Ride'em Cowboys

Chapter 2

A Spur in the Side

"How do we even know these guys are gonna show up?"

Armin had been sitting on the large sofa in the living room and watched a nervous Marco pace back and forth, all while biting his thumb nail. He wanted to rip his hair out from the silence. The young blonde slapped his palms on his knees as he stood up and then rubbed his hands together. "If you're gonna sit and worry, I'm gonna go back outside because i still need to milk the cows." Armin told Marco as he threw on a pair of freshly washed overall and button them up.

"I'll...I'll just wait here." Marco muttered as he looked over at Armin who stopped by the back door before opening it. "Listen Marco, why don't you just take a nap. I really don't think those guys will come all the way out here anyways. Besides, harvest season is coming soon and you planted a lot this year. I told ya' I'd help so just take it easy." The blue eyed teen said before letting the screen door shut behind him.

Marco noticed how one of the hinges were coming loose and made a mental note to remind Armin to get new ones. But he took Armin's advice and laid his tried body on the sofa and curled up next to one of the throw pillows. The old grand father clock suddenly sounded off, as it did every hour, signaling the teen that it was now five o'clock. The freckled face male moved around in his sleep, when it did finally come to grace him, and couldn't get comfortable but he didn't want to go up stairs in case whoever fired off those other gun shots was still in the area or if Armin needed help.

Though eventually he rested peacefully for a while.

5:30 passed by and soon six o'clock did as well. Marco was just swimming back into wakefulness when he felt Armin nudging his shoulder. "What is it Armin? Fox get the chicken again?" He asked and lazily rolled over to meet face to face with the other.

"I think that's the most country thing I've heard the whole time I've been out here." A voice that was not Armin's spoke. Marco's doe brown eyes looked up to see a man standing in his living room, both hands on his sides as he bent over to obviously try and wake him. It took the brunet a moment before shooting up right in his spot. "How did you get in here?" Marco asked him, standing up and brushing his palms against the sides of his worn out and ripped jeans. "The front door was unlocked, you should probably lock it before taking a cat nap. Never know what animal is stalking around this area." The other male said. "Yeah..." Marco said awkwardly.

"Sorry, my names Jean, Jean Kirstein. My partner and I have been traveling around the country side for a while looking for-" "Marco! Call Bertolt and the cops! The weird guy i saw earlier came into the barn but i got him good with milk...bucket..." Armin at that time came in running through the screen door out of breath with milk stains all over him. When he noticed Jean standing next to Marco he narrowed his eyes at him. "Get away from my pal." He told him.

Jean, who had been wearing sunglasses the whole time, lifted them up and raised his hands next to his face. "Easy there stable boy, where just here to talk to you guys." Jean defended himself. "Stable boy?" Armin parroted, his baby blue eyes narrowing up at Jean. "Listen here city boy, if you think for one second I-" "Whoa Armin," Marco rushed over to the angry blonde and pulled him close as he covered his mouth, "you aren't being very host like. I'm sorry, let's just all calm down, sit and talk what's going on. Sound good?" Marco asked the other two looking between them.

Armin rolled his eyes and moved out of Marco's hold on him and mumbled an 'okay' as he sat down at the kitchen table. Jean and Marco followed, but before anyone could start off explaining, the screen door was slammed open by a large hand and a man wearing a similar suit to Jean's stepped into the house. "Oh dear..." Marco mumbled as he saw the man was drenched in cow's milk. "H-Here I'll get you a fresh towel." Marco said and scrambled to get up and get one. He handed the tall blonde a clean white towel. The man didn't say anything as he used it to wipe his face and dry his head and shoulders. Well, Bertolt was right when he talked about them being a bit scary he'll hand it to him, they could really intimidate people when they wanted or so it looked.

The older blonde, who surprisingly looked even taller than Bertolt, handed the used towel and gave him a verbal thanks. Marco nodded his head and walked over to sink to ring it out. "So ah...Jean you where saying why you were before." Marco called from over his shoulder as he washed the towel out and then walked back to the table. "Yes, I was, but I think introductions would be the more appropriate information than that don'tcha think?" Jean said, letting one of his arms hang behind the old wooden chair and crossed his legs. "Ah yes, I think that'll be better to start things off." Marco said and walked towards Armin placing both hands on the smaller boy's shoulders. "I'm Marco, around here I plant and harvest all the crops." He told him and nudged Armin to get the other to speak. "I'm Armin..." He muttered and crossed his arms across his chest.

Marco a look to the back of Armin's head and noticed that his hair also had some milk in it, taking the towel he had thrown over his shoulder, he used it to start drying off the blonde's hair, which caused very unhappy sounds from the blushing boy below.

"Erwin Smith, federal government's top secret agent." The elder blonde introduced. Seeing the confused looks on the younger males face's Jean jumped in. "Don't worry, we're aren't going to hurt you, unless of course things take a turn for the worse. But to the public's knowledge as well as many of the higher and more exclusive government agencies, we don't exist." Jean explained to them. 'So they aren't business men.' Marco thought to himself. "Where actually here to catch a wanted man." Jean added and leaned back in his seat, folding his hands behind his head. "And last time we spotted him, he was hanging around here."

"We'll be using this property to catch the man and bring him." Erwin said as he stood from the table, and slowly removed his black jacket and revealed a white button up underneath. Both younger males jaw's hit the floor. "Excuse me but...can you even do that?" Marco asked the two. "Yeah, how do you even know that we'll let you?" Armin said, slightly glaring at Erwin. "If you don't wish to cooperate, then we can always run this little ol' farm here out of business." Jean spoke up, an edgy smirk crossing his lips.

Marco and Armin's farm was the only farm for about one hundred miles, since a good percentage of the land was barren, and if of some reason they couldn't produce the crops or live stock, they had the town down the road would be seriously hurt this winter. Both teens knew this. "Ahh..." "Alright, we'll agree to yall using the place but there are of our own terms you best be agreeing to." It was Armin who pipped up and looked between the two agents. The older males looked at each other for a moment and shared a smile before nodding their heads. Marco had no idea what Armin was thinking or what terms he had so he was just as clueless as Jean and Erwin. "One, you clean up after yourselves because Marco and I aren't gonna be your personal house wives. Two, you two sleep up in the attic and make your own food, and three, if we find any reason to suspect either of you two hurting the crops of live stock we'll kick ya's out on the street." Armin told them. Silently the elder men agreed. "Good," Armin said as he stood and placed his hands on the table, "now if you'll excuse me i have to restart milking the cows and feed them." Armin said and walked out the back door.

After the short blonde left Marco was left alone with Erwin and Jean. "Umm, well I guess I'll show you where you'll be sleeping." Marco mumbled shyly and guided the two out of the kitchen and up to the third floor. "There are two spare bunks in the room at the end of hall and the bath room is the door on the left hand side...but ah, sometimes the light switch doesn't always work. Armin's usually the handy man around here, but i'm sure he'll fix it soon." He told them and scratched the back of his short brown hair.

"Well, if you guys need anything I'll just be done stairs." Marco told them and turned around, bumping right into Jean's chest. "Oh sorry." He mumbled and went to move around him but was suddenly pushed up against the wall. A tiny startled noise escaped his mouth as his back hit the wall and looked into Jean's eyes. "I never knew a cowboy could look so cute; and here I thought they were all old, wrinkly men." Jean said softly. Marco could feel his cheek warm up a bit as Jean started to play with his collar. "A-Actually Armin's more of a cowboy than me, I'm more of a farmer." He stuttered out, trying to give the other a smiling and hoped he'd let go of him. Jean chuckled to himself and felt his hand unbutton the button of his shirt that he was wearing. "If you don't want us hurting your crops farmer, than maybe a little insurance deal can be made between the two of us?" Jean asked him with a smirk.

"Jean." Erwin called out from the attic room. "Get your ass in here." He said. Jean huffed out a sigh and looked back down at Marco and gave him a wink. "Think about it." He told him, before letting go of him and shoving his hands into his front pockets and walking over to his new bedroom.

Marco quickly went down the stairs to the second floor and went into his bathroom to splash some water on his face. 'That Jean is something, doing something like that in my own house after we just agreed on...whatever the hell it was.' Marco thought to himself. Dear lord this was going to be a long rest of the day.

Armin was mumbling about his problems to one of the cows as he started milking her against for the second time. "Sorry about earlier girl, I promise I won't let that scary old man come anywhere near ya." He told the cow, who just kept chewing on her food. The young blonde sighed as he finished and patted the cow's side. "Alright girl all done." He told her and took hold of the lead rope that was tied loosely around her neck. The young blonde then guided the cow back into the pasture's opened gate, to let her be with the others and closed the gate behind her. Locking it, he turned around and undid one of the buttons on his overalls and wiped the sweat from his forehead. It was getting darker out and decide to finally call it quits for the day.

He walked into the barn house, sliding open the big red and white doors and headed towards the back were all the grooming supplies were. He flicked on a little over head light and turned on the hose that helped wash out the stalls. Taking the end of it he ran it over his head a few times and then over his face, cooling him right down. After that he turned off the lights and closed the barn's door for the night, though not before calling out a 'good night' to the animals in the barn.

The blue eyed teen sighed and ran his hands through his wet hair, pushing it back and off his face. He looked up at the nearing night sky and smiled softly as he saw the first few shinning stars start to come out. Armin pressed his back against the barn's door and took in a big breath of night air and sighed. The crickets started chirping and the last few birds were flying their nests for the night, which Armin himself couldn't wait to do, but decided to enjoy the peacefulness of the country's night for just a little longer. Shoving his hands in his pockets he closed his eyes and daydreamed as he listened to sounds of the night.

He was very much enjoying this time by himself, until he got a lung full of smoke. Panicked, his eyes flew opened and looked around for the source...when he found it. Leaning up against the corner of the barn, smoking another cigar was Mr. Smith. Armin's peaceful expression turned bitter and stormed right over to the man. The shorter blonde pluck the smoke right out of the man's fingers and tossed it in a near by water pale. "I wasn't done with that." Erwin spoke, the last puff of smoke curling around his lips before vanishing. "Yeah well you are now." Armin said. "Don't you know how dangerous it is for you and everyone else to be smoking right next to a barn. You could've caused a fire." Armin scolded the man.

Erwin didn't say anything for a moment and the two just stared at each other a while before Erwin straighten his back and then pushed himself off of the barn's wall and stood right in front of Armin, who had to take a step back so he could look at the man's face. "Armin Arlert, you we ten years old with your first run in with the police. A few towns over, who were caught in a dog fighting rink, beating another male with a metal chain." Erwin suddenly spoke, looking Armin right in the eyes.

He opened his mouth to say something but didn't know what, so Erwin did instead. "After that when you were twelve, you were caught with a stolen horse and trying to hide it from the rightful owner. At age fourteen you where seen on a horse riding into a man's farm and let loose all of his live stock. Now that's only what was written down on the police reports." Erwin said, taking a few more steps closer causing the shorter blonde to back up and trip over one of the brooms that were left outside for sweeping and fell flat on his ass.

"Rumors say that you often went into dog fighting rinks and tried to take the place down by yourself. I wounder what Marco's reaction would be if he found any of this out." Erwin hummed, looking down at the boy, who from the lights from the house, looked as if he was going to cry. "This is why I hate people like you." Armin muttered from his spot on the ground. "You people just read what's in front of you and never take a second to put yourself in the other person's shoes!" Armin yelled at him, standing up and brushing the back of his legs.

"Do you know what they did to those dogs? Do you know the hell those people put them through? That mare I tried saving was being beaten and do you know what the man did after the police gave her back over to him? He killed her. A beautiful, young mare. He just killed her." Armin told him, walking up to Erwin as a few tears slid down his face. "And i set all those animals free from that man because he was hurting them! And with those dog fights...those dog fights..." All the anger that Armin had came out of him and now he was to angry to even speak. His body shook slightly and his hands clenched tightly into fists.

Erwin didn't say anything and simply watched the boy. He reached out and picked up the boy's chin so that he could look at him in the eyes. "They did say that you were a little spit fire." Erwin said, his voice suddenly very low and gruff. Armin didn't know how to take that but the thing that happen Erwin placed his lips against Armin's.

The elder blonde pulled back after a moment, getting no response and looked at Armin to see him dumbstruck. When he chuckled, it pulled the teen out of his trance and the realization of what had just transacted between them sink in. It only took about a second for Armin to turn tail and run inside the house.

When he did, Armin flew by Marco who looked like he might've been making stew and called out at the other. The freckled face teen looked over at Jean, who had helped in set up the table. Despite what Armin had said before about letting them fend for themselves food wise, he didn't want the other two men making making a ruckus in trying find pots or pans.

Marco turned around and put the stove on low and untied his apron. "Watch the stew, I need to go check on him." Marco told Jean, who nodded his head as but down the last plate on the table. After Marco disappeared up stairs, the two toned male saw Erwin walking in from outside. Jean scoffed at the older man, "What did you do?" He asked him. "Just intimidating him a little bit, just so that I can use him in this investigation. They both actually might come in handy."

Young Marco stood outside Armin's door, knocking on it softly before pushing it open. He saw Armin sitting on his bed with his knees pulled up against his chest and his face buried deeply into a pillow. Marco stepped into the room and sat beside Armin, rubbing his back gently and hoped the other would open up to him. After a few minutes of listening to the soft sound of sniffling Armin picked his head up to look at the freckled teen. "You okay?" Marco asked him, tilting his head a bit.

Armin nodded his head, "Yeah, I'm fine." He told him and rubbed his eyes. "Did Erwin say something to you? I know he went outside for a smoke, I didn't want him making the house smell of it." Marco said. Armin hesitated for a moment but just shook his head. "Naw, I was just thinking about what would happen if King's leg didn't get any better and that I had to put him down." Armin lied, and it was a good one to because Marco just gave him a sad smile and pulled him in close for a hug. "Don't think like that Armin, you'll only make yourself worry even more than you already are about him. King'll be fine, I'm sure his leg will heal with the week." He told him. "I hope so." "I know so, with you treating him, he'll make a full recovery." Marco said, smiling brightly at him. It made Armin smile.

"Would a kiss make you feel better?" Marco asked him as he tucked a piece of blonde hair behind his ear. Armin nodded and the two shared a brief and soft kiss. "Now, no more negative thoughts, do you hear me?"

"Ahem."

The two teens looked over towards the open door to see Jean, leaning up against the white door frame, looking at the two. "I think that stew of yours needs some attention." Jean said, wearing a big grin. Had he saw the two kiss? It made both younger boys nervous. "R-Right, I should get on that. Armin I'll bring you up a bowl, just stay in bed for now." Marco said and walked out of the room with Jean following his trail.

Marco, Jean and Erwin were in the kitchen, and Marco had just served everyone a bowl of stew. The freckled face teen poured a small bowl for Armin and told the other two he'd be right back down.

Jean looked at Marco as he walked up the stairs before turning over to Erwin who was taking a spoonful of hot stew. "I think the two of them are an item." Jean said. "And I think they aren't." Erwin spoke without missing a beat as he took another spoonful. Jean looked over his shoulder before leaning in and dropping normally loud voice to a whisper. "I saw both of'em kissing each other up stairs not to long ago." Jean said. "Where's your defense?"

"I think they're more like us." He said. "How so?" Jean asked him, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms.

"They just comfort each other when one of them needs it."

(Review, please? I would love to get any kind of feed back if i should continue this or just pull the plug on it. It is my first my first SnK Fanfic so i'd love to hear everyone's thought on it!)