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Jean watches Armin sweeping daffodil locks out of his sweat-beaded face. He wishes he could freeze him right here, all pink and blue and yellow. Sweet and soft. Deep humming plays under his heartbeat as he watches Armin’s evergreen cape billow out behind him, on and on, a river of wisdom, a carpet of innocence. And then, past a few bends, a splatter of blood.
Jean closes his eyes and thinks of a real river, washing it all away. Washing them all away.
Armin thinks the best way to describe Jean is god-like. He’s golden, always golden, eyes like drops of honey- rare and sweet. Hair catching the light and crowning his bloodied and tired brow like a too-heavy crown. Not a halo, though- never a halo for Jean. His body is bronze and sturdy when Armin catches glances of it during bathing, and it looks like it could hold up so much, but Armin knows that it already is. When Jean looks down at Armin, all Armin can think of are how his lips have probably kissed so many people, but he still chooses to press them to his swords in the prayer that he hangs onto by tenterhooks. The prayer that Armin knows is probably keeping him alive.
Armin rethinks that thing about Jean being god-like. For what god would ever need to pray?
Jean knows Armin wakes up choking on the feeling of a trigger under his finger and the sound of the switch that flipped in his mind when he pressed down. And Jean chokes too, on the empty space in his soul, where he poured his sins into Armin’s shaky and innocent hands. Armin’s hands- pale and graceful and small. Hands that barely caused a ripple when he dipped them into shivering crystal bath water. Jean had seen Armin bathing once. It had been an accident- the bathroom door near the bunks never locked properly, and he hadn’t thought to check the schedule. He remembers a surprised little splash, huge blue eyes, and Armin, bare and dripping wet. Although technically he’d seen him naked before when they were changing, this had been different- he’d been vulnerable, caught unawares. Armin acted jumpy, but he was always on his guard. He had not been on his guard then; no, he’d been more like a baby deer, eyes even bigger than normal. Jean had quickly apologized and left, but not before he’d seen his body. He wasn’t turned on by it; it had made him…softer actually. He’d wanted to touch him, but only to protect him. Now in the dead of night, listening to Armin gasp and claw at nothing, begging for forgiveness, Jean realizes that quite the opposite had happened.
They’re on watch together one night, and out of nowhere, Jean stands up, offers his hand, and asks Armin to dance. Armin lifts his eyes to see Jean with his other arm behind his back and his face angled so he’s looking at Armin out of the corner of his eye, as if Armin is too bright to look at. The moon is silver on Jean’s cheekbones, and Armin can’t help but think that the color doesn’t really suit him. It’s too cold and hard- Armin thinks that Jean was born to be wild and tangled and tousled and free, not locked in a cage of moonlight.
“I don’t know how,” Armin admits.
“I’ll show you,” responds Jean, as if he had been expecting it. Armin hesitantly places his hand in Jean’s- warmth floods through his body, and Armin knows with a feeling that’s half dread and half pleasure that he’s going to think about these hands a lot. They’re big and weathered and less confident than he’d expected. Jean places the other on Armin’s waist, which somehow feels even nicer, and pulls him a little closer, Armin’s cloak fluttering out behind him.
“I’m gonna go slow,” says Jean quietly. Armin nods his understanding but doesn’t look up from Jean’s feet, because then he’ll see his golden eyes, he’ll be on eye level with his lips, he’ll be so close to his face. His beautiful face. It’s so close. He can feel Jean’s warm breath on the top of his head. Jean turns slowly and Armin focuses on moving his feet correctly. Not thinking about their fingers laced so gently and perfectly, not thinking about how Jean is slowly pulling him closer. He gets the hang of it pretty quickly- it’s all just basic patterns. Patterns like Jean’s breathing. Like Jean’s hair- dark, then light. The stars are pinpricks in the soupy black sky above them, and they’re slowing down now, Armin’s head coming to rest against Jean’s warm, broad chest. He can hear his heart beating, loud and deep. What a delicate thing it is, a heartbeat. There one minute, gone the next. The space between beats is a tragedy, a nightmare, a disaster waiting to happen. They stop moving, and Jean wraps one arm more tightly around his waist and places his other hand on the back of Armin’s head. A breeze sighs through the trees, setting them whispering and the boys’ cloaks jumping around them.
Keep your distance. Keep your space. How much? The space between heartbeats.
Armin pulls away. Jean’s hands fall away piece by piece, fingers un-sticking. His face is tragically understanding. Armin feels a hungry hollowness in his chest. He won’t. They won’t.
Ah, what a sad story it is, this space between lovers. The space between heartbeats.
Everything is getting better, and Jean allows himself to wonder. To imagine. In the thin silence of the night, he bites his lip as he feels his own skin and imagines Armin. A world where Armin won’t pull away.
New weapons, new ways to destroy and ruin and take lives. They all cheer and celebrate. He gets in another fight with Eren, and it’s the happiest he’s felt in a long time.
In his mind, Armin dances eternally under the stars. He’s beautiful in this fantasy, but he’s also safer. Far away and impossible. In real life, he is dangerously close and corporeal. Too real- his eyes like cups of liquid sky, rimmed by black silk lashes. Someone up there had put a lot of detail into those eyes. Take away his conscience and better judgment, and there’s nothing stopping Jean from leaning over and kissing him. Seeing Armin’s eyes close enough to fall into.
Armin is standing by his bed, his back to Jean. The other boys have dressed and left. Jean is taking a long time to put his jacket on, and Armin is doing the same; the tension in the room is unbearable. Seemingly at the same time, they turn towards each other, reaching out, hands grasping hungrily, relief coming only from contact. Their lips crash together and it’s so good and so bad that Armin wants to sob. Jean is running his hands feverishly over Armin’s neck and cheeks and chest and hips, and it feels like electric currents flying up and down his body. His lips push desperately, his tongue coaxing its way farther and farther in. Armin makes a soft groaning, humming noise, and stands on his tiptoes to clutch at the back of Jean’s neck, wanting more. Jean backs him against the bed, grabs one of Armin’s thighs in each hand, and lifts him up so his legs are wrapped around his waist. Jean lowers him onto the bed and for a while, there’s only the sound of their breath. Then it’s over, and Armin rests his head on Jean’s chest and cries.
“Why did we do that,” he sobs, clenching his fist against Jean’s skin. “We’re going to die, one at a time. One of us is going to have to go on without the other.”
Jean’s grip tightens. His voice trembles when he says, “Don’t say that. It won’t happen.”
“It will,” Armin whispers, burying his face in the crook of Jean’s neck. He feels a couple of Jean’s tears slip out. He can see it now- an empty place where Jean used to sit. A cold gray military headstone, invisible amongst hundreds of others. The hollowness in his own heart, in his life. He’d tasted Jean’s lips and skin, and if he lost him, there would always be a hole, an empty space, a constant ache with no sort of cure because he’d never feel them again. He knows Jean is picturing the same thing, but with the roles reversed. Jean wraps his arms around Armin as tight as they’ll go and pulls him close, and Armin knows what he is doing- trying to touch every part of his body, to remember and record and archive. It’s all they can do to plan for the future when the future holds nothing but loss.
“It won’t,” he says. There’s no conviction at all in his voice. Armin slowly goes still, his breathing evening out. Streaky sunlight filters over them.
The space between Jean’s heartbeats is too long.
Everything is falling apart. This is not a battle that Eren’s titan powers can win, and Jean feels the shadow of death hovering over them and closing in, their echoes growing smaller. But he has to try, because nobody is going to say it out loud, say that they’re done for, that it’s all over. They’ll keep fighting until the end, fists clenched over hearts as they disappear into titans’ mouths, still standing by humanity’s crumbling side. Perhaps in their final moments, they will falter and tear up and beg for mercy, but it will be too late. It already is, but no one will say it.
And then Armin asks Jean to take command. He tells Jean he’s a natural leader- a phrase that echoes with the voice of another he’d lost during a battle that he thought couldn’t be won. Couldn’t be survived. And he’d done both.
Jean sets his jaw and furrows his brow. Puts on his hero face. Commands. Takes charge. Fights. He has to. He will. For them. For him.
He doesn’t have to look to know the rain will be falling from Armin’s eyes.
“Armin,” he says, not looking behind him. “Don’t you cry. We’ll get out of this.”
As he charges forth, he’s not sure if he believes himself, but he knows the others will. Because that is who he is- he recognizes it now. The one people look to when they need to be led. To be convinced. To be reassured. He feels the weight of it now, but less so, because Armin is there, bearing it too. The mind. Jean is the sword, and Armin the shield. Balancing each other, pushing each other on while holding each other back. Jean does not believe in himself, but he does believe in Armin.
Believes in the space between heartbeats.