The words of humor hang empty in the air like a tangible object, Jean's lips still holding the ghost of the smile it lit with just a moment before, transforming slow into something deeper and a little more serious. Armin feels tight when he sees it. He breaks eye contact to look around them. They splintered away from the group twenty minutes prior, their bellies warm with the early buzz alcohol. They can still see the fire-pit light and hear the laughter of the soldiers sitting in the castle garden as they walk along the headquarter's long perimeters.
A chilly early fall wind sweeps over them, Armin staring at a rarely silent Jean. Even when Jean's lips are shut, he is always loud, always projecting something. Armin has taken comfort in the time spent sharing his philosophies with Jean, who makes decisions too quickly and with too much heat. To Armin, squinting through the light falling from the windows, Jean's face is a little pink. Jean breaks eye contact and Armin places a hand on his arm in a comforting gesture.
Jean is still holding his glass of liquor, still looking like something Armin wants to peel away the layers to. He has been learning Jean Kirschtein over the past several years, and he isn't close to be being finished yet.
Jean doesn't take back what he said, because Armin has never known Jean to be apologetic, just earnest. It was a little humorous, but plain and true, and Armin and Jean have shared glances lingering in length since the 57th Scouting Expedition and strengthening through the 58th and 59th missions. The weight of warmth in his belly is just the beginning. It could be better, hotter, more fulfilling, he knows this, and Armin reaches out and touches the back of Jean's hand with his own.
Jean's taupe eyes snap to his and Armin doesn't regret it. He has fought so hard not to regret the events of his history, and he won't start now, not with this touch that could mean sharing his loneliness with a man whose is rough around the edges, bold, brash, eyes wet with the existence of someone who is aching for someone else to lean on. Jean is a man he has shared so much of his honesty with, has bounced his theories off of even though Jean often has nothing but a few well-meaning words in response. Jean, caught off guard by their linked hands, does not respond right away. Armin folds his fingers around Jean's hand, staring up at him, studying him.
"What do you want to—" Jean sighs, looking tense before Armin cuts him off to drop their hold on each other and face his friends, who are not too far away, split from the group around the fire and wandering together. Mikasa wouldn't care much, but Eren would be furious. Armin isn't ready for them to see him holding hands with anyone else.
Armin says nothing as he walks back toward the fire not too far from the castle doors. They need some space from their comrades if they are going to talk, breathe, exist outside of their expected roles. They escape from their friends with a small wave from Armin and a nod from Jean, through the doors and up the stairs to the bedroom Jean shared with a man from the 105th that was last seen dashed across a rock two days ago.
Jean looks over at the bed and Armin grabs his face, turning it away from the emptiness. They're alone, but Armin whispers, "Are you okay?"
Jean doesn't say anything, but Armin can see the spin-cycle of thoughts churning over, bringing up the past. Armin's grip on his face softens, holding him gently.
Instead of saying something about their fallen soldier, Jean tells him, "They'll kill me when they find out."
Armin blinks up at him, confused. He asks him what he means, studying the expression he can only begin to read. He has been working of deciphering the code of Kirschtein since they started to connect a year ago, and he has learned so much, but not everything makes sense, not every symbol has a meaning within grasp. "Are you talking about Eren and Mikasa?"
Jean gives him a look that Armin can easily understand. He leans up, close to his face. "I'll tell him when I'm ready. I'll tell them both when I'm ready. When I can put words to this."
"To what?" Jean almost laughs, but Armin grabs him in a kiss, a rough, solid meshing of lips that takes from Jean everything that Armin has not been able to obtain. He pulls Jean over him, the taller man following his lead. Their lips separate and Armin brings them back together again, fumbling and a little strange. He doesn't want to demand anything of Jean, he knows they both need this and each in their own time, but he wants the time to be now. He is tired of waiting, sick of Eren and the deaths that follow the soldiers everywhere they go looming as a threat that could keep him from taking what he needs. He needs someone. He needs Jean.
Large hands ghost up over his jacket and dig into Armin's long hair, nails scraping his scalp and letting the locks tangle around the sinews. He presses into Armin, opening his mouth and asking from Armin what he is more than willing to give. Armin leans up, letting their chests touch. He feels too hidden by clothes, too free, as he slides his tongue along Jean's, inhaling hard to take in his earthy smell. He tugs at Jean's lips when one of the hands in his hair tightens into a loose fist. Armin pulls Jean's bottom lip between his and sucks, releasing only to lick into his mouth, flatly rubbing against the ridged roof and making Jean's knees buckle.
Armin breaks away, lips luminescent pink and raw, to gaze at the inviting bed with Jean's uniform hung beside it. He guides Jean by the arm, one hand still on his long, beautiful face, and sits down, asking Jean to follow him, and he does, crawling over Armin and reattaching them by the lips and melding their chests together. He was right, this expands the low hum of warmth in his stomach from the alcohol. He feels better, he is feeling the loss of control in a space where he can allow himself to be exposed.
He grabs at Jean's casual shirt, pulling it toward him and away from Jean's body, his other hand sliding up the firm stomach, feeling a sharp spike of lust. Their mouths are wet, moving together without much coordination as the heat flares under Armin's pale skin.
Jean's hands travel down, grasping at the bottom of Armin's shirt and lifting. They pull their faces apart long along to remove Armin's shirt, and Jean shrugs his off as Armin combs his hands through his long blonde hair, pushing it back and wishing it out of his eyes. Jean's fingers meet the purple bruises wrapping around Armin's body where the harness has cut in and rubbed raw over the years. Armin watches his uncertain hands, and reaches up to touch Jean's identical bruises: the markings of a martyr.
The taupe gaze is flicking everywhere at once, trying to take everything in as Armin catches hold of the hesitation in him. They meet eyes and Jean ducks down quickly to meet his mouth. Armin wraps up in him, hands rubbing down Jean's long torso to the waist of his pants, tugging at the fastenings and trying to undo them blind. Jean freezes. Armin licks his palm and slips the hand past the fabric to grasp the solid length of Jean's cock, making him sputter in surprise. Armin immediately pumps him, his other hand pulling their mouths together for a messy kiss.
Jean's body is on fire: Armin can feel it even with the space between them as Jean looms stiffly over him. Armin's arm moves quickly, fingers swift as they pump, his thumb playing with a new position every time it reaches the thick head, trying to find what makes Jean shake. So far, everything makes him tense and red. Jean is biting his lip, eyes blown wide with surprise. Armin wants him to relax so his other hand leaves Jean's neck to reach between his legs and hold his balls as he works his length. A moan leaves Jean's mouth and Armin can tell by his expression that he didn't mean for that to escape. Jean shouldn't feel like he has to hide from him. The space inside Jean's pants is hot and damp, the taller man is leaking into Armin's determined hand.
Jean's forehead drops against Armin's shoulder, panting onto his harness-bruised skin as his hips stutter up into his hands. Murmured, unintelligible sounds of soothing leave Armin's lips. He has no idea what he's saying, just that he is trying to calm Jean's tense body. He wants Jean to explode for him.
A heavy hand lands on Armin's stomach, dragging down at stopping at the waist of Armin's pants. The blonde squirms, mouth opening in a silent plea, wanting everything Jean has to offer him.
Nothing happens and Armin opens his eyes, peering around as his hand fumbles to a slow stop. Jean pulls back and Armin can see the blush spreading over his face and neck, making his eyes wet. "What's wrong?"
"Are you a virgin?" Jean asks, fast, quiet, and not looking at him.
Armin is taken aback. He doesn't remove his hands from Jean's pants, but they make no movement, sitting with Jean's arousal in his hands. The question came at him so fast, he had no idea that topic would be up for discussion. Unprepared, he looks at Jean in awed silence.
"You're… not," Jeans says slowly.
"I'm not."
"What," Jean trails off, his face a different kind of red. Armin can almost empathize with his embarrassment. Jean's humiliation is a sight that makes him want to kiss kiss kiss until it melts into a familiar expression that Armin adores. When Jean loses his footing, he loses sight of his goals and becomes a bumbling mess of a person that Armin wants to wrap up in his arms. "Who."
"It's been a while," Armin says finally. "Eren and Mikasa. It just kinda happened. It just. Sometimes it happens. It doesn't mean a relationship or anything. I think. I'm done with that, I don't want to stop with you."
Jean looks robbed. Armin wants to kiss away that expression. "Please don't ask me for details," He tells Jean. "This is different with you. It means something different."
His hands leave Jean's pants, cold and numb when they hit fresh air. He cradles Jean's face like he has discovered he is so fond of doing. "Please don't make me stop."
He rubs his thumbs around other man's eyes, silently pleading with him not to cry or say no or push him away. The past is the past, and while Armin was tempted just before their last scouting mission, temptation is nothing like the yearning he feels for Jean. He hasn't wanted anyone like he wants Jean. The love he has for Eren and Mikasa is deep, it transcends a lot of boundaries that other friends would be terrified to even glance. The three of them rolled over the boundary line without a thought, all twelve limbs tangled, but Armin would never compare that relationship to the first true romantic desire he has felt for anyone. There have been times when he thought he would live out his days with Eren, or Mikasa, or both, but that was different than the way he feels when he sees Jean, when they speak alone, when they make eye contact during morning calisthenics. He wants Jean.
"I am," Jean says, face turned into Armin's palm.
"It doesn't matter."
Armin curls up to kiss his sharp cheeks, his long nose, his narrow eyebrows, trying to kiss away the feelings of inadequacy. Jean doesn't need to be "adequate" for Armin, he doesn't need to be anything but himself and Armin can only express that through soft, innocent kisses on a long, thin face.
Jean melts just enough to allow Armin to kiss his lips, which are dry now but still puffy with evidence. Jean slowly responds, his hands settling on Armin's biceps. Armin pulls at him, guiding him until Jean is lying flush on top of him. Armin rolls them over, making sure Jean is comfortable with his head on the pillow before he pulls Jean's trousers to his mid thigh and presses kisses into the cut of his hip. Jean is a squirming mess as Armin licks the line between his pelvis and his hip, traveling slowly down to the length that softened considerably since their conversation began.
In an act of pure adoration, he takes Jean into his mouth. This is new for him. He doesn't want to tell Jean that yet, but he will later, after they have finished bedding each other. This moment is too big to shatter. He trusts his instincts, using everything he knows he likes on himself and what his hands have learned about Eren and Jean to work his mouth over Jean, tonguing over the head and pressing it flat against the underside as he slides up. Jean is large, larger than he anticipated, and he likes the challenge of sinking down a little farther every time.
Above him, Jean is falling apart, face and chest splattered with an uneven blush, hands twisted in the blankets, head tossed back as he stifles his moans. Armin wants to devour him, make him express everything he is feeling. Make such a quiet, simple man show him everything he didn't even know he had.
He sits up when he feels Jean is too out of control, his hips jerking sharply into Armin's face and ruining his composure. Armin wipes the tears in his eyes from being choked, brushes his hair aside, and crawls up to kiss Jean, who lurches at the taste of himself in Armin's hot mouth. Their tongue slide together as Jean's hands wander, brushing over nipples and stomach as he learns a territory he is unfamiliar with. Armin can sympathize: every touch to Jean feels like a new experience entirely, like he hasn't touched every part of Eren, Mikasa, and himself. Jean is different. Eren and Mikasa were new, but Armin didn't feel like he needed to learn everything that made them twitch. He touched because for once there was protection and who knew how long their love would last when they were sacrificing themselves every day. They were touching because they needed to touch something. Touching Jean is like learning an instrument, and Armin always wanted to play the lute.
Armin's hands tangle up in Jean's hair as the taller man grazes Armin's hips, drawing back to meet at the fastening. He opens his trousers slowly, nervously, letting Armin slip out before he touches him. Armin jerks into the delicate brushing of skin, urging something more solid and assuring. Jean grasps him backwards, pumping once before turning his hand around with a sheepish smile against Armin's jaw. Armin arches into his touch as Jean strokes him hard. He didn't know he would want it this way, sitting on Jean with his legs spread around hard thighs, feeling vulnerable as Jean gets him off rough and unabashed.
Armin is trying to grind down into Jean's grip, but is lurching back at the hand that touches his ass, cupping his cheek unmoving. He tries to push into it, wanting more. He drags his wet mouth over Jean's temple and grabs a fistful of his hair, tipping his hand back to mumble into his mouth, "I need you to do something for me."
"Anything," Jean breathes, taking Armin by surprise.
"Did Evan have oil for his equipment?"
Jean blinks up at him, looking too far-gone to begin to process the connotations of his question. "Grapeseed oil. Why?"
"Where is it?"
Armin stumbles off of Jean and across the room to follow Jean's suggestion. He opens the small table by the bed and rifles through the artifacts of a dead man, bypassing letters, a toothbrush, and a comb, before returning to the bed with a small jar of translucent oil.
"What—?" Jean asks as Armin climbs back over him, straddling his thighs. Armin dispenses some of the oil into his hands and massages his fingers into Jean's pelvis. His entire body jerks and curls forward, mouth hanging open from the sensation and Armin's hands, pressing into his skin, drag to his cock, which he takes into slick, certain hands. Jean is leaning up on his elbows, chin on his chest, and eyes fluttering with pleasure. Armin watches him, both in awe and a bit smug that he can make Jean lose composure.
He lets go of him before he brings Jean too close to the edge and slides back, sitting between Jean's legs and leans back on one elbow as his free hand reaches down passed his own screaming arousal to his entrance. He tries to relax as he slips in a finger, wiggling it experimentally before adding another. Armin pumps his fingers in himself, trying to loosen his muscles as fast as he can, and it isn't until he is three fingers in and losing his mind that he notices Jean sitting up and staring at him in open amazement, jaw hanging, and cock red and hard against his stomach. Armin moans and falls backwards, legs stretching out and neck hooked over Jean's ankle as he fucks himself, Jean's trembling hands framing his hips.
Armin loses track of the bottle of oil and Jean's adorable embarrassment and virgin fumbling, too busy reveling in the pleasure of fingering himself with something slick and in front of someone else. Jean is touching him everywhere, a hand lingering over Armin's as it presses inside himself. He gasps and curls up when Jeans slips a finger into him alongside Armin's three. Jean quickly readjusts himself, rustling the bed as he folds his legs under him and leans over Armin, mouthing at his neck, collar, and nipples.
Armin grabs Jean's bicep. "I need you to do it now."
Jeans stares at him in silent awe for a moment before slicking his cock and grabbing Armin's hips, shifting forward and lining himself up. Armin bends his knees up and out, staring up at Jean as he figures out the right angle and pushes in.
Armin shouts, his head tipping back over the side of the bed. The first moments are strange, a dull ache pulses through him that he knows from the times he has tried doing this with bad lubrication, but it passes as Jean seats himself inside of Armin, falling over him and nearly toppling them off the bed as he begins to thrust.
Armin drags his hands over his own face, rubbing the perspiration and saliva into his skin and pushing back his damp bangs. His skin feels hot with strain and desire. Jean looks so beautiful over him, long and powerful, and calling on the confidence he has when he is fighting for his life to fuck into Armin, his face red with concentration. Armin reaches up and touches his chest, feels the muscles that are tense with the force of the rhythm. He is so, so beautiful. Armin curls up to kiss his stiff lips. "Harder."
Jeans moans aloud and thrusts fast into him. He grips Armin's pale thighs and pushes them back, gaining a new angle to work with that has Armin crying out desperately despite his torso being halfway off the bed, his head near the floor. Jean can't stop himself, fucking and staring like he can't believe where he is, what he is doing. "God, fuck, you're so… I can't believe you…"
Armin doesn't want to hear anymore. Jean is watching him crumble and fall apart, a giant gash ripped into his composure that leaves him moaning and babbling for more, for it harder, faster, closer, more. One arm is folded over his head, keeping it from smacking the concrete floor when Jean takes up a hard beat, taking him over until Armin is losing control of himself, his muscles spasming and his hands forced to wipe away the saliva that sliding from his numbly open mouth.
Jean pauses and Armin cries out in desperate protest as Jean shifts them around so Armin is completely on the bed, head on the pillow, and the blonde blinks through his burning arousal to see the concerned, adoring expression on Jean's face. It's too much to handle, that sweetness directed toward him that made him stop just short of an orgasm to make sure Armin is comfortable. Armin smiles up at him and says, "You can continue. If you want."
"If I—Fuck, Armin, you have no idea what you do to me."
Armin grabs the pillow from under his head and shifts it under his hips, Jean's cock slipping from him and releasing a mournful cry from Armin's lips. He chuckles weakly and drags a hand down Jean's burning face. "I'm almost there."
Jean ducks over him and adjusts his balance, flashing Armin a brief glance before pressing himself in and starting his hips again, this time moving straight into harder and faster. Armin moans quietly, mewling with pleasure as Jean fucks him hard. He loses the languid movement he had before and devolves straight into a fast fuck with the intention to get off now. Armin can tell he is about to orgasm. Jean's face is screwed up in concentration. Armin watches him, his own body loose and receiving the pleasure he is so thoroughly given as the tightness is Jean's face slips away, his mouth sliding open just as orgasm hits him. Jean slams into him hard, hips stuttering off rhythm as he comes into Armin, filling him.
Armin grasps his own erection, stroking himself as Jean's forehead falls onto his chest. He can feel the heat of Jean's body as he comes down from his most brilliant of highs. Armin doesn't ask for anything, he lets Jean lie down over him, bodies together and still attached. With an arm around Jean's damp back, he strokes himself to completion, focusing on the weight of Jean on him and inside of him.
Jean kisses him sloppily as he shakes through his orgasm. Armin feels raw and open. He puts his other arm over Jean's strong back.
"So how much mutilation will Jaeger want me to endure before he finally lets me die?"
It takes Armin a moment to realize what Jean is saying before he laughs. "He won't kill you, I'll make sure of it. But, uh, he will know about us. Not this, but us. There is an us."
Jean nods, hiding his face in Armin's long hair. "I'm glad to hear that."
"I still have a lot of learn about you. I think I know you, but I've been learning so much and there is always something new to you, something I haven't seen. This is a whole new side."
"Me?" Jean laughs. "I'm not the one to turns into a needy courtesan during sex."
Armin almost says something about Jean being a fumbling virgin, but he bits his tongue. The sex talk is something for another time, when Armin can articulate what Eren and Mikasa meant to him then and what Jean means to him now. He likes the way Jean falls apart. He likes the tense desperation, the words to prove that this means something to him. He liked the strange sensation of Jean using him like a masturbation tool as he worked up to and through his orgasm, too overcome with the pleasure that Armin gave him to find an angle that would work for both of them. The thought makes him smile: precious Jean Kirschtein, too earnest for his own good.
He kisses him again, making sure Jean knows he adores him while they take the time to steal away for their next long conversation.