The writing on the pale inside of his wrist has turned stagnant, the horizontal line that indicates null thin and dark and mocking, almost, but he does not think he should care anymore. Maybe it had stopped during another lock down, a riot of some sort, a shooting - but it doesn't matter. Armin has lived twenty-two years without a soul mate, he is sure he can live decades more, and besides, he has other people that care for him, albeit not in a romantic way. But still.

And with work occupying his mind over half the time he is awake (sometimes it finds its way into his dreams, too, but nobody has to know because "you should take a break" doesn't help at all) yes, he is sure he doesn't have time for that.

He is sure.

Year 2843.

"So I heard they assigned you to another one," Moblit begins lightly over the rim of his glass mug. The steady hum of machinery is almost relaxing, and if the lights didn't glare so much, they would be basking in the environment free of Hanji's noise.

"Yes. If I remember correctly, he was a victim of a Titan about three years ago." Armin drums his fingernails on the metal table slowly, immersed in thought. "Um, bullets, blood loss." It's one of the less graphic, less bloody deaths, and for that, Armin is thankful. It isn't at all easy trying to look someone in the face when you know they've died after getting, say, impaled on the tip of a skyscraper or having their heart picked out from a gaping chest wound in their previous life. "I've been working with him for a couple of weeks."

Moblit nods understandingly.

They sit in silence for a while, people milling about and murmuring just enough to blend smoothly into the background for easy tuning out. It's fairly pleasant, since he's already turned unflinching towards the fact that they're working with corpses.

"Bullets, huh?" Moblit asks aloud, and Armin looks up from the projected block of information and data buzzing underneath his fingertips. "My first time, Hanji told me the one I was assigned to had his ribs cracked open and a leg missing before they replaced it, and then left me alone to do something." He grimaces softly, eyes flickering from the lights to the dark stains inside his cup. "I was terrified, obviously. Couldn't look at it or sleep for days."

"And now?" Armin doesn't know if he should be amused. He allows himself a small smile anyway.

"After a few years, nothing can faze you that much anymore, I guess."

The band on Moblit's arm blinks bright green, immediately drawing their eyes to it. The message is clear enough - laboratory, now. Armin gives his co-worker a wave as he slings his bag over his shoulder, walking out and disappearing through the tinted automatic doors. His own band blinks soon after, dark blue this time, and he shuts off his tab with a flick of his wrists.

Jean Kirschtein - or rather, what they've turned him into - is waiting.

"Good evening, Jean."

"Good evening."

Armin stands a foot away from him, blue eyes moving to the monitor that reassures him that the other is in good shape. Technology back at the laboratory was improving. A couple of years ago, it would have taken far longer to bring them to whatever standards they had for physical and mental health back then. He clasps his hands together - on second thought, don't, he thinks and then moves them awkwardly to cross over his chest - and smiles at his charge.

Jean looks up from the even, white stitches on the hem of his shirt and blinks at him through bronze irises and narrowed eyes, a crease ghosting between his brows after if trying to scrutinize him. His hair is uncombed, but not irritatingly messy

"Since you've been doing great, and there haven't been any problems at all, I figured it was about time you see the rest of the building."

There's a beat of silence veiled by the beeping machine, but Jean is thankfully not sullen enough to make this difficult.

"Alright," he says and pushes himself off the bed. Armin gives him a small smile of thanks and guides him to the empty hallway, and they walk down the short maze of claustrophobic corridors and automatic doors emblazoned with glowing numbers.

Jean has a number, too: 4-7. Armin doesn't use numbers unless his superiors are around. He knows they don't like the subjects being treated, well, as if they still have lives, because they don't. Easier to send borderline emotionless resurrected corpses to do the fighting than condemning the living youth to their own deaths. Armin has learned over time that this is the lesser of two evils, and therefore said nothing and agreed silently, even as Eren's fists would slam into the table and launch yet another tirade until Mikasa's hand would pull him back into his seat. Eren doesn't visit their building much, but they see enough of each other at home, and that is enough.

He could have just implanted the map of the building into Jean's system, like every command and face and name he has to learn, but he can do that later. And he will, he promises, because he is an obedient worker, but for now, he only wants to walk.

Somehow, they end up at the very back of the building. Armin has been few several times, when no one else walks the wide, empty hallways in the area and the din of voice and machine is muted with distance and walls. The windows are perfectly clear, leaving no room for walls as they take up one side from floor to ceiling. It's peaceful, and he wants to soothe his perpetually frayed nerves. He is expected to look over his charge - training had been finished in the afternoon - until 22:00, and so he shall.

The city is breathtaking.

From here, at least. The sky is a solid expanse of dark gray, but the buildings hold the stars in exchange. Skyscrapers outlined with orange and blue, buildings glowing with a thousand pinpricks of gold, shuttles zooming across the air in streaks of green and hovering in red. It shines and pulses, lights smoothly transitioning from one color to the next, the souls of tens of thousands caught in the erstaz lights that shield them from the empty world beyond the walls that rise above them, mirrors that encase and reflect the buildings at the edges and make it seem as if the city goes on forever, a land without borders; free, endless.

It comes every time he goes here. He breathes in deeply, smelling metal and the strange tang of artificial air, turns to Jean with some sort of a curve to his lips.

"It used to look like what people called a starry sky. Then they added the bigger neon lights, and now it just looks like..." He almost chuckles. "Well, a city."

"A starry sky?" Jean squints into the distance, as if the dark would peel away to reveal a new world.

"A sky full of stars," Armin says simply, almost lamely, because he isn't at all sure that the idea of stars is anywhere in Jean's brain yet. "Like a million tiny pinpricks of light up there." He takes out his tab and searches for an image, zooming in on the first picture the net offers him and holds the small device in between them, the projection of an indigo-violet sky silhouetted with trees and studded with a scattering of stars shining on their pale faces.

The next result is a moving, spherical projection, and Armin feels his fingers weaken around his tab as the night sky hundreds of fleeting years ago circles slowly before his eyes, constellations glowing a little brighter than the rest. They stand suspended, speechless with awe, for an infinity that could stretch from a minute to forever, breath bated.

"It's...beautiful," Jean says finally, leaning back slightly. In the two weeks of his artificial existence, it must be the first time he has used the word. There wasn't anything beautiful about the white walls and metal plates that surrounded them, not in the blue lights or the meaningless images and certificates on display on the screen in the lobby. Not in the technology thrumming throughout the whole building and the whole city; no, it isn't beautiful in they way they want.

"It is."

And somehow they end up sitting on the floor, legs crossed and knees pressed up against the thick glass and shoulders pressing on shoulders through fabric. The tile is cold, through their pants and on the palms of their hands but it's fine, really, they think as they transform back into children again, eyes alight with the wonders the world they have never seen.

The world almost slows. The only sky is the one between them, the artificial image wavering in the ether.

Somewhere in the back of his mind is Hanji, Mikasa, Moblit, important names of superiors, authorities. They tell him that one thing can lead to another, and this has the potential to become a starting point. Of the possibility of deeper human emotion working its way into Jean's mind, of the hurt that will follow, of disobedience and honesty and insolence, of the terror in his eyes as he walks to the Titans, to death, now that he has the idea of feelings like fear, and it will grip him like a vice.

But it will not, he promises. Nothing will happen.

The door slides open with a soothing purr and Mikasa walks in casually, her scarf untied and draped around her shoulders. She glances at them, dark eyes searching silently for any sign of problems and, seeing nothing drastic, settles down on her own bed to finish her coffee. The quiet is nice; not silence, but white noise like a gentle rushing of water, late night city noise and the constant hum of machines. Armin peels off his socks and scoots up so that his head sinks into the pillows at the end of his bed, buries himself into the blankets.

"Armin," Eren says from above him, "what happens when a subject develops feelings?"

"Eren," Mikasa warns.

Armin closes his eyes and pulls the covers from his face, exhaling audibly. "Well. It hasn't happened before, as far as I know," he begins slowly. "But I think the military wouldn't see it as that big of a problem unless it starts a revolution. It would be the subject's problem; after all, it will be them developing things like fear and love and then fearing death. One of the first things we do is program it to be unconditionally obedient, no matter what order, so it shouldn't be any problem to us, either."

The loud, drawn-out sigh grates against his ears, and the sheets come back up to cover his head.

"It isn't living people we're doing this to, Eren."

The bed is made, the machines still waiting to be turned on, the strips dangling from their tubes on the metal stand. Jean turns around when the door shuts with a solid thump.

"Good morning, Jean."

"Good morning."

And so it goes. Armin asks him questions, the same ones he always does, the ones others use. It's a stiff conversation of nothing more than questions replied with a muttering of "yes" and "no". Armin perches himself on the chair, tab balanced precariously on his knees as Jean sits on the narrow bed, in front of him, like always, the top of his shirt unbuttoned, pulled back to the right to reveal the short, thin incisions dug into the sensitive skin between the base of his neck and his shoulder.

He takes the first strip and inserts it into the first slit, following it with a second, and the last, hands steady and quick as they push the thin metal halfway through. He turns to the screens on the wall to his right, fingers flying over buttons and commands and blocks of text with practiced, concentrated fluidity. From the corners of his eyes, he sees the edges of the strips pulse with lights in sync with the bars on screen, the numbers above them counting down smoothly, short blocks of text rolling across the screen beside it.

Vital information. Combat techniques. Weapon information. Everything from simple salutes, codes, to operating the maneuver gear, every minute detail from the placement of fingers to center of balance, all of it beginning from the flat end of the strips and spreading across Jean's lanky body as if he were a cloth and it was paint, dripping into his system like fluid in an IV. It was important not to overdo it, only a few tens of gigabytes a day. It was a longer process than others expected, taking a little under a couple of hours

Armin leans back in his chair, staring into the empty air for almost an eternity before deciding to read deeper into Jean's information on his tab. Technically 26 years old (though his body frozen in his 23 year old self, if that made a difference). German bloodlines from father's side, French from mother. Used to live in Trost. Participated in sports events in school, grades higher than average. Father died from sickness, mother in a shuttle accident, lost a younger brother in the same attack he died in.

His breathes in deeply, clicking his tab shut and replacing it in his bag, opting instead to survey his subject as the numbers for the last strip read 73% left to complete.

He still can't quite place his finger on the color of his hair - yes, a couple of people have cracked confused jokes about it in the lounge and he may have smiled a little. But it went well with the rest of him, his slightly tan skin and bronze eyes. Sturdy and earthy. The flickering glow of blue and yellow outline the shell of his ear, over his cheekbone and nose, tracing the contours of his angular face. Jean has his elbows on his knees, looking down at the floor, his head bowed and tilted a little to the side to show the smooth, long column of his neck.

Armin exhales, eyes flickering down to his lap, involuntarily pushing his glove back the slightest bit to reveal the small, black line branded into his skin forever. He folds his arms in front of him wordlessly and stares blankly at the glowing screen, even as his eyes begin to burn and his hopelessness rise.

It isn't a busy schedule at all, given that they are younger and have the easiest jobs in the building. Of course, their own training had been exhaustive, but now he that he has everything committed to memory, it's been a breeze. Armin settles back into reading into his book on the evolution of Titans - not, like Connie suggested, dramatic, torrid romances - as Jean rests on the bed. One of the earliest records describe Titans as disproportionate creatures that towered at 2-6 meters, some even taller. Such records included sketches of protruding stomachs or heavy upper bodies supported by smaller, thinner limbs...

"Those are Titans?"

He looks up to see narrow, tawny eyes staring at him with such an intensity that he almost startles, his heart stuttering a bit, before he brushes his hair back and lowers the tab so the projection doesn't take up his view. "Yes," he replies. And then he remembers that Jean was killed by one of its kind, though the ones that rampage outside the walls at this moment; equally disproportionate giants, but with dark, leathery skin and thin tongues darting over larger teeth and sharper canines, cracked claws and almost glossy scales overlapping on their forearms and legs. He swipes the book away, and when the next cover shows up, he feels the beginning of heat prickling softly on his cheeks.

"And that's..."

"Just stories." Love, tragedy, hope, every emotion.

Worry crept into the edges of his mind. Was he getting bored? Subjects didn't feel bored, or curious; of course they were allowed to ask, just not do anything more, because that wasn't their purpose. But for some godforsaken reason, Armin's thin walls waver, and he asks, voice ghosting above a whisper, "Do you want me to read to you?"

"If that's fine..."

And it is. So Armin begins, as if he spun the words himself, as if they are anywhere but here, and fills the stale air with beautiful, haunting nonsense. The first story was the a maiden of the earth and a son of the sky, of feet leaving wild flowers like the ones in her hair, of snow-white wings and eyes like morning skies. They would meet on a cliff, where the land jutted out into the vast expanse of the skies. She would sing the ballads of her people and he would take her into the sky to touch stars. On the cliff they sat, until his own father cursed them - they crumbled, immortality gone, his wings blackened ash and her flowers dirt, and they fell, together, into the icy depths below them.

The second was a lonely young paralian, who every day grew more and more in love with the sea. And some days he would stand on a boulder skipping rocks, some wading into the endless blue-green-grey, some chasing after the reflections of stars as he rowed his raft away from the shore. One day he said, to the child that wrote and drew in the dry, white sand, that he was going to find the world in the sea beyond the waves. So the child bid the disappearing raft goodbye and have fun, and then weeks later decided that the young man was doing so, because he wasn't coming back.

The third was a someone who loved a someone, who opened letters smudged with foxhole dirt and the imaginary whiff of smoke. They read them in the empty kitchen, hearing bombs and feeling ridged metal through gloved fingers and remembering days of cake batter and clumsy, spontaneous dancing to nothing; until the sun would return and they would tuck their grandfather's letters back into the drawer, because their someone never wrote and never came.

And then the fourth, and the fifth, and the sixth and the beyond came, people who knew how to love or were taught how to. The deadly, beautiful sea and rising stone towers and book shops smelling of old coffee and petrichor under awnings. A tumult of emotions crashing like waves on rock, seeping into a restrained, forbidden mind - gradually, like the way water dents rock over time.

Armin sees sand and smells the cold: sharp, jagged, salty. Feels soft feathers between the gaps of his fingers and lightning and explosions wreak tremors through his form, foam crackling gently over the skin of his toes. And it is wonderful, it is exhilarating. And the last thing he sees before he is drowning in his own voice was the flash of the probability of something in the warm bronze eyes across him.

He wakes with a blanket over him.

"Jean?"

A crinkling, the soft murmur of a body disturbing crisp linen. "Yes?"

"Thank you."

A pause. "You're welcome."

"Good night, Jean."

"Good night, Armin."

Hanji taps him on the shoulder. It's afternoon and he's watching the subjects at the gym, and before he can greet her with any formalities she plops herself down beside him.

"I found something interesting," she says, waving a small strip in front of him. "Apparently 4-7 was a wonderful artist! I'm curious, actually, if we can give him a tab and get him to draw and he'll be able to make art as good as he did. Do you think you could try later after training?"

"Yes ma'am," Armin answers, taking the strip hesitantly and pocketing it.

Later Jean is leaning against the wall, because he doesn't lie on the bed unless he's sleeping. Armin plugs in the strip, and immediately the screen presents him a collection of sketches and paintings, moving across the screen to arrange themselves. He zooms in on a file, a portrait of a young man surrounded by more drawings of him. Fingers numb and shaking ever so slightly, he swipes from drawing to drawing, drinking in every detail and stroke.

Jean drew people and buildings and plants, even though there were no flowers in a place like this. There were alleyways and the skyline, the interior of a shuttle, a view from a window, a tunnel. A rather messy, probably scrapped drawing of dancers, a dark room streaked brightly glowing neon on their clothes. He finds more people: a woman and a young boy that resembled him, a girl reading, individuals in common, everyday scenes. He swears a couple of them look similar to Mikasa.

And there is the boy from the first file, portraits, spontaneous sketches, paintings, even. Marco, some of them read. Tan skinned, freckled, with bright eyes and an even more dazzling smile - "Sorry I can't ever draw your smile right" scrawled along the bottoms, and Armin can almost see...Marco? shaking his head and smiling softly. He almost smiles himself. There are longer things written, but already this feels too personal and he regrets it, he was so caught up and awed. On the screen right now is two hands with loosely interlocked fingers, zeros etched carefully on their wrists.

The sheets rustle and Armin startles, the files scattering and sending the screen to its default display. "Hello, Jean."

He blinks. "Hello," he ventures, and it almost rises up like a question. "What are those?"

"Um." He rubs at his arm absently, chewing his lip. "Well, one of the higher-ups is curious, and I'm asking you: what do you think you can do with an expanse of blank space and unlimited tools and colors?" he asks slowly.

The other stares at the blank screen before taking it, and wordlessly beginning to draw.

Armin asks for his tab back later that night, before he leaves, and receives it as they say their goodbyes. He finds him fingers skimming over his bag, feeling for the hard metal as he walks to the elevator, out the building, rides home on a shuttle, trudges to their apartment, his room. He doesn't open it until he has curled up on himself in a rumpled mess of blankets and-

Oh.

It's him.

He stares, every stroke and blot imprinting themselves on his eyes, from the sole figure that is him to the silvery stretch of sea and star-lit sky; blue, black, gold. Jean drew him. Heart pounding, he puts the tab down and lies, staring at its side and the hued light reflected faintly on the smooth underside of Eren's bed above him.

Later, when he wakes and blinks the image of Jean on the dark insides of his eyelids, the drawing is the first thing he sees again and he feels something rising, swelling inside his chest, as if someone set his heart gently on a soft, fuzzy pillow. It isn't really realizing, it's more of confirming an idea, and it leaves an aching sort of thrill.

Armin feels something for Jean.

He looks down at the floor through the glass tabletop when Hanji scrutinizes the drawing. He is required to report any progress whatsoever, and Hanji personally asked him to do it, so he can't withhold information. She hums thoughtfully, fingers wrapped around her chin, and hands him his tab back when she has the file copied onto hers.

She looks as if she wants to say something. But she doesn't.

"About the drawing," Armin begins nervously. "You, er-It was beautiful. thank you."

The flush on Jean's skin is almost indiscernible, but it's there, and Armin feels that feeling again. "You're welcome," Jean says, scratching the back of his head awkwardly, and it hangs in the cool air between them, the miles between bed and chair. It's evening again. They sit in silence. They can go to the lounge with the others, the library, anywhere, but-

"The back of the building," he gets out, feeling almost embarrassed. "Last week. Do you want to go there again?"

"Alright." Jean nods and stands up, waits for him and then follows him out the door and down the hallways, again wandering through clear corridors and doors, away from the center of the building, from people, until it gives way to the wide, empty space of refuge and its crystalline windows. Breathing is suddenly easier. They walk as if the floor is eggshell, as if their faint reflections beneath them would wince with pressure, stand in front of the windows as if the glass will shatter on their touch.

The city will never be the kind of beautiful, breathtaking, stunning they want.

"How did it come to this?"

"What?" Armin turns his head slowly, pushing past the reverie. The lights have dazzled him again and it takes a while to get the spots out of his vision.

"I liked the stories better," Jean says, almost inaudible, almost embarrassed. "The past sounded better. Before all this. Before us." He gestures limply to the world beyond the glass. "Suddenly it's so hard to find it beautiful now."

And with a sickening twist in his stomach, Armin realizes that he is too far gone. He realizes his mistake - Jean's mind is no longer occupied by only the data that has been implanted into it. The first domino has tipped over. He has ideas now, he has learned and heard what was unnecessary for him, and now he wants, he wants things that he can never have. Because they no longer exist inside or beyond the Walls, and because he will be shipped out in six days and he will be damned into a fight that will only end when he is physically dead.

Armin stares into the distance aimlessly, the corners of his eyes burning and his fingernails digging short, curved indentations on his palms. He has almost fallen, and now he is teetering over the edge and the stone is crumbling beneath his fingers and giving way. He is damned.

It feels as if the only thing he can hold on to to keep from falling is a cruel, sharp blade, and he grips it tightly.

"Armin?"

It hurts. He isn't sure he can hold on. Why, of all times, of all places, why for a dead man whose counter has reached zero so long ago, with another person?

"Yes?"

He stands rooted, melded to the cold floor, heart pounding almost painfully in his chest and blood thrumming through his veins at a dizzying rate as Jean closes the space between them. Warm sparks crackle faintly when their lips touch and Armin almost reels back, but he doesn't, because his feet hold him to his spot even though emotion surges up his esophagus, giddiness choking and anguish suffocating. He feels himself falling, blade and lifeline abandoned as he tumbles into the abyss, tipped over by a simple touch of lips that just about leeches him of breath.

He is so, so torn.

And then it's over, as if a wave crashed over them and is now bubbling and foaming at their feet, and Armin is no longer paralyzed. Neither of them can look each other in the eye. He closes his eyes, tries to calm himself.

Their eyes meet, for the briefest moment; Armin sees life and Jean sees the bottomless ocean. They don't know what to do. The marks on the insides of their wrists do not help. A null and a zero - it almost wrenches a bitter smile from his lips. Why was it always impossible things that he wanted so much?

"I'm sorry," comes the whisper, evaporating into artificial air, responded with, "I'm sorry, too."

Armin's eyes flicker upwards and to the hallways hesitantly before he starts toward them, and Jean follows him silently, dead heart twisting with guilt and ache because he knows.

The sky and the city fades from view, and their footfalls are louder than thunder.

"We're sending them off in six days," Hanji calls out again from the meeting room after she has dismissed them.

The coffee scalds his throat as half of the cup goes down, leaving it raw and stinging.

It is Monday morning. There wasn't work yesterday, and for a moment he turns into a typical teenager and wishes those days would last, longing for the warmth of his bed and the solitude of their room - no one but him entered it save for night time - though that doesn't exactly distance him from the plague of visions branded into the insides of his eyelids.

Jean, the city, the windows, again and again; Marco, a cliff, freckles, tan skin, white skies, colored light, Marco, Jean, wings, songs, Hanji, numbers, lips, graphite, Jean, Marco, null, zero null zero Jean dead six days-

The door slides open and they greet each other. Same old, same old, as he goes about his schedule. Neither speak, though he isn't entirely sure it's more uncomfortable than actually talking about what happened. It will be over in six days, he will be gone.

As if Jean was even his.

He steels himself not to look at the small, dark line on his wrist. He doesn't have time for this. He has work, has friends that are family, all that he truly needs. He has a life better compared to most, he should feel sorry for Jean, who was robbed of a future and now physically resurrected to serve humanity - though unfeeling of, as they claimed, "the glory" that came along with it. But then, they are dead, living people are not allowed to enlist as soldiers. Not anymore.

Tuesday afternoon, Armin distracts himself at the gym, going through a half a book on early 25th century war and history. It's fairly easy to keep Jean out of his mind with the book and Connie squawking and Sasha snorting with laughter beside him, and he allows himself to even smile at some crude joke about a superior's stature and just how many cups of coffee Moblit needs in six hours to keep himself together what with work and Hanji's antics.

("Seven," Moblit confirms tiredly, and hands Mina a coupon to the vending machines for having the closest guess: nine)

The next day, after physical training, Armin manages to speak. "About what happened last week..." He doesn't sit rigidly anymore; his shoulders and spine grown lax and he slumps a bit in the chair. "I didn't actually exp...I just - Jean, you are aware that that isn't allowed. I'm sorry."

Jean colors, the flush spreading down to the base of his neck as he runs his hand through his hair repeatedly. "No, I should be sorry - and I am. I shouldn't have done that." His hand runs down to his forehead and covers his eyes, sighing quietly.

By the time Armin speaks again, the silence has seeped through their skin and left their bones feeling like lead. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"This, er, whole thing...don't think I don't know I'm not supposed to feel, Armin. But I do now, I feel something and I just couldn't stop myself."

"...the stories." He can't force his voice above a whisper.

"I-I think? Yes, they were - a factor, but no, there's more than that, but I don't think that matters." He inhales sharply. "You already know about my feelings, obviously." Jean's eyes dart nervously to him and the walls behind him, fidgeting a little with his hands.

"And I reciprocate them."

Jean blinks. Pales, then grows lax, as he releases the breath caught in his throat. "I-"

Armin wants to touch him, the warmth of his palm seeping into his, the scent of him to fill his lungs, to feel himself drowning in eyes like honey. But he cannot, he will never be able to. "But you know we can't" - so soft that he's almost only mouthing them, fire searing and lacing through his chest. Maybe he says them aloud his voice only sounds distant, muffled. He can't. "It's not going to happen. You know full well why." He apologizes too damn much for his own good. "I'm sorry."

Jean only presses his lips into a tight line and nods.

It is three days before Jean is to be sent off that their walls begin to crumble.

"Just give me this one time, Armin, please."

And Armin's defenses go to rack and ruin with this sole plea; when Jean's lips press against his, he does not run away. Instead he melts into it, the lightweight he is, and soon his head is spinning and he vaguely hopes the other can't feel his heart thundering in his chest. Shivers run down his spine when Jean's fingers brush his nape underneath his hair then down to the curve of his back, ghosting tentatively over the shirt. He will give him this one time, willingly, openly, because Jean likes him and he likes Jean. The rest of the world be damned, he thinks hazily as the pressure and warmth on his lips recede and he has to restrain himself from following almost blindly.

Jean's face is flushed a dark pink and Armin almost finds it endearing.

For a moment they can pretend - no matter how pathetic that seems. The skies turn the room a grayish sort of orange through the window. They perch themselves on the bed's edge, kisses coming naturally now. One after the other, lazy, slow, and warm.

Again and again they meet, until fingers become bold enough to tangle in hair and cup jaws and trace collarbones, lips moving to a nonsensical, impetuous waltz. No words exchanged, only this. A few precious minutes that stretch as if they were hours, small infinities. If he imagines hard enough in his pretend, he can think Jean smells like earth, paints, and sunlight.

It's like the first story; though Jean thinks himself of the earth and Armin of the water and they're on the edge waiting for someone to end them, the door to slide and hum open, but that only forces sense and emotions into overdrive.

One month ago, if you told Armin he would end up with his frangible heart in the hands of a dead man, he would have only shaken his head. If you told him he would have locked and tangled lips and fingers with said dead man, he would have furrowed his brows and laughed nervously at how laughable it is.

And yet...

He sighs as he breaks away - for real now, he promises himself - and brushes the hair from his face. It's time to go home and he's missed dinner, but he can buy anything downstairs, anyway. He murmurs his goodbye and rises, but a hand catches his wrist gently and he turns around, still, heart speeding up and chest burning as Jean brings his hand to his lips tenderly, warmly.

Right upon the line that marks him null.

"I'm going tomorrow."

"I know."

"Armin?"

"Jean."

"I'm scared."

Armin lets out a strangled sound, pulls him in close for a bruising kiss and wraps his arms around his neck. Shame and despair and anguish taunt him from the darker, farther crevices of his mind but he doesn't care. Fingers intertwine, the marks of null and zero brushing against each other. They do not see it.

They pull apart, breathless, touch their foreheads together but don't look into each others' eyes. Silence reigns.

He put his arms around Jean and holds him through the silent shudders that wrack his body, wordlessly screaming to the world, the system, how unfair, how wrong, they don't deserve any of this. Curse the Titans, the counters, and above all himself. His mind thrashes inside his aching head because oh God it's his fault this happened. Jean should not even know what fear is, let alone love.

Armin does not believe in Fate; not really, no. But now, he hates Fate so, so much for bestowing this misery upon him. Is it that in this one world, his existence is so unworthy - what had he ever done wrong?

This time, for the first time, they let the tears fall.

Later, when they have subsided, he brushes Jean's tawny hair from his damp forehead and murmurs words and promises. Not the falsehoods that tell him it will be alright, for neither of them are fools. He takes them worlds away, offers escape and abandoning here. They wonder what would bring them together in another life, the meeting of their eyes would bring their numbers to perfect zeroes, if they wouldn't have it and just drift wherever the wind carries them. Years from now, in future or past, when the Walls are nonexistent and they aren't fighting every minute for survival.

Armin wants peace, with Jean. But in this world, he can only yearn for the impossible.

He feels the broken "I love you" breathed quietly into the dip of his collarbone. He doesn't remember it when he wakes up.

Armin gazes with unseeing eyes as the subjects move in lines on the court, rows perfectly, eerily straight. Jean does not look for him, because a turn of the head will mark him a deviant, reveal them to everyone. They were already lining up when he got there.

Connie stretches himself, spine arching. "Thank the Walls that's over and done with! It sucked getting assigned to a mindless goon. Slow as hell. It took me a week to get him walking a normal pace, can you believe-"

Sasha drapes herself across his now slumped back. "This is like watching your kid graduate. I think. Except they're dead grown people and you aren't really proud of them."

Armin thinks that at some point, Jean would have probably wanted to fly (he would deny, he would) and tries to make something happy of it. But then he thinks of the Titans ahead and his lips turn down at the corners. He traces imperfect little circles on the glass in front of him, deaf to conversations, eyes lidded. His fingers are chilled, the black like stark against the pale skin of his wrist. The pain resides on his chest, pulsing thick and low and painful, and when his eyes catch the 4-7 glowing blue on Jean's arm from the distance, he breaks.

He feels the shards, feels himself collapse and shatter on the inside, one million searing fragments. Like the stars. The speckle the corners of his vision and he screws his eyes shut, forces his breath to even out.

It hurts so damn much.

The jet engines roar to life, consuming his ears even through the thick glass. It's alright, it's only another jet, he thinks, and yet the other half says it's not fucking alright because he's lost so much. But did was he even his in the first place? He leans back and watches as it lifts itself off the cold metal ground, windowless, and into the vast infinity of smoky gray sky. He counts the seconds as the giants wan, heading west, and then eventually, finally, disappear. Thirteen. Gone forever.

Later, he enters the room 4-7 and finds the place spotless, untouched, not a wrinkle on the bedsheets. He lowers his palm to them gingerly and finds no warmth - no trace of Jean, of them, of what they shared for the briefest moment of time. He sits in the chair, staring at the blinding, perfect white, eyes sliding shut.

He is alone.

He takes himself wrwaway, and sees Jean beside him, long legs dangling over the lapping waves underneath their dock; the sun is hot and the breeze warm against his hands. It fills him, like warmed honey dripping down his spine and he smiles. He sees home, sees them lying on grass and sitting on beautiful old ruins and drinking coffee on a porch - like in the books. Impossible things. He sees them running across the meadows, hears clear, silvery laughter scattered by the wind. He sees Eren and Mikasa holding hands over the dining table and hears her rare laugh, smells flowers and salt and books.

He thinks of the little cottage on the shore, the cliff, a flower shop, a small, cozy apartment. He wants to come home to all of them, to not need to open the door to know Jean is always waiting.

He longs for another, peaceful home.

But Jean is not coming home, because he will be used for humanity and discarded when his body has been torn apart by the Titans. Jean will not appear on his doorstep with a boyish grin and open arms, he will not even contact him. He will not ever see him again. Their soldiers do not come home.

How utterly tragic, he thinks, and when another wave of pain crashes over him he clamps his hand over his mouth and grits his teeth until they hurt.

And then he imagines he feels the brush of knuckles at his cheek and looks up at Jean. Almost every bit as strong and beautiful and curious and expectant as he was only yesterday. Almost, but not quite. He asks if he wants to go to the back of the building again, to see the empty sky and the neon city; Armin whispers "alright" and takes his hand and there's warmth somewhere in there. He walks down the narrow hallways and sharp turns until it gives way to the vast room and feels the smile coming - here is where they kissed first...

But when he turns around there is only gray-white walls and tile and his own shadow.

He leans against the window and waits for the stars that will never come.

written for tumblr user jeanere for the jearmin secret santa 2014

i've uploaded to ao3 and dA last year, I keep forgetting to upload this here on ffn. pfssh. on another note, I really loved working on this but now I reread it and I...mmmh...*narrows eyes*