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6.
Softly, like a dream-cloud. A blink, and Jean feels cool fingers resting at the nape of his neck. Moonlight from the window slices through his eyes and he blinks again, trying to clear the haze of his mind. His lips fumble over words carelessly, and though he only wants to connect with those soft fingertips and trace them towards their winding heartbeat, his limbs sway at his side disobediently.
"Jean," even softer, this voice is a gentle caress that threatens to careen him headlong back into sleep, "look at me." He feels the fingers climb across his jaw, a thumb swiped over his pulse line, and he is dizzy. But suddenly, there is a flex and the grip around his jaw is strong, spilling his grey gaze into glittering eyes.
Blue.
"Blue," he says, and staggers forward.
He is rewarded with a hiccupping snort and a lithe arm slipped around his ribs, fingertips dancing rhythmically to the beats of his heart. It races for a moment from the touch, but Jean breathes, and tries to blink coherence into his mind.
"Go back to bed," he can pick out the voice now, but his body is heavy and he cannot control it; he simply listens, follows with his mind's eye while the rest of him is asleep, "I suppose this is better than your screaming."
Jean feels the warmth of a body tucked against him for leverage, moans in protest as they slide carefully from the hallway of their barracks and back the several paces towards the daunting candlelight drifting from his door. Jean's mouth is slack but there are words resting there: gratitude and embarrassment and sorrow and too much welling up in the back of his throat.
The door creaks slightly, and his bed is soft (not quite like a cloud, not quite like sleeping in those arms), so he slumps over, eyes closing.
27.
"Does anything help?"
Plenty of things help. A quick work is made of the formalities between them. By the time the candles' wicks burn down to the bronze candelabras, Mikasa is planted in his lap with her mouth pressed feverishly against his and Jean is unabashedly begging to be fucked between whispers and moans. Anything to put him to sleep, to ease his mind or tire his thoughts or silence him to the world, if only for several hours.
He relinquishes control to her in a way that feels dangerously familiar, though his title rolls between her lips with every roll of her hips—are you pleased, Commander?—and keeps him grounded to his simple bed and complex heart and sleep, sleep.
Sleep walking, sleep fucking, sleep living.
"Does anything help you sleep better?"
Mikasa sinks into his lap, a warmth that grasps him until he is crying out in tune with her, until he flexes and feels so deep that he is breathing for her. His chest heaves and she whines into his skin, stays sheathed over him and grinds out her desires in careful strokes of her powerful hips. She presses their bodies closer and closer until there is no room left for overlap, and there is something about it that overwhelms him into an existential crisis.
Jean wraps his arms around her waist and plunges his hips into hers, and—bliss.
He is so alive, and so, so gone.
He falls asleep sometime after that.
52.
It would almost be a lie. His heart is loud in its proclamation, short circuiting his brain until all that remains in the electric char is his confession.
He is in love.
Strategy, that's all there is. Break down the mechanics, survey the territory, work on a tactical plan. But Jean doesn't know the first thing about strategy, because he is in love, because he sleeps without screaming on a cradle-cloud with his own childhood comrades. Because there is no strategy for the way he loves Mikasa fierce and strong and beautiful; no strategy for the way he loves Armin endlessly. There is enough chaos in the simple fact that he loves them, point blank (and he can't lose them, he can't lose them the way he lost everyone else).
It takes him until sunset to pinpoint the differences between them, because there is very little to distinguish. After all, they are both closer to each other than he has ever been to either of them. But Armin and Mikasa, both of them are the entire sleepless sky to him. Vast and abysmal and all he can see when things are dark, but there are differences between them, like sunrise and sunset.
(Armin is the soft hands that hold him in the clouds; Mikasa is the view of the clouds as he plummets from the sky.)
11.
She is silent when she enters the room. Mikasa swivels over to the side of Jean's desk and he knows that she ignores the collapse of his features in distress; the sunlight dapples patterns across the sleek black waves of her hair as she stands in front of the window, and they both look too young to have such dark eyes.
Porcelain rests in porcelain hands, a cup with steam that slides around the rim. Mikasa floats away for a moment to place the cup at his bedside, and she comes back into focus standing in front of him, an eclipse of the sun. The surprise rests in the way she takes his hand, two small palms to ensnare his much wider one, no less lethal for their delicate appearance. He knows better than anyone how much those hands can shred, and he regards them more beautiful for it.
"Sh," is all she offers, pulling him to his feet. Jean can feel the immediate flush of his cheeks spread into an unbearable heat, but he only ducks his head and moves from behind his desk. The flutter of papers on the surface is of no concern of hers, because she simply pins him with a look that tells him to follow, a look that tells him to relent.
And he does, with a quiet acquiescence of, "At your will, Corporal."
They don't travel far. Mikasa pushes him over to the other side of the room until he is the centerpiece in his hastily made bed, unraveling the cape and tight straps from around his shoulders. Her hands are small, but they notch perfectly against his clavicle, and Jean sighs as he feels himself relax. She kneels behind him, her knees splayed on either side of his waist and sets to work wordlessly. Mikasa is silent and gentle in her touches, and Jean doesn't notice her movements until he feels something crawling up the hollow of his spine, warm and soothing.
Steam, he thinks, before she curls an arm around his waist to present the cup of tea to him. A hot cup of tea, a splash of milk, and he would only feel more privileged if the taste of sugar bit back into the inside of his cheeks, but he takes the cup from her hand gently with a murmur of thanks.
Mikasa doesn't move her hand away, and it burns more than the trail of jasmine down his throat.
This is how he wakes up the following day, nightmareless.
Mikasa's arms are anchored around his waist and her head rests in the space between his shoulder blades and each of her breaths fall into sync with his own. His curtains are closed to keep the sun at bay, but he can make out the colors of his cape stuck across her shoulders, barely distinguishable save for the golden stitches around his crest.
And Jean's teacup is on the floor, shattered, with sugar-shards dispersed along the floor.
33.
Jean knows he is there before he knocks, before he even speaks.
"Commander," Armin says brusquely, to catch his attention, but what holds his stare is the lofty ponytail that swings behind him. Jean always marvels over the lengths of Armin's hair, especially when he pushes his hand through it while thinking, especially when Jean crooks his fingertips into the knots of it and pulls, especially when it is hot or he is shower-fresh and the edges of it curl under the moisture.
He could have him in the middle of the day, if it was what he desired, truly. But all Jean wants is to rip down his hair and thread his fingers through it, so much that he cannot focus on the stacks of papers being settled across his desk.
Armin's fingers push his glasses into his face for a moment, before his eyes flash with something hidden and he pushes them to the top of his head.
"Are you gonna be all right?" His voice is different, now; soft around the edges and warm at the core, and before he notices, Armin's fingers float over the tops of his knuckles. His fingers twitch, but he doesn't move. Armin's touch is soothing and he doesn't dare chase it away. Soft, like down, like a summer sky full of clouds. His fingers curl around the callouses and scars of Jean's knuckles, and it makes a hideous sight beautiful again.
Jean pushes down the waves that only wish to drown him. "Stay here," he says with half of a smile and an unsteady voice, "go over these with me."
If Armin sees through his front, he is silent on the matter.
44.
He doesn't remember much. Pain spirals its way through his body, climbing his spine like a staircase. Electric veins, lightning kept in his ribcage like a home and his heart meant to weather it all. Jean screams, and it rattles in his throat like thunder. It is the only relief he feels, to scream and scream and scream until he cannot scream any more, until there is no storm left in his body and he is dry and used up.
But his mouth is sealed and his body is pressed down and he becomes so heavy that he falls out of his dreams—
—and into a strong embrace. Something smells sweet and his eyes are clear but he is blinded within his nightmare, a scream still dragging its way across his lungs. There are arms wrapped around his waist, thin and strong and rooted to the Earth, and a nose pressed softly into the curve of his neck.
Jean blinks and screams again, screams until there is a cloud-touch against his skin and eyes like the sky staring into his. Jean, someone says softly, reassuring his mind that it is all the same and that he is safe now, sh, we're here, we're here, Jean, and someone is cradling him, pulling him back against their chest.
His brain struggles but then the crescent-light catches the halo of blonde hair kneeling between his legs, cupping his face like a full moon between storm clouds. "Armin," Jean mumbles as if he has retaught himself the syllables, and he nods before tapping a gentle kiss to his lips, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I can't stop, I'm so sorry."
Mikasa hums quietly behind him, and he notices that his ears are pressed against her chest and he can hear the reverberating noise of her voice before it leaves her lips. "Jean," she says softly, her fingers resting against his abdomen, "stop apologizing. Stop fighting."
He doesn't notice the tension leave his body until it does. Armin's fingers brush at the moisture in his cheeks, and it only makes Jean cry more, only makes the two of them converge around him.
"We love you," he thinks he hears Armin say. Jean doesn't quite know the truth, though. He swears he doesn't remember much, and that is the nightmare within it all.
30.
It's too hot and everything is sticky, but Jean still twists himself further into Armin's embrace, his mouth hot and thankful against his neck. And his pulse thrums against his lips, heat touching the apples of his cheeks and deepening the blue of his eyes. Jean can never sleep on nights like these, midnights that lie in extremes of hot or cold or anything intolerable.
Being entwined with Armin helps, even when it pushes everything within him to the breaking point.
"F—" The swear rests behind Armin's teeth because Jean's nose burrows into his neck and his fingers drag through the sweat-soaked strands of his blonde hair, and he just wants to hitch Armin around his hips so he can carry him across the room to blow the candles out.
But the thought requires a separation from the hazy desires of his own mind, so he simply moans his frustrations about the heat in a staccato click of his teeth on Armin's throat. His hips are angled and they slide between his perfectly, too; there is something so rapid that consumes Armin almost immediately after, right before his very eyes.
Armin's eyes are dark and his nails are crescent-sharp against his waist, and he holds Jean still as he prepares himself, pliant and slick, to touch down and put him gently to sleep.
(If Jean screams, tonight, it is light-years away from a night terror.)
17.
"Does anything help?"
The curtains are drawn and everything is dark, except for the candles that float around the room like stars on the night-river. Jean doesn't mind the dim lighting because it gives him an excuse to lean closer, focus more on the soft curves of Mikasa's features.
"Hm?"
Her lips draw to one side, a shadow cast over her face, but she bites her sarcasm down. "Does anything help you sleep better?"
He considers her question with a frown, the sound of the wind howling outside of his window rattling its way around his room. Mikasa studies his expression but Jean is too busy thinking, too busy planning his words and his approach and the angle of his jaw.
She touches her fingertips to his lips and all he can think about are the clouds.
8.
Jean doesn't have the good sense to be frightened when Mikasa comes barreling into his office. But he rethinks the sentiment when he catches the indignation in her gaze, and flinches when she slams her hands down onto his desk. It's hard to think that he outranks her, because he has always treated those around him as his equals, and even harder to imagine especially now that he cowers in front of her.
But Mikasa doesn't remain frigid for long. Her features soften and her fingers uncurl from their claws in his desk. "Commander," her voice is soft and imploring, "can I ask you something?" It disarms him, how rapidly she can shift, but it is something he becomes accustomed to.
"Of course, you already know you can." His fingers knot in the curls of his sandy hair, his eyes clear and focused on hers.
The question surprises him more than his fear, more than her sudden shift in emotions. "We're friends, aren't we?" Mikasa's brow is furrowed in genuine concern, and she leans over the space of his desk to cup her hand across his shoulder. His hand falls back down to his side and he watches her aimlessly for a moment.
"Jean," she murmurs, and he jolts under the sound of his name in her voice.
"Of course." Jean tries not to fidget, but he can't hold her gaze for much longer. "We've always been friends, haven't we?"
Something flashes in her eyes so swiftly that he can't quite place it, but it settles back into the depths until she is recognizable. Her fingers tighten around his shoulder for a few moments in which they leave a pleasant burn, but then she retracts her hand and smiles.
Jean tries to commit it to memory, the blinding-white of her teeth and the smooth pink of her lips and the way it stretches her cheeks and narrows her eyes with—with happiness.
"Always have," she answers softly, and then straightens her posture to him. Back straight, hands at her side, but she can't erase her smile, and Jean doesn't mind at all. "That's all, Commander." He watches her leave, a gentle wind to oppose the tornado she brought when she entered the room.
60.
"Wait, I—" But he can't articulate the rest, because his mouth follows the trail of stop but his mind—his mind isn't there at all, it has tumbled headlong into lust with the rest of his body, arched carefully between a rock and a hard place.
Except it isn't unpleasant or unfamiliar; he has been caught between the two of them before, but this time it is Armin who rests behind him, bringing to life a cluster of constellations across his neck. Mikasa already relishes in the stories her stars create, crescent-teeth marks and smears of comet-shaped hickeys spread over his fair skin, so Armin takes place behind him to make up for lost time, with hands that are too warm around his waist.
And Mikasa—she is bare in front of him and he can't think of a sight more beautiful than her. How to choose, choose between pulling her close and falling into the depths of her or holding her out at arms' length to worship, scarred and gorgeous and imperfect. They're all scarred, all gorgeous, and Jean could get lost between the two of them. He would give anything to.
Fingers curl in the slope of his hips and Jean doesn't mean to, but he presses his hips back, back into Armin until he can feel the heat from his treacherous smile, until he knows he will lose control and doesn't mind relinquishing it, anyway. Because he does, when his fingers scrape their way down to wrap around his erection, smooth palms and imprinted fingers and a sensation that brings color to his cheeks.
Jean thinks he is falling away, that the entire universe is stitched together behind him and without arching his spine into Armin, he would plummet through the eternity of space. And it feels real, because he blinks stars behind the lids of his eyes, and he hardly notices Mikasa crawling into his lap until she is there.
"You were saying?" She says with a trick in her voice, gentle fingers leaping across the space of Armin's knuckles and slick over the head of his cock, pinning down her grin into a sly smirk when he trembles from the touch.
His mouth only knows the pitch of moans and the shape of pleasure pressed against her lips, but he tries—God, does he try, but Armin does an excellent job of shifting his thoughts into unquenchable desire. "I—you and, and Armin—"
"We're here for you," the blonde says softly, though he punctuates the thought with a firm squeeze of a mischievous fist, "both of us."
Mikasa's hands close around his in a way that is startlingly familiar, but with different intentions. "Whenever you want us," she spreads his fingers and traces the space between them, curls her thighs around his palm and presses the soft, wet heat she holds in her core down, down so he holds it with ease. She extracts her own pleasure with a steady crash of her hips like the ocean, and Jean wonders if she knows how much pleasure it brings him, to see her this way.
He doesn't ever want to leave this moment, so close to unraveling with the two of them that the remains of it all become stitched back together into something he wouldn't mind having (wouldn't mind being alive to have).
19.
Jean laughs when they hit the floor for the third time that evening. It hardly matters that he crumples papers to cushion his fall, his gangly limbs pinning his comrade to the ground beneath him, because the warmth that spreads a fire in the hollow of his stomach is enough to quell his nerves and dull his inhibitions.
"This is why I don't drink." Armin grunts and shoves at his arms, but is only rewarded with a half-sitting posture and a strong hand around his wrist.
"You," Jean stops, and then pulls himself into a sitting position, clinging to Armin's shoulder, "you don't drink because you don't—hic—have my job." Something glazes in Jean's eyes (and his fingers flex around the silver threaded patch under his hand), and Armin sighs, scoots himself over until they are sitting shoulder to shoulder.
It surprises Jean that Armin doesn't straighten the mess they've made in his office, but there is something perplexing about the way he gazes at the other male. Everything is light. Rose colors through glass in the midday, Jean feels easy for what seems like the first time in a long time.
He wants to kiss him, as hard as he can. (He doesn't quite make it.)
Jean's fingers shoot to the back of his neck, twisting so that their foreheads touch. Armin's breath floats across his cheeks when he exhales, measured and slow, and Jean just can't push his nose out of the way so he can touch their lips together.
"I wish we could mind meld," he slurs, "you have such a beautiful mind," and the sounds of Armin's laugh through the hollows of their bones that are connected by touch is what Jean hears after he passes out, ten minutes later.
1.
He dreams of blood and pearl-bone and a grave made of leaves. Five years, he thinks, longer than he thought he would ever have, but never enough for them. He dreams of his team, an arsenal of rotten bones and ash and fear; the old team, the new team; strangers to friends.
"I don't understand," he says with tears dripping into his jaw, pushing back dirt and sticks from the careful arrangement of leaves and silver-torn patches with special threads, "I did all I could."
Jean can't take the agony of replacing his team, but he knows how imperative it is. But there is no one who can fit in the spaces of happiness and intellect the way Armin does, the security it provides. Memories flicker back to a time where they rode side by side, terrified children in an army they had no business being a part of.
He can still feel his pulse when he wraps his head wounds the first time, tells him with a roll of his eyes that he should be more careful. Jean never really thought of him as much of a fighter. It is the first time he notices Armin: soft features, gentle hands, ocean eyes, a beautiful, beautiful blue.
But Mikasa. He touches the top of her grave and the stones arranged at the top, feels the dirt under his nails from picking them smooth from the shore of the river. Something didn't feel right about floating them away, but maybe he should have; so they could see the water, and see the world.
Fingers crawl out of the ground and seize his wrist, and Jean screams and screams and screams—
—until he is awake, staring into river-blue eyes.
It begins, then.