The sky was dark, mottled with stars, and the moonlight was almost enough to illuminate the land below. A gentle breeze put a chill to the air, and the overgrown grass swayed gently with it, bending ever so slightly as dew started to settle. Out here, away from camp, it was peaceful, but he was too upset to notice that.

Anyone a mile away could have heard his approach, just from how the fallen leaves frantically crunched beneath his weight. His footsteps were disorganized and fast, and more than one time that night did his boot catch under a root, tripping him up. However, each time he fell, he would get right back up like clockwork.

His nose was cherry red, a mixture from the impending cold of the night and his sniffling. The tips of his ears and fingers would soon match the hue, but he didn't notice the frigid air even as it wracked his body with shivers. Instead, his mind was focused on something much more heavy that night.

Marco.

It had already been two weeks since he saw his friend sitting dead on one of the cobblestone streets. Blood had been everywhere, painting the city red, yet his eyes had been able to pick out the corpse from the numerous others. He remembered how his own blood had seemed to run cold at the sight of the unnaturally pale body that had been ripped viciously in half. The worst part to him, however, was that he would never know exactly how Marco died. Anyone that had witnessed his friend's death had already been scraped off of the streets. There would be no closure for him.

His breaths now came out in puffs as the first tears started to trail down his face. He felt his throat constrict and knew he'd be sobbing soon. His fists clenched by his sides as he continued to run away from camp. He didn't need anyone knowing that he was upset. Especially not when everyone had already moved on, as if watching their fellow comrades getting eaten was nothing.

He hated how weak he felt.

Finally, when the burning in his legs became noticeable, he stopped. His body hunched over, and he placed his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath in the breaks between his whimpers. His eyes glazed over as he stared at the ground, not focusing on anything in particular.

Marco hadn't deserved to die. He always had so much spirit bubbling within him, cheer that he had needed to share with the world before his premature death. But then again, did anyone actually deserve to die at the hands of the Titans?

He screwed his eyes shut as he numbly fell down to his knees, now gasping as the tears streamed down steadily. His stomach lurched, and he felt the need to heave, to just let all of his frustrated desperation out. Instead, he pressed his lips together, finally allowing himself to just cry into his hands.

He could've saved Marco. Why hadn't he just fought alongside his friend instead of obeying the orders that had been barked at him? They could have fought together. And if one of them had to of died, he would have spared his own life to keep his friend alive. But he had abandoned his gut instincts that day and kept his mouth shut as he mindlessly obeyed his orders.

"Why," he sobbed aloud, "can't I move on?"

He was just thinking out loud, not expecting anyone or anything to answer him. The crickets were the only company he had out there, chirping in a jarring disharmony from the rest of the tranquility of the night.

"Why?" He rambled again, his voice getting a little more loud and sloppy as despair consumed him.

The crickets were starting to hurt his ears and the gentle wisps of wind felt like they were going to consume him. He choked on a sob, now digging his fingers into the earth, trying to drown out all of the noise. Finally, at the sound of a small sigh and the snap of a book closing, silence seemed to consume him. He wished for the noise again as he very suddenly realized he wasn't alone.

"Because," the calm voice started, coming out rather tentative, "Marco was the only person you've ever truly cared for, and he's gone. Now, there's no one left to care for you either."

He slowly looked up, the last of his tears falling off of his face. His own eyes, which quickly became defensive now, met the stormy blue ones of the speaker. As another gentle gust of wind blew his blonde hair against his pale face, and he dropped his gaze. He was sitting in the damp grass, back resting against a tree with a book comfortably nestled on top of his propped up legs. His fingers, now terribly pink from the cold, clutched the ends of the tattered book. A lone lamp beside him cast a soothing glow over him. Jean should have really noticed his presence earlier, but he had been too stricken by grief. Despite the earlier confidence in his voice, he now seemed entirely self conscious as he shifted. Perhaps he had become aware that had intruded on a moment not meant for his eyes.

"What are you doing out here, Armin?" Jean's voice immediately became accusing as he suppressed his earlier emotions. If it hadn't for the redness in his face and watery eyes, it would have been impossible to tell he had just been crying a few moments earlier.

"I always come out here," Armin began, holding his book up slightly. "Why are you here?" His voice didn't hold any hostility and he averted his gaze, not wanting to make direct eye contact with Jean. He just wanted this situation to diffuse.

"What do you mean you always come out here? I think someone would have noticed if you were sneaking away every night." As the sentence rolled from his lips, he knew in the back of his mind that he was just being silly, that Armin hadn't purposefully wanted to see him when he was weak. Yet, Jean responded like a cornered animal. "You are Eren's friend after all. I bet he saw me slipping out of camp and put you up to this!"

The blonde flinched as Jean's voice gradually grew louder and more violent. "Eren didn't put me up to anything. He's not like that," defense slipped into Armin's voice. "I come out here to read every night. It's the only quiet place around here."

This time, he held his book up to where it shielded his face from the hateful glare of the other. The book was a deep olive green, and the pages had grown to be a nice yellow over time. It was easy to tell the book was well read from the frayed corners along the edges of the covers, and Jean recognized it from how the other boy carried it along with him all the time. Finally, doubt flickered in his expression as rationality took over, and he realized Armin didn't have any malicious intents. There was a few seconds of heavy, awkward silence between the two.

Armin slowly lowered his book down into his lap and nervously fiddled with the edges of the pages before taking a deep breath. "Now you know why I'm out here, so please tell me why you're out here." The expression on Jean's face turned aggravated again, so he quickly added, "I'm not like some of the other guys. I'm not asking you to get something I can blackmail you with later. I just don't like seeing anyone upset."

There was just something about how genuine and caring the other male sounded that greatly irked Jean. "Everyone is right about you," he hotly exclaimed, startling Armin. "You're such a girl! You can't even carry your own equipment half the time and you're so damn emotional-"

Armin's fingers tightly curled against the cover of his book at the familiar insult. It wasn't anything he hadn't heard from the other soldiers, but the blow to his pride never seemed to soften no matter how many different times it was uttered. His fingers shakily opened his book to where he had been reading before and tuned the other out.

Jean's taunting subsided as he realized the other wasn't listening to him any longer. "What are you doing?"

"Reading," Armin simply stated, but Jean didn't fail to notice how his jaw clenched. "Why are you still here?" The blonde after a few moments of silence.

Why am I still here?

The answer was obvious, but he didn't want to admit it to himself. He had spent all these days with pent up emotion inside of him about Marco's death, and despite damaging his ego, he wanted to vent to someone, for them to tell him it was going to be okay even if it wasn't. And he knew from the boy's actions from when they were in training, that Armin would probably be one of the only people that wouldn't laugh in his face.

"I'm sorry," he hung his head as he quietly apologized. It was definitely something he wasn't used to doing.

Armin drummed his fingers against one of the pages in the book for a few seconds before he answered. "It's fine. Now are you going to say what's bothering you enough that you came out here in the dead of night?"

Jean weakly nodded before lifting his saddened gaze to meet Armin's. "It's Marco," he said and the younger boy nodded, as if expecting that answer all along. "I get that everyone else mourns when someone close to them dies in combat, but shortly after they act like they're fine and continue their jobs. But I can't do that," he admitted.

"Maybe that's because it seems like Marco is the only person you've been close to here. You seem to make enemies with a lot of us," Armin tried to gently state. "It helps to have a friend to help you along."

"But none of us are ever actually fine after seeing someone we love get eaten," Armin added. "But it's our job to protect the civilians from dying the same death, so most of us just have to pretend like everything's fine to get our job done."

"But Marco-" He gasped, not being able to finish his sentence as his eyes started to tear up again. He couldn't believe he was actually going to cry in front of someone about something so trivial. When had he become this pathetically weak?

"It's okay," Armim soothed, reaching over to place a hand on Jean's knee. The other barely registered the touch as he started to cry again. "It's going to be fine."

Armin waited for Jean to collect himself again, and when he did, he asked the most absurd question the male had ever heard. "Did you like Marco as... more than a friend?"

"What? No!" His eyes widened in bewilderment as to why Armin would even ask that. Being attracted to the same gender was basically taboo in their civilization. It was something that you just didn't do.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by it. I was just asking!" The blonde held his hands up to signify he meant no harm.

"Yeah, whatever," Jean closed his eyes and rubbed his temples as a headache from crying pounded at his skull. "If you tell anyone about tonight, about any of this, I will personally make sure you don't make it back from the first expedition we go on."

"I would never do that. I promise. And plus, I don't want Eren to know about tonight either," Armin laughed, causing Jean to give a rueful grin. That was something that they could both agree on.

Armin's laughter died down as his lamp ran out of fuel, and the light flickered out of existence. Only the moonlight shined down on them, barely illuminating each other's features.

"Jean?" The blonde's voice came out barely above a whisper.

"Yeah?"

"We should probably get back to camp before anyone notices one of us is gone," Armin suggested and Jean agreed.

They stumbled back silently, neither one sure of what to say.

A/N: This is my first Attack on Titan fanfiction, and I'm kind of scared I made Armin and Jean too OOC