For the talking in their sleep prompt, Armin and his nightmares. A quick shout out to my dear friend Miranda, who kept beta-ing me even after I left the creepiest lawn ornament imaginable on her front porch just to scare her. You are the best. Also sorry about that. Also also thank you for calling and leaving a terrified message about it, I almost peed my pants in the store when I listened to it. Sorry again. Okay so trigger warnings for mention of sexual assault, which is mostly verbal, coming from the reeves company. Spoilers for Uprising arc.
Ever since the incident with the Reeves corporation, Armin and Jean had been sleeping beside each other. They had been loose friends for a while before then, but between Jean and Eren hating each other, and the different arrangement with their actual barracks, they had never gone as far as trying to be close when they were asleep. In their new lodgings, with everyone sleeping on mats on the floor, everyone was always much closer together. Sleeping side by side just made sense.
On the first night after they had been kidnapped, both of them had a hard time sleeping. Even after seeing the despicable man who had been molesting him get punched in the face by his fellow decoy, he couldn't get the man's words out of his head. Even after scrubbing his skin until it was raw, he could still feel the man's hands all over his body. He had been shaking uncontrollably ever since it happened, to the point that it had been hard to eat. After struggling to down half his meal, he had given up and went to bed early. To their credit, no one tried to stop him, even though it was his turn to wash the dishes. He climbed the stairs to the large empty room where they all slept, and put his bedroll out in a spot in the corner. He rally didn't care to be next to anyone tonight. Especially not Eren and Mikasa. He had seen them looking at him while he ate. He hated the look of concern on their faces, and more than that, he hated how filthy and ashamed he felt. Surely they looked down on him because of what happened, even if it was unconsciously. At the very least, they would both think he was over reacting by being so shaken up over it.
He laid down and wrapped his blanket tightly around himself. He remained there in silence, staring at the wall. He couldn't go to sleep, and quite frankly he didn't want to. He was afraid of the dreams he might have. After a while he heard someone else come upstairs, and he shut his eyes and pretended to be asleep. The other person, who had to be either Eren, Mikasa, Sasha, or Jean, judging by the weight of the footsteps, decided that out of the entire empty upper floor they had to lay down next to him. He contained his irritation and continued to hold still and hope that whoever it was would believe he was really asleep. If they didn't, then they didn't say anything about it.
Armin spent the next hour or so trying to keep completely still. He could feel his heart racing, although there was no good reason for it to be doing so. He wished that it would stop, because it was managing to make him even more anxious. Finally he heard the lighter, uneven footsteps of Levi, and the candle was blown out. In the dark he allowed himself a shuddering breath, and then the tears started to fall. Once he had started crying, he found that he couldn't stop. He tried to muffle the sound of his sniffing in his blanket, but he was still worried that Levi could hear him. Everyone else was probably already asleep, but not Levi. And he wasn't exactly well known for being compassionate.
God, this was pathetic. Nothing had really even happened. So what if some creep rubbed up all over his back and neck and shoulders? So what if he had whispered into his ear and made his skin crawl? He hadn't gotten close enough to find out that he was actually a man. He wasn't beaten or dead or physically harmed in any way. It shouldn't be that big a deal. He was just being weak and pathetic. Just like when he was a kid, and Mikasa and Eren had to come to the rescue, only this time Jean was the one who had to save him. Nothing was ever going to change. He would always be the weak link.
Armin flinched when the hand came to rest on his shoulder. It was whoever had laid down behind him. Somehow knowing that they had stayed awake this whole time made him feel way worse. And even if they hadn't been awake the whole time, and he had just woken them up, that wasn't better. Either way, it meant that other people were being inconvenienced yet again by his weakness. "Armin, I'm sorry." It was Jean.
After a brief pause, he rolled over to his other side. "What are you talking about?" He whispered back. As much as he tried to keep his voice even, it came out squeaky and frail.
Jean didn't seem to notice his voice crack. Even if he did, he didn't say anything, or make any signal that he judged him for it. That was sort of nice. "I should have done more to distract them. I should have made a scene, like the real Eren. I could have done something, but I just looked away and tried to ignore you. I let him hurt you."
Armin shook his head vigorously. "He didn't hurt me." He pointed out. He tried to mask the sobs trying to force their way out, and he did manage to keep himself silent. He failed, however, to stop his face from crumpling or the tears from flowing faster. He was a mess
"He may not have caused you any physical harm, but he definitely hurt you. Look at yourself, you haven't been able to stop shaking all day. You're crying! He got to you." He reached out and took one of Armin's hands in his own. Gently, he rubbed his thumb over his knuckles to try to soothe him. It was better than the hand on his shoulder, because it didn't make his skin crawl. The other man hadn't done anything so delicate, so caring.
Once again he was wracked with sobs. He was weak. Pathetic. People always ended up trying to help him, because he couldn't ever do anything by himself. They had to protect him. "I'm sorry."
"No, you didn't do anything." He had shut his eyes, so he couldn't see Jean's face, but he felt the other boy's two warm hands clasping his more tightly.
"But I'm weak, you feel like you have to protect me. It's pathetic." He explained. It wasn't like he should have to actually do something to feel bad. The issue was what he made other people do. Even that creep had recognized it. It was his fault that people thought he needed protecting.
He felt cloth against his cheek, and opened his eyes. Jean was wiping his face with a handkerchief. He was a little embarrassed when he wiped away his tears, but when he moved on do dab at his runny nose, he shoved his hand away. The other boy didn't seem offended by his actions. "Look, you are not weak. If anything, I'm weak. I haven't protected you once, even when I really should have done something. You've dragged my limp unconscious body away from a horde of titans, even though you knew you couldn't defend yourself from one while you were carrying me. You're a strong person, Armin. You're stronger than half of the people in this room." His gaze was intense. It almost seemed like he was angry at Armin for selling himself short.
He shook his head again, more halfheartedly this time. He wasn't strong. Mikasa and Levi were strong, he wasn't like them. So what if he tried to help a friend? Who wouldn't? Helping someone he cared about didn't make him special. But Jean was having none of that. "You are. But next time, you won't have to be the strong one, I swear. I'll keep you safe."
As the days grew longer, and the nights grew hotter, Jean noticed that Armin was sleeping more fitfully. He always slept in the fetal position, but recently he would toss and turn underneath his thin blanket. Occasionally he would whimper and curl up more tightly. It made him feel bad. He knew that his friend- no, his boyfriend. He was still getting used to that word. He knew that his boyfriend had nightmares sometimes. It was part of the reason that he wouldn't dream of sleeping anywhere else. He didn't even mind that Eren always chose to sleep on his other side. Well that wasn't quite true, he was pretty irritated about it actually. The benefits of being there to comfort Armin when he woke up just outweighed all of that.
As nice as it was to be able to help calm him down, he wished there was a way to stop the nightmares altogether. As it was, he had began sleeping more lightly. It didn't really help, but he felt better when he knew how the blond was doing. Lately he woke up at even the slightest sound or movement. Even if the other boy didn't wake up, he waited for a moment to make sure he was alright before he went back to sleep. Recently, it happened more and more often, to the point that Jean was more tired than Armin. All of that changed in one night, when it went from simple nightmares to pure terror.
Jean woke with a start. Beside him, Armin was shrieking as though he had just been stabbed. He moved quickly, in a panic, trying to find what was causing the screaming. As soon as he touched his boyfriend's arm, he got a punch to the face. It was a pretty weak punch, actually, but it caught him off guard. "No, get off me!" He shouted. His eyes were wide open, but they were blank, like he couldn't see anything. He could hear other people moving around behind them. He was shoved roughly to the ground by Eren as he yanked the blanket off of his friend, who was still shouting. "No, don't hurt him! Jean!"
He didn't know what to do. Eren and Mikasa at least, were making some attempt to help. At least he thought that was what they were doing. Mikasa had yanket off is loose pajama pants, while her adoptive brother unbuttoned his old friend's shirt. They did it without disturbing him enough to get punched, unlike Jean. Once he was in his underwear, they fanned him with his blanket. For whatever reason, that seemed to do the trick. He calmed down and stopped squirming. Jean and all the other people in the room watched in confusion, as the other two put the blanket down. They took care not to put it on top of him, and after a few seconds, Jeagar knelt down beside him and shook him awake.
Like any normal person, Armin was alarmed to see the whole team staring at him when he woke up. Glancing around the room, he saw that Connie and Levi were both standing. Presumably, they had been ready to attack whatever the threat was. "What happened?" Jean looked back around to see that his boyfriend looked deeply worried, liked he already knew what happened.
"It's okay, you just had a bad dream." The girl with the shiny black hair told him. Unlike everyone else in the room, she and her brother weren't the least bit alarmed. They talked to him as if it was a normal occurrence.
Of course, her explanation did not cover why the whole team was watching him. "And?" He prompted them.
"You shouted a little. It's no big deal." Eren stood back up and gave the rest of the team a look that clearly said they should all just agree.
"I'm sorry guys." As was frequently the case with him, Armin was clearly ashamed for making the whole team worry. Jean couldn't speak for the others, but he was more angry about whatever was causing his boyfriend to suffer from night terrors that he was that his sleep had been disturbed. If he could find a way to punch the bad dreams in the face and beat them to a bloody pulp, then he would jump at the opportunity. Not everyone felt the same
Levi sighed loudly and slumped tiredly to the ground. "Yeah, well sorry doesn't give me back a night's rest." He complained. The commander was usually rude, but him being rude to Armin about something he couldn't help was enough to make him grind his teeth in irritation. "I'm guessing you were too hot, since they felt the need to strip you? From now on you sleep by the window. Whoever is sleeping next to him can be in charge of making sure he doesn't wake up every living thing in a ten mile radius. For now everyone can go back to bed."
Jean was not giving up his spot beside Armin, so he decided to spend the next day using every opportunity he could get to discuss what he should do. For now though, he waited until everyone was settled down to ask him about his dream. "Are you okay?" he started out, simply. He didn't care half as much about what the dream was. As long as he was okay, he would be fine if the other boy chose not to tell him.
"Yeah, I'm sorry for worrying you." He couldn't even meet his eyes to get those words out. At that moment, Jean decided he probably shouldn't mention the whole getting punched in the face thing.
"What were you dreaming about, if you don't mind me asking? I heard my name." He tried to sound passive, but he couldn't really keep the curiosity out of his voice. While he may have been fine with not knowing, he would much rather know than not.
Blue eyes looked up at his with a pained expression. "It was me and Pastor Nick. We were tied up in the warehouse, like you and I were, and they were torturing him right in front of me. At first it made me a little sick, but then I realized that it wasn't Pastor Nick anymore. It was you. I was screaming at them to leave you alone and to hurt me instead, but they wouldn't listen." He told him, his voice was feeble and shaking.
Knowing that he couldn't save him from his dreams caused his chest to tighten, and he scooted over closer so he could wrap his arms around his boyfriend's waist and hold him close. "That would never happen." He assured him, between gentle kisses to the top of his head. He knew that when he was scared, getting too close to his face would overwhelm him and cause him to start panicking. He wasn't sure if it would happen in his current sleepy state, but just in case, he didn't want to cause additional distress. "Look Armin, I won't ever let anyone capture us again. We won't be hostages. We can carry concealed weapons and fight our way out even after the enemy thinks they've won. No one will touch you."
He felt a rather damp face nuzzle further into his chest, and a muffled "Thanks, Jean." Before he drifted off to sleep.
The next morning he got a rather rude clarification from Eren. Upon asking what he should do next time something like that happened, he had been smacked with a broom handle and told to back off. He and Mikasa would be the ones to help Armin from now on, and Jean could be all lonely in the corner. that had started an argument about why he had to sleep next to him all of a sudden. "Do you think I've been sleeping next to you because I want to see your ugly horse face every morning?!" His most hated companion shouted at him obnoxiously. "Mikasa and I have been helping him since we were kids, and we'll keep it up now, thank you very much!" He then stormed off.
Not for the first time, he wanted to shout back something like, "Well we've been fucking for months, so maybe you should rethink where you rank to him." but he couldn't do that with all the other people here. While everyone was well aware that they had gotten much closer, most of them thought they were just really close friends. Instead, he just grumbled about it and kept dusting. He would ask Mikasa, she was less ridiculous about everything, because she hadn't decided that they were arch enemies. Honestly, that Jeagar kid wanted to pick a fight over anything and everything.
He made a good choice. By the end of the night, he knew exactly what to do. He took a bucket of water and a thin dish towel with him up to bed, and laid down beside Armin. He had made sure that he would get there first by repeatedly walking through the pile of dirt that Eren had swept up just to make him start over, so he was't surprised when he heard an exasperated growl and footsteps stomping over to their old corner. Knowing that he had made the other boy angry brought a smile to his face.
A few hours after they had all gone to sleep, he heard Armin shifting and whimpering in his sleep, and he did as he had been told. He stripped off the blankets, got the cloth wet and wrung it out most of the way, and then placed it gently on his boyfriend's bare torso. Jean had told him that he should just forgo wearing a shirt to bed during the summer. The effect was almost immediate, and soon he was sleeping soundly.
Knowing that he was doing something to help him and protect him, like he had promised, made him feel better. He may not have ever been helpful in the real world yet, Armin still had him beat there, but next time he would. Next time he would save him.
Only we all know he won't because Armin is the one who saves him all the fucking time. Anyway, so this was sort of based off of true facts, because all of those are things you have to do to my sister, who has night terrors when it's too hot. Also she has punched me in the face when I tried to wake her up, so for future reference, if someone is screaming in their sleep, don't touch them. You may get hurt. Especially if they actually know how to throw a punch. Review to help fill the emotional void that is my soul.
