Work Text:
“Have you seen anything? You know… from him?”
“Yes, a couple things.”
“Like what?”
“Nothing really, at least not anything important. Please don’t worry yourself about it.”
852, Paradis Island
It didn’t matter how bright the stars were, how full the moon was, or even how quiet the ocean lapped against the shore in an irregularly languid rhythm. Even with the cool and briny breeze licking at his face, ruffling his hair, Armin thought none of these things mattered right now.
None of it mattered, so long as his eyes were open and his thoughts were racing at a million miles a minute.
Armin was tired. He was so very tired.
Over the past five days he hadn’t slept more than eight hours, and even that meager bit was only spread into small hour-long increments whenever his body betrayed him and gave out on its own. It happened a few times after eating dinner, then once in a meeting, and another few times when sitting straight up in a chair around the campfire. But, perhaps most embarrassingly, was once when he had fallen asleep on the toilet in the outhouse. Luckily, no one had come looking for him when that happened.
Armin wasn’t so oblivious to the fact of how angry his body was with him – muscles cramping and eyelids fluttering while he sat there – begging him to just lay down in a bed and close his eyes, even if just for a little while. But he refused, not when each time he submitted to the darkness he had hazy visions that came in red and nightmares that brought him guilt waiting for him. He didn’t want to hear the voices in his head that weren’t his.
The sun would be rising in a few hours anyway, so really, it didn’t matter. No, he wouldn’t be able to sleep anytime soon.
Instead, he resigned to sitting out here, up high on the seaside cliff overlooking the port. He must have been there for hours, into the earliest part of the morning, sun not even hitting the horizon yet, sky still cast dark and starry. It was a while before he heard footsteps coming behind him, crackling on the loose pebbles and dry grass.
“Ah,” a voice said, brusque and unintentionally harsh in that oddly comforting way. “I knew I’d find you here.”
Armin didn’t even have to hear his voice to know who it was that had seeked him out at this hour, climbing up the hill to meet him here. Years ago, he had memorized the pattern of his steps, surprisingly nimble and quiet for such a tall boy with the loudest voice and the longest limbs. Behind him, the presence was overbearing, but Armin didn’t make a move to acknowledge it just yet.
“You know it’s not safe out here, right?” Jean said, quieter now, much more so than how he usually spoke, probably due to the time of night. Or maybe he was just worried he would spook Armin like a cornered cat. “What if they had sent a boat when you were here all alone?”
Armin didn’t want to answer what he would do in that situation. He wondered why Jean had even asked.
“Let me walk you back to camp,” he said when it was evident that Armin had nothing to say to him. He didn’t move, just stayed there and kept staring out at the water. It was so dark at night, looking like an endless black mass that, if he didn’t know otherwise, could have stretched across the earth forever, never ceasing. But Armin knew better, he knew far too well that that wasn’t the case.
Jean spoke again when Armin made no move to get up. “Armin, come on.” He sounded helpless. “The Captain’ll be pissed if he knows you were out here all night alone. Please. You need to get some rest.”
Jean’s voice was always so soft when he spoke to Armin, which wasn’t by any means new, nor was it out of pity or patronization like a lot of other people who talked to him. Well, people other than the ones that just spoke to him with anger or pure disgust. Jean had spoken to him like this ever since they both realized how bad they had it for the other, those couple years ago. Even before then he had been quite careful with him, soft for Armin in a way he wasn’t with others.
For a fleeting moment, Armin tried to remember the last time it was that he let Jean hold him, or even kiss him. It must have been a while for him to forget like this, but, for some odd reason, Jean still stayed.
Armin heard him sigh, not frustrated exactly, but certainly a bit discouraged.
“Look, I’m not going to force you to go to sleep or anything,” he reasoned. “Not like I can, anyway. I just don’t like the idea of you out here all alone on a goddamn cliff with the wind blowing like this. So please, so I can get some sleep, come back to camp.”
Armin thought about how shitty it felt to be running on no sleep. It wouldn’t be right if Jean had to feel like that too. No, that wouldn’t be fair.
His body ached when he stood, backside sore from the hard ground and limbs heavy with drowsiness. He didn’t bother to look at Jean, passing right by him with his head bowed. It was only a moment before he could hear Jean fall into step behind him.
A word didn’t pass between them the whole way back, only the sound of their boots crunching on the sandy ground as they walked, and some summer crickets chirping in the grass.
Armin felt uneasy, the way he often did these days, and found himself tempted to ask Jean to stay the night with him in his tent, like old times, but he knew he would never ask. He couldn’t burden Jean more than he already had.
The sun had just started to peek over the horizon when they got back, but it was still dark enough that Armin knew no one would be up for another couple hours, save for the Captain and Commander Hange.
It was that hazy time that could still be considered night but was technically in the wee hours of the morning, the time when the sky went so quickly from dark to light, almost in the blink of an eye, like night had never even come.
Any normal person would take advantage of this time, squeeze in a bit more shuteye before another busy day of drills, mapping, and planning. Though, Armin wasn’t quite sure how much of a normal person he was anymore, so as quickly as that thought came, it was gone. Jean on the other hand…
Jean stopped when they were back at the tents, Armin keeping his own stride steady, but a gentle hand grasping his wrist stopped him. When Armin turned, still not meeting Jean’s eye, he let go.
“Uh, goodnight,” Jean said quietly, a little sheepish. It was a silly thing to say, Armin thought, considering he’d see him in just a few hours once morning broke.
“‘Night Jean.” His voice sounded foreign to him and it made Armin want to scream, rip his own vocal chords from his throat so that he never had to hear that sound again. He turned to head back towards his sleeping quarters.
“Armin,” Jean called out, soft into the still air, not as breezy as down by the water. It was quite jarring, actually.
Armin stopped in his tracks, squeezing his eyes shut and wishing that Jean would just leave him alone right now, not make this any harder than it already was. Still, he turned, let his eyes track up Jean’s form and rest on his cheek rather than meet his eyes.
Jean’s hair was getting long, sweeping across his forehead and just barely grazing his ears. He looked a little goofy, but cute, nonetheless. To Armin, he always looked cute. At least he had quit it for the time being with the patchy bits of hair that he tried to grow on his face every now and again, always sure that a full beard would come in.
He was getting more and more handsome by the day, filling out his awkward features. It seemed the day he turned sixteen his jaw had started to harden and his whole body stretched itself out, pushing him over the cusp of six feet. Armin remembered when he started to tower over him, even more so than when they were just cadets, and how his own height had barely even changed.
Now, at the age of seventeen, Jean was becoming a man, everchanging and fast-growing, no longer the boy Armin once knew, the one he first fell in love with.
For a moment, Armin wondered what he looked like to Jean, if anything about himself had visibly changed. He avoided mirrors these days, though he had never really been one for taking long looks at himself anyway.
In another time he would have asked, waited with bated breath as Jean brushed a lock of hair from his face and tucked it behind his ear so he could get a better look, smiling as he told him how handsome he was.
That was another time though, a more self-indulgent one, and now, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to know what he looked like to outsiders, especially not to Jean.
“What is it?” Armin asked, voice thin.
Jean scratched the back of his neck, casting his gaze down to the ground. “I um… I wanted to make sure you knew you could talk to me. About anything, I mean. Whenever you’d like. I can even sit with you at night if you’re having trouble sleeping.” He hesitated, laughed a little awkwardly. “Just not down at the port, of course.”
Armin was silent, listening to Jean ramble. He was unable to think of anything to say that might satiate whatever guilt Jean was feeling that just now made him speak up. Had he heard Mikasa and Eren talking about Armin’s frequent nightmares? The ones that caused him to wake up – when he did manage to sleep – shouting and crying out for help? Or maybe it was the fact that Armin was heading to the south side of the island later in the week with the Captain and the Commander to run tests on his titan. Whatever it was, Armin knew it was guilt, easily identifiable as the feeling that consumed him quite often as well.
“Just…” Jean sighed. “Promise me you’ll remember that I’m here, okay? Nothing has changed, Armin,” his voice got even softer, “not about the way I feel for you. If you need anything, you… you come find me, alright? Promise me?”
He sounded near desperate, begging Armin for just a crumb of reassurance, for an inkling that what once was still lingered there, somewhere below the surface, a time in which they could lean on each other for comfort and support. Now, Armin wasn’t so sure if he was capable.
Still, he figured it would only be fair to lie, to humor Jean. It surely wouldn’t be the first time he’d done so.
“Alright,” he said, still not meeting his eyes. “I promise.”
Jean gave him an uneasy smile and nodded. “Good,” he said, more to himself than to Armin. “Good.”
Eren laid asleep on his cot at one side of the tent, just a couple feet away from Armin’s own.
His friend was snoring quietly, dark hair fanned across his pillow. Armin could only bear to look at him for a few seconds before that odd uneasiness he got around him presented itself, just as it often did as of late. In fact, Eren’s presence only made it harder for Armin to consider sleep, instead just filling his head with more thoughts about things he wished he had the gall to say, and conversations he was too unsure to have.
At least Eren looked a little peaceful right now, sleeping, and Armin hoped his dreams were just as peaceful as he looked.
He was tempted to slip out of the tent again, head back down to the cliff where the air was clear and the sky was endless, but Armin had to settle for the cot. On a night like tonight, he knew that Jean wouldn’t be sleeping all that heavy and would surely follow him again or stop him before he could even get away from camp.
Armin would do this for him – stay the night in his tent and pretend he was trying to sleep. He only wished that he could actually get some rest, humor himself rather than the others, shut his eyes for a moment and just forget.
“Armin!” The Commander’s voice was loud behind him, shrill and demanding as he stormed through camp, vision going red at the edges. “Armin!”
He ignored them and all the other voices too, asking what was wrong and where he was going, telling him to wait and to come back, to talk about what had happened and why they were back two days before they were due. He caught a quick glance of Connie and seethed at the realization that news would spread quick and fast through camp, back to the one he so desperately wanted to spare from this all.
In his tent he was tempted to throw something, to rip the high, canvas walls down, scream, cry, anything. He’d rather anything than this hot numbness consuming him from the inside out, a curse that plagued him in the deepest parts of himself, the ones that had before been subconscious.
He sat at the edge of his cot, elbows on his knees and hands in his hair, wishing he could rip out whatever it was inside of him that nagged him so.
Not much later, he could hear Jean shouting, probably at Eren, asking what was wrong and about what had happened out at the experiment site. He couldn’t hear Eren’s words, just his muffled voice talking back in that oddly level way he had about himself recently, never really having it in him to fight back with Jean anymore. Something that had once been so annoying was now just the inkling of a fond memory, bittersweet in its nature.
“Don’t you care?” he heard Jean demand. “Doesn’t it matter to you if he’s alright? He’s still new at this and…”
Armin let the words fade out of his consciousness, trembling and stomach twisting like he was going to be sick. He probably would have been if he had eaten any of his breakfast that morning, or his dinner last night.
The tent flap opened and Eren came inside, barely sparing even a glance at Armin. They didn’t speak much these days, or even really look at each other for that matter, at least not in the way they used to.
“Jean’s upset,” he muttered, as if Armin couldn’t hear from in here. He bent down and started shuffling through his things at the corner of the tent. “You should talk to him.”
Armin couldn’t help but shoot an irritated look Eren’s way. Talk, he thought bitterly. What in the hell do you know about talking?
It was dark when Armin finally came out of his tent a couple hours later, having skipped out on tonight’s dinner as well. He had spent his evening writing in his journal, documenting the tests and only getting more frustrated with himself when he had to recount them.
“Armin,” Jean’s voice came from nearby, somewhere in the dark, and his hand found Armin’s shoulder before he was even able to turn and acknowledge him. How long had he been waiting out here? Did he skip dinner too?
Armin stood stiff, gritting his teeth.
“Armin, are you alright?” he began to question, exactly in the way Armin knew he would. “What happened out there? Connie said he heard you weren’t able to transform, is that true? You can talk to me if-”
Armin felt like his head spinning, brain rattling around in his skull, and he was desperate for some sort of relief.
He flicked Jean’s hand off of him, ignoring the startled way Jean started to stutter about something else. “Go find something better to do than worrying about me all the goddamn time,” he hissed through his teeth, stalking off and only hoping that Jean wouldn’t try and follow him.
He didn’t want to imagine the look that must have been on Jean’s face, but it was quite hard not to.
The Captain’s quarters was at the far end of camp, the small cabin that had been erected when the port was built, near to the Commander’s as well.
Armin stood at the door, one hand behind his back, at ease, and the other hovering in wait of a knock. He shut his eyes, letting out a deep breath through pursed lips.
Levi wasn’t actually as intimidating as he seemed, Armin had realized over the past couple of years, just a soft man under the dry comments and deadpan expression. Still, Armin feared disappointing him more than almost anything else, and the experiments had been only that – a sheer disappointment.
So he knocked, ready to bleed his heart out and apologize, promise he would do better next time, hoping that he’d accept and that they could start planning their next trip out to run more experiments. Maybe it was the Commander he should have been apologizing to, but something told him Hange would be much easier to get back in the good graces of. He’d be sure to talk to them in the morning.
Armin frowned when there was no response, thinking it impossible for the Captain to already be asleep. If there was one thing Armin knew, it was that the man barely ever slept. So, he knocked again.
“Captain?” he called out, quietly, but loud enough so that he could be heard through the wooden door. “Captain? Are you in there?”
Still no response. Armin sighed, resignedly, and decided to check any other place he might be.
He found Captain Levi in the mess hall, alone at a table with papers spread out before him, a mug, probably filled with tea, held at the rim with his fingers.
“Captain?” he said softly from where he stood nearby. Levi hadn’t looked up when he came into the room, either not hearing him, which was unlikely, or just choosing to ignore him until he spoke.
“Armin,” he said, not looking up as he turned a paper over. “Was wondering if we’d see any more of you tonight after your little outburst. Commander Hange’s eager to get back out to the testing site. Might want to go talk to them and not me.”
“Sir, I mean Captain, I…” He tucked an annoying lock of hair back behind his ear only for it to slip back and fall across his cheek, just frustrating him more. “I wanted to apologize. For wasting everyone’s time and resources and…”
The Captain finally looked up, just staring at him as he rambled, not giving any indication to how he felt. Armin huffed, running a nervous hand through his hair before quickly standing at ease once more.
“It was unprofessional of me and I should have done better. I’m sorry.”
There was a pause, a beat before anything was said. Armin was sure he was about rip into him for wasting three days at the experiment site with no results, for not trying harder when he had no other excuse, for being useless and –
“Your hair.”
Armin blinked. “What?”
“Your hair, Arlert.” The Captain sighed and shook his head, placing his mug down on the table with a decided thunk. “You need a haircut. Badly.”
Armin frowned and reached up to hold a piece between his thumb and forefinger. “My… My hair?”
“It’s clearly a bother to you and would be a lot easier to manage if you cut it.” He gestured vaguely with his hand. “Something more military standard.”
“Oh… Well, I guess I never thought about it.”
“We can do it now if you’d like.”
“Cut my hair? Right now?” The idea was throwing him off track, completely unrelated to what he had come here for in the first place.
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
Armin thought about it for a moment, about how this was the only hairstyle he’d had his whole life. It was long, but it wasn’t necessarily unruly. He made sure to brush it, and when he forgot, Mikasa always reminded him and even offered to help with particularly difficult tangles.
It was the cut his mother had given him when he was small, when he was just a little boy. He remembered it, actually, how she’d cut the bangs just like hers and smile at him with those kind eyes she had.
“My handsome Armin,” she would tell him, brushing the stray hairs from his shoulders and kissing the top of his head each time she trimmed it. He would smile back at her, wrap his little arms around her and offer a thank you.
He remembered how his father would ruffle it whenever Armin would said something particularly clever, or when he came home from work, asking him how his day had gone, what he learned and what he had gotten up to with his friends.
After his parents died, his grandfather did his best to keep his hair well maintained. Sometimes Carla too, whenever Armin went over to the Yaeger house and she saw that his hair had gotten a bit too long, or that his grandfather had struggled to make it even. His hands were too shaky to do it the way his mother used to.
Cutting his hair now, well, it felt like letting all of that go – forgetting – and for some odd reason, that sounded quite appealing.
“Okay.”
“Hm?” Levi said, looking back over at Armin, almost like he had forgotten he was there.
“My hair. I’ll cut it.”
“Tch,” Levi chided. “Stop squirming around so much.”
“Sorry,” Armin murmured, trying to redirect his fidgeting to his hands that sat idle in his lap.
They had gone back to the Captain’s quarters where his shaving equipment was, and he had sat Armin in a chair and wrapped a cloak around his shoulders.
Levi didn’t give him much more time to prepare, taking his decision to cut it back at the mess hall at face value, no reason to reconsider. Armin was glad for that, in a way, thankful for someone else to take control of his life.
The snip of the scissors and the firmness of Levi’s hand on his head, guiding it so that he could reach where he needed, filled Armin with something so heavy that he felt as if his heart would fall right out of his body. There was no going back now.
He saw the first bit of hair, falling down by his feet.
Oh.
Then there was more, little rivulets of golden hair floating to the ground, a decent pile collecting around him. He immediately felt lighter, as if that hair had been tied to weights hanging on his head. The snipping became more consistent, Levi’s hand sure and steady as he moved his head.
Armin barely noticed when there were tears on his legs, seeping through the beige fabric of his pants. Like his shorn pieces of hair, once there was one, there were many. Then, there were sobs. And, after the first sob ripped through him, just a small hiccup, it was impossible to stop the barrage that followed.
He felt the weight getting even lighter, just the smallest bit, and didn’t even find himself holding back the cries that ripped from his body and made him tremble. When was the last time he let himself cry? Surely, it was quite long ago.
Levi didn’t say a word, just kept cutting, choosing to ignore the tears to spare him the shame. He didn’t scold him again for moving, even as his body was shaking.
After a while he muttered for him to hold still and Armin sniffled, felt the cold of a razor on the back of his head, his neck, close to his skin and letting loose little pieces of fuzz fall down his back, tickle him beneath his shirt.
When Levi stepped in front of him, giving a few final snips to his bangs and examining his work with narrowed eyes, the slightest hint of a smile came onto his lips.
“What?” Armin asked, feeling a bit panicked by his sudden decision, sniffling and reaching up to touch his hair. “Do I look funny?”
Levi let a short breath out of his nose, as close to a laugh as Armin had heard from him in a long while, maybe ever.
“Seems like I only know how to give one haircut,” he said, flicking a few stray pieces of hair off of Armin’s shoulder, removing the cloak and shaking it out. “You look like me.”
“Oh.”
“I’d say that was meant as a compliment, but I guess I’ll allow you to decide that for yourself.”
He watched the Captain grab a broom from the corner of the room and go to work at sweeping up the fallen hair, a bundle of flaxen locks, pale against the dark wood of the floor.
“You’re free to go,” he said, looking back at Armin. “See if you can get Yaeger in here so I can get rid of that mop of his he’s so intent on growing.”
Most everyone had turned in for the night. Armin walked through camp, glad to see that it wasn’t too clogged up with people who would ask him what had gone on earlier in the day.
He felt a bit of guilt for what he said to Jean, figuring that might have been it for them, seeing as it had been quite cruel.
Maybe he’d go down and sit by the water again. Right now, that sounded like a good idea.
Armin looked up at the sky as he walked along the dirt path, leisurely so that he could try and enjoy the coolness of the nighttime air. It was cloudy tonight, not as many stars visible, and the heat that was present earlier in the day seemed to have let up. As he walked he let one of his hands move up to brush at his hair. It was odd, being able to feel the back of his head, the tendons of his neck. He’d have to look in the mirror later or ask Mikasa how it looked. He hoped she would smile at him, a rarity, but nevertheless, something he never took for granted. She’d probably nod her head, maybe push his bangs off of his brow, her approval evident without the need for words.
He wondered what his mother would think, if she would still call him handsome.
Closing his eyes, taking a deep breath, Armin smiled, feeling the slightest bit of peace for the first time in a long time.
What he didn’t expect to see on his way towards the edge of camp was Jean standing right outside, leaning against the bottom of the watch tower, clearly waiting for someone.
“Damnit,” Armin whispered to himself, immediately starting to turn around to go right back to his tent until morning, but he must not have been quiet enough to slip away unnoticed.
“Armin? Is that you?”
He turned back in time to see Jean jogging over to him, and Armin felt suddenly extremely self-conscious as the taller boy let his eyes take in all the change.
“Your hair…”
“I, um, I cut it,” Armin said, stating the obvious fact that Jean had already taken note of. He looked off to the side, wanting to avoid Jean’s eyes as he looked at him a little longer.
“I like it,” he murmured after a beat. Armin braved a glance back at him, seeing that Jean’s cheeks had flushed pink, visible even in the lowlight of the moon. Armin lifted a hand to nervously smooth down the hair at the crown of his head.
“It’s a bit short,” he noted, not having much more than that to say. “The Captain says it looks like his.”
Jean chuckled at that and Armin felt himself blush too. “Well, it looks nice.” He paused for a second, face going soft. “You look nice.”
“Thank you.”
They stood there, quiet and awkward, neither of them sure of how to talk to the other. Armin thought maybe he should say he was going to head to his tent, say he needed to get some shuteye, but then remembered Jean caught him here on his way out. Before he could make a decision on what to say or do, Jean broke the silence.
“Can you um… can you tell me about what happened earlier? Was it true what Connie said?”
Armin looked at the ground, shifting awkwardly on his feet. He went to brush some of hair behind his ear but then remembered that it was too short now to do so.
“Only if you want to,” Jean said, a little panicked, holding up his hands in defense. “I don’t mean to press-”
“I couldn’t transform,” he said softly, repeating what Jean had already heard. “Not once in the three days we were there.”
“Why not? It’s not like you haven’t done it before.” The way he said it wasn’t accusatory, just pointing out a blatant fact.
“I’m not sure. My head got all blocked up for some reason.”
“Maybe it’s because you haven’t been sleeping.”
Armin thought about the nightmares, looking down at his feet and scuffing a boot into the dirt. He’d spare Jean all the details about the things he saw, the voices he heard inside his head when everything else was quiet.
“Yea, something like that.”
They fell into a lull again, and Armin realized that even the crickets had quieted down, not as loud as they had been the past couple of weeks. He wondered if it was just as quiet down at the cliff, too.
Armin managed a glance up at Jean, who was still looking at him, but averted his eyes quickly when he looked back up.
It only took Armin a moment before he realized that Jean looked on the verge of crying; his eyes getting glassy and his bottom lip trembling.
“Jean, are you crying?” Armin said dumbly, stating the obvious once more and feeling himself start to panic. “Please, please don’t cry. I’m supposed to be the crybaby, not you, remember?”
Jean huffed a quick laugh and sniffled, pushing his shoulders back in an effort to try and collect himself. “You’re right. I don’t want to cry in front of you, I’m sorry.” He took a shaky breath, buffing the back of his hand across his nose and shaking his head. “I just… I miss you, Armin.” His voice sounded small, incredibly so, and it made Armin’s chest squeeze.
Jean looked like a child, a little kid who had had their feelings crushed and kicked into the dirt. He looked more like he used to than he had in a long time, and when he locked eyes with Armin he found he had to suppress the urge to turn away.
“Will you ever let me just talk to you again?” he asked, brown eyes pleading, burning in hope of an answer better than one Armin would ever be able to give him. “Like the way we’re doing now? Like how we did back then?”
Back then.
Was it fair to string Jean along if he had no real answer? Selfishly, Armin wasn’t ready to let him go, he couldn’t, but he also didn’t know how to vocalize that.
He could see Jean getting more and more insecure with each passing second that he didn’t offer a response, so instead, he stepped forward, just a bit, but close enough so that he could take one of Jean’s hands in both of his.
Though there was a tentativeness to it, Armin being careful and gentle with his touch, there was some easy comfort in the way it felt so familiar, safe almost, so he gave a squeeze, listened to how Jean sighed, like the gesture was some small relief in itself.
Jean moved his free hand to Armin’s neck, brushing against his skin and sending a shiver across Armin’s skin, further closing the gap between them.
“I just went to brush your hair away from your ear,” Jean said with a smile, running his thumb across the lobe. “You look… lighter now.”
Armin frowned. “Lighter? Have I lost weight?”
“No, no, not like that.” He shook his head. “Just, I don’t know, lighter. I guess it doesn’t make much sense.”
Without thinking on it much more, Armin thought it did.
“You look nice,” he said, repeating himself from earlier. “I like that I can see more of your face now.”
Armin was sure he was blushing, so he looked away, as if that could hide it from Jean with how close they were. Before, his long hair would have fallen in front of his ears and his cheeks, at least hiding it a little.
“Hey,” Jean said, voice quiet as he tried to redirect Armin’s attention. “Look at me.”
He did, glad to see that Jean’s cheeks were just as furious a pink as his own must have been.
“Let me sit by your beside tonight, please,” Jean whispered, eyes skimming across his face once more. “I… I think maybe you’ll sleep okay if I’m there with you.” His eyes got a bit wide at the implication of what he said. “Nothing funny, I just want to be near you is all.”
“I’m not sure Eren would like having you in our tent,” Armin said softly.
“Right, he wouldn’t.” Jean frowned, looking down at their hands held between them. “It’s um, it’s okay. I just-”
“I’ll come to yours.”
“Huh?” Jean’s head back snapped up.
“I don’t really sleep well in beds lately. I’ll take the chair and you take the cot.”
“I’m not going to make you sit in a chair in my room while I sleep, Armin.”
“That’s what you were going to do in my room.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
Jean frowned again, not having an immediate rebuttal. “Connie snores, you know. Might keep you up.”
“Well, you do too.”
“I do not.”
Armin managed the smallest smile, his chest rising and falling with something that could be considered a laugh. “You do. Quietly though.”
“You’re an ass,” Jean muttered, this time winning a real laugh out of Armin, soft and breathy. Jean’s cheeks flushed and he looked away, chewing the inside of his cheek like he was trying to hide his smile.
To anyone else that might walk by, they likely looked a little silly standing there, probably like a couple of awkward teenagers, gangly limbs and tentative touches, but Armin found he didn’t care. That’s what they were, after all.
He stared up at Jean, finally letting himself look deep into his eyes and appreciate everything he saw there at face value. This boy cared for him, he only just wanted him to be safe and happy, and that was all Armin knew he wanted for him as well. Maybe Jean’s happiness could give way to some little bit that Armin could allow himself to bask in. Maybe, just maybe, if he allowed himself to.
“Jean?” he whispered, pulling the hand clasped between his own to his chest. “Can I kiss you?”
Jean blushed impossibly harder, cheeks going darker in an instant, so much so that Armin almost laughed again.
“Well, um, yea,” he stammered, hand going stiff at Armin’s neck. “If you want to, I guess it would be alright.”
Armin quirked an eyebrow. “You guess?”
He sighed. “Yes. Yes, of course you can kiss me.”
Armin hoped that Jean got the hint to meet him halfway as he leaned up to the tip of his toes, craning his neck so that they could be level, and he did. It was just a peck, soft and sweet, but still enough to bring a real smile to Armin’s face.
But Jean didn’t see that smile, because Armin rested his head against his chest, freed his hand so that he could wrap both arms around his waist and shut his eyes. Jean’s own hand moved to cup the back of his head, softly stroking at the fuzzy texture of his shorn hair.
It could have been hours that they stood there, but neither seemed to care, entirely content in just being, just forgetting, even if only for a little bit.