Hi guys! Long time no see. I realize that this isn't my usual hetalia fic, but recently I found myself in a ton of new fandoms and lots of story ideas. There's no spoilers in this fic, but chapter 2 (the conclusion) will be different, you have been warned. Oh, and the update to my ongoing high school AU, An Awesome Junior Year, is on the way~!
It'd been a long day of training when Jean finally walked back into his dorm room. He hadn't expected anyone else to be in yet, considering he had taken the fastest shower possible. That said, he was surprised to find Marco sitting up in bed, smiling rather awkwardly and with his hands behind his back.
"H-hi, Jean," Marco stammered. "I didn't expect you to be back so soon." A light blush spread across his cheeks.
"I took a fast shower, I wanted to go to bed early," Jean replied drying his hair with a towel. "I didn't expect anyone to be here. I forgot you're out of training for a few weeks since you got hurt."
"Ah, yeah. Stupid landing gear malfunction made me dislocate my shoulder." Marco rubbed the back of his neck nervously.
"You must be bored when we go do combat training. You can only study the technical stuff for so long," Jean remarked.
"Actually, I haven't been bored at all!" Marco responded cheerfully and then instantly regretted saying it.
"Really? What have you been doing?"
"Uh, well see- I've, um..." Marco stammered out nervously.
"Marco?"'
"You have to promise not to laugh if I tell you," Marco demanded sheepishly.
"Of course I won't laugh. Especially not if it means this much to you," replied Jean.
"Ok, well, a few days ago, I was wandering down the hallways while you guys were out in the forest. I ran into one of the trainers and he seemed really upset that I wasn't training. Well I explained that I was hurt and he just seemed confused about it all, so he looked at me and told me to "make myself useful". I wasn't entirely sure how to do that, so I asked and he told me to go find the uniform people and ask them how I could help. It was easy to find them, and they were all really nice, and one lady told me I could help patch up the uniforms that got torn. So she taught me how to sew and it's actually really fun and yeah..." Marco said the whole thing in one breath before glancing bashfully at Jean.
Jean stared bewildered at Marco, trying to take in everything he'd just said. When Marco saw Jean's hesitance, he pulled out the jacket he had been patching up.
"See? I hid it when you came in because I didn't want anyone to know. Normally no one gets back so early," Marco explained.
"How do you do it? Sew I mean," Jean inquired.
"It's really easy! Sit here and I'll show you," Marco beamed patting the bed next to him.
Jean sat down with his towel around his neck and watched as Marco pulled out his needle and thread.
"See how the fabric has come undone here?" he asked Jean, pointing at a tear on the sleeve. Jean nodded. "I'm going to reconnect the two sides."
Marco pulled a length of thread off the spool before cutting it with a tiny pair of scissors. He threaded the needle, pulling both sides of the string to equal heights. He did a strange rolling motion with his fingers that tied the two pieces of string into a knot before speaking again.
"Now that the needle and string are ready I can fix the jacket," he explained.
Jean watched as Marco began to stick the needle from one side of the jacket to the other, slowly closing the gash in the fabric. He handled the thread delicately, and made small evenly-spaced stitches. In less than five minutes he was done.
"Ta-da," he announced, holding up the jacket for Jean to inspect.
"Won't the string come undone?" Jean asked.
"Nope. See how I tucked the string into itself to make a knot here and here? That'll keep everything in place," Marco answered.
"Neat trick. That'll come in handy if anyone ever needs stitches."
"Yeah, it would. I was thinking about trying to make something, actually."
"Make something? Like a shirt?" Jean inquired.
"Yeah, something like that," Marco replied.
"That reminds me of when I was younger. My mom made me a teddy bear. It was so soft and cuddly, I wish I still had it."
"I had a stuffed cow," Marco reminisced.
Jean shot him a bewildered look, and when Marco realized how silly that sounded, they both busted up laughing.
"I think I'm going to go to bed now," Jean said once he'd stopped laughing. "Training was exhausting today."
"I'll probably head to bed before too long myself. Oh! one last thing," Marco insisted as Jean started to head to his bed.
Jean paused and turned back to look at Marco.
"Thanks for not laughing," Marco finished.
"I'd never laugh at you," Jean replied genuinely. "You're my best friend."
Jean leaned down and gave the now-lightly blushing Marco a hug-he made sure to be gentle so he wouldn't hurt his shoulder-before getting up and going to his bed.
"Goodnight, Marco," Jean called from a few feet away.
"Goodnight, Jean," Marco answered.
By the time the other trainees came back from the showers, they were thankfully too tired to make much noise and wake up the sleeping Jean and Marco. If any of the other trainees had bothered to check, however, they would've found both boys were sleeping with smiles on their faces.