Armin counts down the days until it's his turn to do Maintenance. He knows he's probably the only person who gets excited about counting stock and fixing gear, but it's not so much the work he enjoys as the person he does it with. Because, unfortunately for him, his partner has been branded one of "Jean's Crew", and, as a friend of Eren's, talking to one of "Jean's Crew" is not only unthinkable, it's borderline treacherous. God forbid Armin should ever strike a conversation with the unattainable, optimistic wonder that is Marco Bodt anywhere outside of Maintenance. It would be a full-on-betrayal. Eren would probably sulk about it for a full two days, and that was a best case scenario - the worst being that he threw a tantrum, and, as all the boys in their bunker had discovered a few months previously when Eren had been told he was an "unthinkably average soldier" by Shadis, Eren's tantrums were filled with a force akin to that of a raging storm, and there was nothing that could contain it.
But Maintenance was different. Maintenance was mandatory. It wasn't so much Armin's choice to spend time with Marco (though if it was a choice, he would take it in a heartbeat). It was just chancce that Armin's surname happened to start with A and Marco's started with B, just like it was pure coincidence that Eren's started with J and Jean's started with K, and it wasn't so much a lie when Armin told Eren they couldn't switch partners. They couldn't. Not because Armin had checked with the Supervising Officers that they couldn't, but because Armin couldn't give up this chance to, to use Eren's own words, "fraternise with the enemy". And it looked like this would be his only chance until Eren stopped harbouring this childish feeling of resentment towards Jean for a reason unknown to Armin himself.
He needed this chance. In the beginning, when everyone had first realised Eren would be partnered with Jean, he'd been willing to switch. But then he'd actually spoken to Marco, and in these sessions he felt they'd come to completely understand each other. Marco told him all about his dreams to lay down his life to protect the King, and Armin in turn shared his desire to see the ocean. Marco liked the sound of the ocean. He liked to ask a lot of things about it, and guess what sort of sounds it would make. Whooshing sounds, like the wind, he decided eventually. And when he asked what colour it was, and Armin described the deepest, freest, coolest blue he could, Marco had smiled.
"That's an easy colour to imagine," he'd chuckled. "Blue as your eyes, right?"
And Armin had blushed. He hadn't been sure why, at the time. It had just made him a little angry and reduced him to a stuttering mess. But after a time he'd realised that he somehow knew the exact number of freckles on Marco's cheeks, and that hearing his name made his heart skip a beat, even if it was just snarling it in anger, and that when Marco brushes past him to grab something, or when he slaps him on the back in congratulations of a job well done, the warmth lingers on, and it makes his stomach cloud over with an electric feeling.
He was, most probably, completely infatuated with Marco Bodt. And, though he had yet to perform any form of test to prove this hypothesis, he liked to assume the fact that he dreamt of him almost every night, and that he found himself imagining what his arms felt like wrapped around him, and how his breath sounded when he had completely ran out of it and had to catch it back, and how his lips tasted, was a considerable amount of evidence in the arguments favour.
Armin wasn't usually a reckless or impulsive person, but, since it was for the sake of science, he decided he would test this theory at Maintenance. That was why his legs shook a little when Marco tapped him on the shoulder at dinner and said they better head over, and that was why his voice broke as they made small talk on their way over to inventory, and why his hands trembled slightly as he polished Marco's 3DMG.
"You've scratched it again," he sighed, trying to keep the conversation normal.
"Yeah," Marco chuckled back, reaching up to grab a box from a dusty old shelf. "I'm still working out how to use it, I guess. I keep bumping into trees and branches and Connie's blades. Thought he was going to cut straight through it last session."
Armin managed a weak smile. Marco turned back to him, beaming, and set the box on the table. His expression fell a little when he saw Armin's own, thought, and the shorter boy couldn't help but feel a little mad with himself for making such a soft face scowl sadly.
"Is everything alright?" he asked, pushing the box to the side. "You seem a little... down."
Nodding, Armin began taking Marco's 3DMG apart. "I suppose I'm just a little tired from a hard day of baby-sitting Eren."
Marco's expression seemed to harden at the mention of Eren's name, but he smiled. Something about it seemed odd, forced, but his tone was light. "I'd know all about that," he said, taking the seat next to Armin, then pulling the box across the table towards him. "I do a fair share of baby-sitting myself. Can't leave Jean alone for a second before he's getting into a fight or asserting how much better he is than someone else."
His eyes gleamed mischievously, and he turned back towards Armin with a much more real smile, but Armin couldn't bring himself to muster one in response. He was just too scared. He managed to laugh nervously, but that was the best he could do, so he quickly looked away from Marco, and fixed his attention on the gear in front of him.
The two of them worked in silence for a while. It was horrible and awkward and the exact opposite of what Armin wanted, but he endured it because he needed to muster up some tiny iota of courage. Whenever he took a sneaky glance at Marco, he was working with a somewhat disappointed frown, and it broke his heart to see that the one person he wanted to talk to the most was upset because he wouldn't talk to him.
Marco rummaged around in the box. Armin opened his mouth, and inhaled sharply, but didn't get a chance to talk, because Marco asked, "So, uh, what is actually going on with you and Eren?"
Armin glanced up at him, confused, and Marco put down the screwdriver he was holding and ran a greasy, oily hand through his hair. "I mean, you two are always together and you're really close and Eren's, well, more than a little possessive... A guy hears rumours, you know?"
Something bubbled up in the pit of Armin's stomach. Anger? Fear? He couldn't quite work it out, but it was a with a tongue that tasted of jealousy that he spat, "Well, what about you and Jean?"
"What?" Marco's brows furrowed, and his lips twitched with confusion. They had a habit of twitching. Armin had noticed. They twitched in different ways for different reasons. "What about me and Jean?"
"There are rumours about you two, too! You're rather close," Armin stated, "and you barely leave each other's side!
Marco laughed. "Armin," he began, "that's probably because I'm one of the very few people who can actually stand Jean. Trust me, there's nothing going on between me and Jean. We're... friends, I guess."
Armin chewed his lip. His mouth tasted stale. He looked back to Marco's gear. The air shivered slightly with Marco's anticipation of a reply, but Armin didn't know what to say, so he just went back to work. He hoped after a while Marco would lose interest, like he had the last time, but he felt Marco's gaze on him the entire time.
"We grew up together," Armin sighed, "Eren and I. I don't know if I'd call what we have friendship, because it feels like so much more than that. I mean, he was there with me... back in Shingashima. On that day." Armin paused. Marco nodded. "But we're not dating or anything," Armin said in a garbled rush. "We're not and, as much as I care about Eren, I hope we never do."
The room was full of Marco's laughter again. "I guess we both just have the misfortune of being friends with the most unpopular boys in the 104th. People are bound to talk. And by that I mean Connie and Sasha are bound to spread gossip."
His comment made Armin smile. Really smile. He was still nervous, and he couldn't quite meet Marco's gaze, but he was smiling.
They turned back to their work, but the silence was more comfortable this time. Softer. Safer.
Armin reached for a smaller screwdriver. It seemed Marco reached for it too, because their hands brushed, and the feeling was so warm and welcomed that Armin instinctively jerked his head towards Marco and met his smiling gaze with worried eyes, and he couldn't look away. And somewhere inside, he knew what was happening. Somewhere inside he remembered every fairytale his mother had read to him before she'd left the wall with his father, and he knew what was happening.
"I don't know why Eren wants to leave the walls to see the ocean," Marco whispered. "It's right there, in your eyes."
And suddenly they were kissing. Armin didn't know how it happened or who started it. He had a sneaking suspicion it was him, but it was Marco's arms that were wrapped around his waist and his own arms that were hanging limp, one resting on the table and the other resting by his side. He brought his arm from the table up to wrap around Marco's neck and knocked his 3DMG off the table in the process. He didn't care at all though. All that he cared about was this moment, this perfect moment that he'd dreamt of a thousand times before.
A thousand dreams couldn't compare to this wonderful reality.
Armin had read about kisses. In books, the characters lost themselves in them. But Armin didn't feel like he was losing any part of himself; he felt like every part of him that had ever felt broken, felt useless, felt worthless, had been redefined. Everything he thought he was lacking, he found in that kiss. He found a warmth and shelter. It was like a warm breeze on an autumn day, the first day of sunshine after a week of rain, the third or fourth sip of a hot drink, after it had cooled down just enough to be perfect. And this kiss was perfect. Marco Bodt was perfect and he was kissing him.
When they broke away, it was Armin had resurfaced from being underwater. He felt lightheaded, dizzy even. Marco smiled at him with those lips, lips that had been on his, and he brushed away a strand of Armin's hair and tucked it behind his ear.
"I think you've probably dented my 3DMG," he chuckled.
author's note: this is so cliche and stupid but i dont even care
ive been meaning to write this since august and now thanks to twitter i finally have (god bless marcomin and may it rise)
im kind of drifting away from snk and though my time is not yet up i want this to be my legacy. i wish to be remembered as the marcomin queen.