DISCLAIMER: Attack on Titan belongs to Hajime Isayama.
~ Nightmare's Embrace ~
Jean had never been a heavy sleeper. Even a rough day of combat training couldn't seem to wear him out enough to stop him from waking up at every little sound, which was annoying since he was often unable to sleep through the sounds of his fellow recruits taking care of themselves during the night.
He sighed quietly into the darkness, wondering idly who it was this time. Not that he really cared; he just wished he could get one full night's rest occasionally. A few moments passed in silence and Jean thought perhaps he was lucky tonight and whatever had awakened him was just someone knocking the wall with their elbow or calling out for their mother in their sleep.
Then he heard a feminine sob from the direction of the doorway, and realized that it must have been the door opening that woke him up. It took him a few seconds to place the voice.
"Sasha?" he called out softly.
"Jean...?" came the tearful reply.
He sat up as shuffling footsteps approached his bunk. Apparently Sasha had better night vision than Jean did, because she managed to make her way over to his bed without running into any of the other bunks or tripping over anything that had been left lying on the floor. Soon enough he felt the mattress dip beside him, and then before he could stop her, Sasha crawled into his lap and threw her arms around him. She laid her head on his shoulder, and he could feel the warmth of her tears as they began to soak into the thin fabric of his shirt.
Jean hesitated before wrapping his arms around her in return. He had never been hugged by a girl before and he'd expected the first time it happened to be something romantic, not something like this - a friend in need of comfort. He'd imagined that his first time being in such a position, it would be with a girl he cared about in a more-than-friends way, maybe Mikasa...
He was snapped out of his thoughts by the sound of a muffled sob.
You're supposed to be comforting her, not daydreaming about your own romantic delusions, he berated himself internally. The other girls were probably picking on her again...
"Jean," Sasha whined. "I had a nightmare."
"Huh...? A nightmare?" he repeated, nonplussed. "Why didn't you tell one of the other girls instead of coming over here? You know you'll get in trouble if any of the instructors find out you were in the boys' barracks."
Her fingers dug into his shoulders as she clutched onto him more tightly.
"I didn't want Mikasa to make fun of me," she mumbled against his shoulder. Part of the sentence was too garbled for him to understand, but he did make out "being eaten by titans" at the end.
"She wouldn't make fun of you for that," Jean said, hoping it was true. While he knew that Mikasa tended to tease Sasha, he wanted to believe that the girl he was in love with would not be so cruel to a comrade who was emotionally distressed. "I'm sure we've all had nightmares about being eaten by titans... even Mikasa."
Sasha sniffled and lifted her head from his shoulder.
"It wasn't me that got eaten by titans in my dream," she whispered. "It was... you. And Connie. And- and-" She sobbed. "And I couldn't do anything to save you."
"It's okay," Jean said, pulling her tightly against him. "It was just a dream. That's not going to happen. You're a strong girl. You'll definitely save both our asses, okay? It's alright."
He stroked her hair and rubbed her back until she stopped crying, wondering the whole time how the other guys managed to sleep through the noise or if some of them were awake and just pretending they didn't hear anything.
He would soon find out that some of them did indeed witness it, since in the weeks to come he would be teased mercilessly about his 'girlfriend coming to see him at night' and him 'needing a girl to definitely save his ass'.
~end~