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Lazy Three AM and it’s not about the streetlamps outside and how they paint stripes of light on the rickety wardrobe door that keeps getting stuck whenever Jean wants a hoodie, it’s not about the absence of clothes strewn about the floor, or the lack of condoms or tissues in the trash bin. Legs tangled together and a mouth against a neck, not sucking, not kissing, just touch, skin to skin, just hands carding through soft, coarse hair, watching it curl around the fingers.
The room stinks. It’s not all that abhorrent, just a bitter smell in the air, lined with peppermint. It’s gum, the traces of it, the dregs, stale and bygone. Eren chews it all the time, gnaws at the pieces like he could work a hole in his jaw, his teeth aching with it, like he could eat both himself and his anger if he worked himself up enough. So gum.
It’s quiet enough to hear the soft, odd whirring of the AC adapter linked to Jean’s laptop. They aren’t asleep, and they’re fully clothed, lying on the bed with the blankets pulled up. For once, Eren does not roar like a furnace, doesn’t burn from the inside-out, and he snuggles up for warmth like anyone else might.
"It’s late," he says, lips moving against the line of Jean’s shoulder.
"Yeah," Jean murmurs back. "You gonna leave?"
"No," Eren says, and Jean sighs when he pulls Eren a little closer, slots their hips together, easy, doesn’t reply. Instead he hums tunelessly, just a short vibration that Eren can feel through his cheek, as if Jean is doing it just because he can. He stops after a couple seconds to nuzzle into Eren’s hair, breathe in the smell.
"You’re due for a wash." he says, and his fingers work at the edge of the blanket where the seams have worn soft. A childhood habit, Jean had mentioned once, one that never went away.
"I know," Eren replies, taps a short rhythm on Jean’s back. "Wash it for me?"
"You can shower by yourself just fine," Jean murmurs, works two fingers under the hem of Eren’s shirt to just rest them skin to skin.
"I like it when you do it," Eren says, turns his head to pillow his cheek on Jean’s shoulder, squints hazily at the old, low-resolution art pieces that Jean had printed from the Internet when he was fifteen. Even now, they seem to fit him just fine.
"Lazy," Jean huffs, and the leaves rustle, flick against the window pane, stirred by wind.
"I like it," Eren insists, digging his chin into Jean’s shoulder. A finger runs across the line of his eyebrow, smoothing out the hairs, and Jean cradles his cheek, brushes a thumb across the bone briefly, affectionately.
"Do you now," Jean says, smiling a little, watching the red numbers on his digital clock tick up and up, one more second, one more minute, one more hour, before class, before breakfast, before "real" life. This feels more real than anything.
Eren doesn’t reply, doesn’t nod or shake his head, just playfully bites at Jean’s cloth covered shoulder as a reprimand. “You’re a shit,” he says.
Lazy 3:05 AM and they are still awake. There are numbers, rising, and stripes on the wall, leaves beating at the window. But they are still. They are tucked under the covers, entwined. It is something like safety, something like comfort. Two hours to sunrise. Four until they get out of bed. Five hours to the start of Jean’s first class. Streetlamps flicker outside, but in the house, in the room, in the bed, it is still.