held up a slim, sky-blue book. Marco’s eyebrows shot up his forehead.

“Call Me By Your Name,” he said, definitely biting back a grin. “You’ll have to tell me what you think about it when you’re done.”

“You’ve read this one?”

“I’ve done nothing but read this past year.” It started out sounding cheerful, but by the end of his sentence, Marco quickly sounded sombre again. “God, I used to read everything. Scientific journals. Studies. Books about science and sociology and politics and now… When I could bring myself to start reading again, all I could manage to read was fiction.”

“Why?”

Marco shrugged, helplessly.

He looked so small and forlorn, tucked up on Jean’s floor as he was. Frail, as if the stiff breeze it would take to knock down Jean’s bedroom wall could take him out too. Jean wanted to take hold of his hand—of him—to count his knuckles, to acquaint himself with the rigid bones in his hand. To feel his arms entwined around his—to hold his face, to cup those beautiful, freckled cheeks, and tell him his head was full of brilliant stars that Jean could spend a lifetime shooting for and always miss.

“Marco, I—”

Marco looked at him.

“—I’m gonna. Go. Change the bed.” Jean jerked his thumb over his shoulder, unfurling himself from the couch. “There’s food in the fridge—” he hoped— “feel free to help yourself.”  

“Oh, right. Thank you.”

Jean turned around and went into his room, conscious of the open doorway that meant Marco could see every move he made. He stripped the bed and kicked the sheets into a bundle in the corner of the room, trying to ignore the small part of himself that kept demanding an answer as to why he was doing all this. To prove he wasn’t selfish, after all? That he didn’t intend to live the rest of his life steeped in selfism, whatever that meant? To make a change not just to his life, but to Marco’s, to start to carve out something different from what he’d intended, to…

“Jean?”

Jean jumped, and whipped around to see Marco hovering in the open door way, his arms crossed over his chest and his shoulders curling in on themselves once again. He hadn’t heard him approach.

“I- I just wanted to say, I really appreciate you doing all this for me.” Marco made a vague gesture behind him. “It’s too kind, really, and I know you don’t necessarily have it much easier but—”

But he was standing there, he was standing there, by God he was standing there, and Jean was past the point of caring. Nothing had turned out as either of them had planned, so why bother sticking to one now?

He dropped the bed sheet, went straight up to Marco, and kissed him.

Marco recoiled so quickly and viciously Jean initially thought he was about to push him off—but then his wrists were in Marco’s hands and his tongue in the pink velvet of Marco’s mouth, and his breath was hot and ragged against his own. His chest pulsed with life, vigour pounding through the cords of his neck, his skin flushed beneath Jean’s fingers. He didn’t smell of anyone at all but himself; part print-and-ink, part dust, and part something that was entirely his own.

Jean withdrew, breathless, his chest heaving, meeting Marco’s partially shocked, partially wistful gaze.

“Merry Christmas,” he said, before they collided once again.

…

The bed was empty when Jean woke on Christmas morning He rolled over, fingers outstretched, seeking some semblance of warmth only to find nothing but an expanse of empty sheets.

Disappointment roiled within his gut as he slowly shifted himself upright, rubbing the corner of his eyes. His chest was marked with purple blemishes the shape of Marco’s mouth. He ran his fingers around each one, closing his eyes and savouring the memory of his hands and mouth and taste.

Jean could still feel him in between his teeth.

He tried calling his name, but there was no response. The flat was empty.

Jean clambered out of bed and went over to the doorway, toes curling against the freezing floorboards, just to make sure.

Marco’s things were gone.

His ribs constricted around something in his chest in an attempt to keep it from withering. He was gone, and Jean hadn’t even been awake to see him leave. Maybe that was it. That was all Marco had needed, just one night, and that was it.

But then he saw it.

One last book-shaped parcel, left, very deliberately on the kitchen table.

Jean pulled the paper away, cracked the spine, and began to read.