My pale fingers hovered above his tan colored, freckled skin, exhaustion sweeping over me as I fought back the distant memories of leaving his warmth for the sake of my pride. Pride wasn't necessary in these circumstances.

Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that Jean…

Plain white covers encompassed us both in the sanctuary of my bed, my own smell drowning out his lavender, eyes drooping with the effort of trying to stay awake so I could keep looking after him, despite my own tattered and fragile state.

Wow. You know it's bad when I start admitting that I'm a delicate little flower. But worse than that is when I start making horse jokes about myself. That's when you should already be running for the hills. Madness has overcome me if I start making horse jokes.

He looked really peaceful, breathing in and out slowly with his mouth open a bit, face void of any expression but with a little 'this is okay' factor to it. Contentment…

Would Marco feel my touches like he said had done before?

It was unlikely he was faking sleep, but apparently you just never know with this guy. I rested half a loose fist on his collarbone, using the tip of my thumb to trace his neck, skimming his jaw line.

Adam's Apples are like… the personifications of overwhelming feelings… you know when you get a 'lump in your throat'. An Adam's apple is literally just that. Look at it go, just bobbing up and down like a boss. His neck wasn't all that freckled. Huh. The rest of his face looked like it'd been sprayed with light brown paint.

I looked up to Marco's face when said Adam's Apple began moving faster, throat contracting, and a gulp croaked beneath my fingers.

My tawny eyes met his speckled coffee orbs, catching a glimpse of dilated pupils before the black holes suddenly shrunk and he flinched, jerking quickly away from me and my tracing fingers as he shrieked and fell out the bed with a loud bang.

A sense of horror washed over me.

Was this a sample of Marco's psychological damage?

Okay, I'll go back a bit, to when I was being plastered to the park sidewalk like a spanking new coat of asphalt by a certain Bodt.

I mean, there wasn't really much I could do in that position. His shoulder blade blocked my windpipe; my head had slapped off the concrete and was already serving me with that distinctive feeling of a buzzing headache. It was the kind of pain that leaves you unsure of whether to laugh hysterically or cry with full blown sobs.

We just had to sit on the bench facing the concrete, didn't we? My head was literally less than a meter away from soft grass…

I suppose I could have done plenty of things, like come to the conclusion that all my efforts would be going to waste, now that Marco would remember. (I somehow had been his trigger even though I thought for sure I wouldn't... I couldn't figure out for the life of me why I had done, though.)

I could get a boner and an army of butterflies in my stomach and lose all the air in my lungs when I grasped that we were seriously close. But none of those things were particularly useful in doing. Though that didn't mean that I didn't do them…

I could also wonder if he'd passed out because I'd confessed, that it had nothing to do at all with him remembering, and pondering that would be a practical thing to do, because I could then scold myself for being a selfish dick and letting my human instinct take over me by being a male and declaring my gayness to a homophobe.

I'm a bad person for being a person. Don't grow up to be like me, kids.

Um. Was this, whatever the hell this was, a rejection?

See, people frequently say that the worst a person can do when you ask them out: is say no. I'd like to point out that a lot of worse things could happen, like they could be an absolute ass and make your life a living hell after you confess, make you feel like a piece of shit for ever telling them how you feel and never allowing you to have that simple closure-

And then there's Marco. Apparently, he face-palms you with his entire person so that you feel his second hand humiliation and frustration, ha, as if I didn't have enough of my own.

I said it.

How long had it taken me?

Four months?

Fuuuuck.

Maybe I'd just brutally shocked him with my lack of eloquence. Why did I say 'I'm gay for you' of all things? I guess I didn't want him to confuse my 'like' with a friendly feeling, as I'd done with Connie…

If this idiot didn't get off me soon, I'd burn him with my furnace of a face.

Speaking of which, his face was directly above mine, and when I say I was blushing, I mean the Tamaki Suoh kind of furiously blushing, because Marco's chest was on mine -actually making it even more hard to breathe, what with him choking me and lying on top of me- and he was breathing onto my collarbone and holy shit I didn't know I was sensitive there Hahahah. Haahaaaaaaa-

Back then, I really wished I'd had a guide of sorts to help me out in this situation because I had no idea what to do.

So in the occurrence that you confess to your homophobic best friend, and he happens to pass out because you had a past life that he repressed the memory of and will soon remember said past life and is on top of you making you horny as fuck, stick to the following steps (please note that the fire exits are here, here and here):

Step one: Admire the hell out of that breathtaking face you've got dangling above you and then remove the Bodt from your person.

I liberated one of my arms from under his body and reached out to touch his freckled cheek, smoothing a finger over his closed eyelid with a small smile on my face.

"It's time to try defying gravity, I think I'll try defying gravity!" (That's the Glee version, folks. Rachel and Kurt's duet)

Marco Bodt would not be topping me. I've heard that guys pass out halfway through sex, and if this is what I'd have to deal with… Nope.

I managed to slither my way out, thankful that I hadn't taken my school bag with me, otherwise my stuff would be crushed under Mount. Bodt, and I had to haul up my pants that had slipped in the process. I rubbed the scuff on my ass, grimacing because, okay, what the hell do I do with his body? I'd have to ask Siri…

Step Two: Stare around the area in a meaningless way and eventually pick up the unfortunate soul on the floor and fling him over your back. Or carry him bridal style? Nah, nope, use your back and walk like a deformed little goblin with a Marco shaped hump.

It was a long and treacherous expedition, but alas; I strutted my way down the street, finding myself at the basketball court a good twenty minutes from my house. I'd only been walking for what, three minutes? I was already wheezing with a dry throat from exertion and sweat trickled down my back from the additional heat.

My legs trembled under the effort of moving, so I tried to focus on my surroundings; the road close-by, the stripped trees overhead, the mud colored sky, making sure that fucking foot went in front of the other in a steady rhythm.

I want you to know that this asshole had a good couple of inches on me -height wise- (but hey you never know what might be downstairs) and he was therefore heavier than me. Ugh. I'm banning him from pop tarts-

The world flew upwards as I fell down and yelled, gasping as I clutched onto Marco's arms to hold him closer to me out of instinct.

For a while, everything was white noise and pain.

It took me some time, I'm not sure how long, but as I peeled my scraped face from the sidewalk I realized that I'd slipped on ice. Ice. In November! It couldn't be that cold, surely?

I looked over my shoulder to check on Marco, and luckily he hadn't been hit at all, by some miracle.

I, however…

There was a prickly stinging in my nose that had me hissing in retaliation, drowning my senses in red and metal.

Nononononotnownononono

I attempted to stand back up, keeping Marco on my back while doing so; dry-heaving all the while as acid scorched my throat in contrast to the cold air around us and my eyesight grew blurry.

Gritting my teeth and closing my eyes, I groaned loudly, grimacing as I tried to pull us both up in a dizzying stumble.

Oh holy fuck, success.

Step three: Try not to puke your guts up and march your remarkable ass to your house, in style. (Bodt backpacks are all the rage these days, is what I hear)

And… I made it. Screw all those bastards that say I can't do anything by myself! Ah, well, I did have one problem, seeing as I was close to passing out myself and couldn't reach into my jean pocket to get my spare key.

I shrugged Marco a little further onto my shoulder, using my back as a platform temporarily so I could slip a hand into my pocket.

I grasped the handle after the key slotted in and turned both, swaying under Marco's weight until I managed to get inside and slammed the door shut with my foot. Family had gone, ja? I waddled around the ground floor, still carrying Marco like some motherfucking koala or I don't know, a reverse koala. Not a miscreant family member in sight.

With my eyeballs throbbing and my nose dripping onto the floor but ha I wasn't paying attention to that -no siree shit shit shit- I glanced up at the stairs, sulking and baring my teeth at the challenge.

Step four: Tell those god damn stairs whose boss.

It's strange, I could have sworn that my war cry was merely a whimper and a few begrudging grunts… Jean Kirstein? Whimpering? Naaaaaaah.

Step five: Realize that your crush is going into your bedroom and that it is for platonic reasons. Dammit. Dump his hairy ass on the bed and follow suit.

Getting rid of his bag, I eyed the bed. I would've slept in it with him, I was definitely ready to, but the grime of sweat from walking for so long had taken its toll on my body, and a shower was required.

You know how in showers you just can't help but imagine the most random scenarios? In my case, as I was scraping my back with the soapy sponge; I couldn't help but wonder what would've happened if Eren, of all people, had shown up and seen me trapped under Marco.

He'd have raised an eyebrow, standing upside down above me, shaking his head like a dolt. "I always wondered who topped."

I'd have rolled my eyes and grimaced at the body on top of me, trying not to let it slip that I was experiencing the wrong kind of crush with a guy.

"I think I broke him."

Eren would crouch down, kneeling beside us both, and he'd furrow his bushy eyebrows and ask

"Have you tried turning him on and off again?"

This is why I take baths. God. Ugh. Never again. *shudder* I think that fall did something dire to my brain.

Thankfully, the "substance that shall not be named" was cleared off my nose, down the drain before I could even see the water change color.

Lacking the expertise of bandaging professionally, I dipped into the white medicine cabinet on the wall after drying myself off with a blue towel and slapped on some plasters over the offending areas. Be-gone, injuries.

With Marco sleeping soundly on my bed, I couldn't help but feel self conscious as I dashed into my room to get clean clothes and back into the bathroom, safely locking the door behind me and got dressed, going down stairs afterwards to down a few gallons of water then rushed back up. And hey; I no longer sweated. I smelled like chocolate, thanks to my mom's body wash. Perfect.

I sat down on the edge of my bed, pursing my lips curiously. What do you do when you have a pretty, passed out boy lying down in your bed? Mmn, tuck him in. Tuck yourself in too, yeah, why the hell not.

For some reason that I couldn't explain except for boredom, I began talking to Marco's fully dressed and sleeping body, my arms wrapped around myself and I stared up at the ceiling.

I found myself telling him about the things he might soon remember with the light slowly brightening from my curtained windows. I told him about the time I'd found him in the woods unconscious after he'd tried to find me, the time we all tried to sneak into the girl's barracks, the exercises in training where we slit the nape of mock titan's necks that were nothing compared to the real thing.

"And I don't know why, but there was this one time where you really wanted this crappy piece of vegetable pie from a market stall but you'd run out of money, so I bought it for you, and you wouldn't stop trying to make it up to me for a week. You gave me ointment for my back from the strap marks, cut my hair, massaged my feet after training and-"

I'd slowly gotten closer to him over the slow passing hours, first inching closer and looking at him, then resting a hand on his forearm, caressing it without even thinking. Now, I relished in the warm feeling in my chest as I reached out to trace patterns with the freckles on his face. Dot-to-dot pictures. Star shape, penis shape, heart shape-

"Now that I think about it, it was probably seriously obvious that you liked me. Oh wow." I took my hand away from his face, instead throwing an arm over my eyes as I bit my lip in giddy embarrassment.

"T-that's so weird, to think that you liked me." My heart may have skipped at the thought. "I really hope you still do after all of this…"

A few long minutes passed, and somehow I got bored. But it must have been the good kind, because I started singing quietly.

"You make dance like a fool, forget how to breath, shine like gold, buzz like a bee; just the thought of you can drive me wild…"

I reached out to swipe my thumb over his cheek, facing him side on as I grinned lopsidedly. Call me a fucking cheese-ball. 500 days of summer is the bomb. It has abrupt musicals, and I like that.

"Oh, you make me smile."

Of course, I'd stick around him even if it turned out he didn't like me. I'd been prepared for that. Slightly. I'm sure Armin had a spell for healing broken hearts. Damn, why didn't I think of that before? Oh, right, because he's fucking WEIRD.

I would probably hold a small grudge against Marco for misleading me, but… I wanted him to be alright, to not turn into a psycho and I wanted my best friend back. Was that too much to ask for?

And that brings us to my most recent predicament, in which Marco was scrabbling at the carpet as I looked over the edge of the bed anxiously.

His black bird nest of a hairdo made him look like a startled rabbit, mouth twitching like he wanted to say something, head looking around frantically as hands explored his own face. It must've been hurting because he was wincing, but patting at it confusedly.

"Holy heck." Both hands grabbed at the right side of his face, and then one moved down to his forearm.

"I-I'm alive." he laughed breathily, back leaning against the stripy black and white wall.

"You alright down there?" I peered at him over the edge of my bed and his brown eyes widened to the size of ping pong balls.

"Hey, what are we doing here, Jean? Can we see the others so I can tell them I remember?"

The bed squeaked as I rolled around on it violently.

YES YESYESYEYESYEYEYSYEYEYS HE REMEMEMBERS THE BODT BOY IS BACK IN BUSINESS-

I bit the inside of my lip, brimming with excitement. He looked alright, a bit flustered, but not damaged, oh thank god. I wouldn't have known how to handle a mad Marco.

My shoulders slumped in relief, but a large part of me was wondering if he remembered what I'd said to him, you know, the "thing".

Man. Maybe I should set my priorities straight. Oh wait, I'm gay, so I can't do that. Pffft. Oh my god I can make jokes like that now, I'm so gonna do that.

"Hell yeah, but we might want to wait til after school so you can uh, tell me what you remember." My eyes flickered between his and I knew my face was lit up brighter than the sun; I was having trouble keeping a goofy grin at bay.

"Yeah…" he stared down at the black carpet, gulping as he ran fingers through his hair.

My smile dropped a bit, seriously fucking curious as to what the hell had set him off like that in the middle of a park (oh no we ditched our expensive ice cream awww), but mostly glad that he hadn't passed out a second time like I had.

He must've dreamt of his past while he was out cold, right? It didn't look like he'd been having nightmares, but I'd remembered my trauma, the image of his rotting dead body, the nurse's apathetic, blue eyes; all of it the moment I'd been triggered.

"Do… You want to tell me what triggered your memories?"

His head snapped up fast enough to make his jaw click and he slowly raised both hands to cover his mouth, the rest of his face flushing a bright red that lit up his freckles and made the whites of his eyes look brighter, staring at me in absolute shock and had me panicking.

"Shit, shit, shit, it's okay, I swear. If it's something terrible you don't have to say a word. But um, you might want to get off the floor. You look like you could use a nest to hide in, and my bed is the perfect hiding place from reality." Please tell me that didn't sound creepy.

Wordlessly, he shuffled onto my bed and sat on the edge, and he hadn't taken his eyes off of me. Which… I didn't mind but I at least wanted to know why…

I reached out to touch his arm comfortingly and he flinched away, glimpsing down at my hand with wary eyes. I don't get it… is he still homophobic? If so… then maybe I completely misinterpreted the journal…?

Shiiiiiit.

He looked so scared and I was afraid to try and touch him again, so I pulled my hand to my side and sat back against the headboard and he looked back up at me with an almost guilty expression. I felt my eyebrows crease up in worry. He had to be okay, he had to, don't give him something terrible as a gateway to remembering his past life-

Marco took a deep breath. "When I was thirteen, in this life, I saw a boy around my age a couple of streets down from me. I watched him hanging out with his friends for weeks on end and I could never bring myself to talk to him, though I never knew why I wanted to so badly and I hated myself for feeling like that…"

Marco looked at me unblinkingly and drew closer to me, the look in his eyes softening all the while. He hated himself for liking a guy? What was that, internalized homophobia? He hated himself for being gay?

I CALLED HIS DENIAL THE DAY I GOT HIS NUMBER, FUCK.

"I blacked out after I realized I liked him, and I got triggered into remembering this life for a while… then completely forgot about it all when I saw the similarities to the titan war. Forgot all about him, too."

"And I had no idea who he was when I met him in high school," his hand brushed mine and it felt electric, demanding my attention, but I was already busy trying not to turn purple under his intense gaze as my own eyes flared, heart pounding away in my chest as some sort of sickly sweet, liquidized warmth sloshed around in my chest.

Please be talking about me…Please keep looking at me like that…

"But the same thing happened all over again, although, somehow when I realized my feelings I didn't forget about my past life."

Frozen in my position, Marco drifted closer, licking his lips as the hand on mine began tracing languid circles and my chest hitched. He was glancing down for a second, dropping his head slightly to look at me from beneath long, black eyelashes.

"For you, it was a trauma that made you remember our past life. But for me… it was my biggest regret."

As his cheeks darkened further, it occurred to me that maybe I should breathe. Staying alive tends to be useful in situations like this. Actually what situation is this because wow if I didn't know better I'd think he was talking about me-

The book. It talked about me before it cut off-

It cut off when he blacked out and forgot all about our past lives… and me. ME.

The letters ME are referring to mySELF not someone with those initials. I have no idea what's going on but hey let's roll with it because the dude I'm kind of madly in love with may or may not be telling me that he had a crush on me for several years ago- Hell he implied. Again. He said that even as 'personality twisted Marco', he'd liked me?

Whaaaaat-

"I read the book." I blurted. I raised an eyebrow bravely as my voice cracked. "Apparently you hold a grudge against me for not helping you clean the toilets…" Way to ruin it Jean. Toilets? TOILETS?

His face turned into a shell-shocked frown. "No." he choked he sighed shakily and I felt myself grin.

"Yes." I felt his hands heat up above my mine as he moved away quickly.

His shoulders hunched up as he looked away, anywhere but at me, was he really as nervous as me? That just sounded so unlike him.

He was still fully clothed, so I placed a hand on his green parka clad shoulder, rising to my knees so I could tumble over to him with my face burning. I turned his face round with a simple finger prompting at his chin.

My face softened as I looked into his big brown eyes, and I saw the same half sad smile he gave the day he told me: "You were right in your decisions. And that's why I'm still alive right now."

I think that had been my biggest regret. Letting him trust me like that and ruining everything.

I didn't know if his advice was applicable right now, I didn't know if that's what he still thought so I told him

"I'm a sensitive soul, you need t' spell it out for me Marco. What did you regret?"

He finally looked at me, carefully reaching up and threading his fingers through my sandy hair, and there was a sense of determination in his eyes, eyes that I hoped read the novel of pathetically desperate pleads within mine.

Tell me everything about me that keeps you up at night,

tell me you go crazy over the littlest of touches,

tell me that your face burns up just at the thought of me,

tell me you have a love-hate relationships with my flaws and titbits and habits and likes and dislikes and the way I think,

tell me you feel what I feel,

tell me what made you realise-

"Three times and it's never quite been like this, Jean. Third time's the charm, eh?"

He gulps and I know how hard it is to spit it out because that exactly what I did earlier, albeit a little stupidly, not romantic in the slightest and Marco you're seriously making my words look cheap-

"I never got to tell you that I'm in love with you, Jean."

It took a long few moments to process. Maybe minutes went by and he was feeling awkward. I don't know. All I knew was that he was here and he remembered and I'd apparently read something wrong somewhere about him going crazy and-

Love? He LOVED me? He'd gotten past the stage of liking?

My face crumpled as my eyes started to sting. I shouldn't have been so overwhelmed but I was, and I couldn't help it, I couldn't help it at all, and my chest was heaving like it was carrying metaphorical emotional weights.

Some lifetime or so ago, I held onto that bone shard so long ago, not knowing if it was his, numbly looking at the groups of close to lifeless souls drifting around my existence like they were ghosts as the bone bit into my palm, never knowing that I'd get my best friend back, but still asking for it nonetheless; exactly like I did in this life.

I got a book, a story and a phrase; all of them from the same person, all in a different way from each other and all holding the same meaning.

Closing my eyes because of the tears I couldn't hold back, I coughed through them and buried my face in the crook of his neck.

"I love you too."

He put his arm around me with the most emotional smile I'd ever seen on his face, and I forgot that I was crying and half strangling him and being a huge baby, that my parents could come home at any moment and most definitely would be like 'WHY DID YOU MAKE MY BABY CRY' at Marco because truth be told they're both dorks and they know it.

I relaxed into his embrace because it really was just the most natural thing in the world for me.

Time passed. I had exceeded the touching period between friends, and I was completely fine with this.

Was I supposed to kiss him?

He was comfy. Really soft. Cuddly.

I wanted to. I had done for a while, actually.

He was stroking circles into my back, breaths hitching every now and then, rubbing his cheek against mine and tickling my neck with his nose.

What did kisses feel like?

I raised my head, pressing my lips to his and sucked lightly, figuring it was the only way to find out.

That little noise he made when he kissed back? I'm gonna remember it, and hold it against him, because it was the cutest thing ever. But you know, not now, because his hands were wandering around my back, massaging me, his breath mixed with mine.

I realized that kissing is good because mouths are so sensitive and the smooth texture of his lips and the cheeky swipe of his tongue sent an electric jolt through my body, making me tremble and feel myself blush, pushing against him and sending him crashing onto his back.

We parted for a second, grinning at each other stupidly, but I was back onto his lips because it was going to take a long period of lip sucking before I was going anywhere-

Wait, what was that on my thigh?

We both broke apart and I might have screamed (manly screams, mind you) as my sister came into the room, colliding with my back and lo and behold; the family had returned and I was going to be in some intense shit for missing school.

My dad is lawyer. He liked me being educated, and probably not in the 'what does Marco like when he's being kissed' kind of education but hey, I'm up for that class anytime.

Shooing away my little snot nosed sister, I looked down at Marco on the bed, knelt on the edge of it and rested my forehead against his with a long sigh. His mouth screwed up as he tried not to smile, eyes crinkling at the effort.

"You're beautiful."

"I know."

"I quite liked your confession. Very modern sounding, I must say."

"Why, thank you."

"And you know… I'd quite like to spend the rest of my life with you. But don't let it get to your head."

He used a wikihow quote, that's fucking awful-

"I can't believe I put up with the likes of you every day."

I rolled my eyes, flopping down on the bed and he straddled me, his ass resting on top of my hips with a gentle pressure that meant he was trying not to make me carry his weight (Yeah I'd carried him around for long enough today, thank you very much) but I gasped at the pressure nonetheless.

It was as if he hadn't changed at all, and yet at the same time… this was a completely different Marco Bodt than the one I'd met four months ago, a lifetime ago.

He grinned at me and put his hands on either side of my face, leaning down to kiss me again and I wrapped my arms around his neck. His lips were wet as they left mine.

"At least I made you remember. Literally." I told him.

He pecked my cheek, then my mouth. I lost myself as I watched his mouth form words, not quite missing as he whispered

"Thank you for staying with me."

"Of course I did. And I plan on continuing to do so, though... You might want to hope out the window before my parents skin us alive for missing school."

"Oh yeah? Well, I missed you a lot more than I missed school."

Marco, you have no idea how much I relate to that statement.