~Assorted BxB Oneshots~

Strength

JeanMarco Angst

CW // MCD

ATTACK ON TITAN SEASON ONE SPOILERS

REQUESTED BY - N/A
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Jean Kirschtein

"I hope you don't get mad at me when I say this, but...you're not a strong person...so you can relate to how the weak feel"

Words are invaluable when there's no one left to say them. When you feel as though the only person you'd listen to won't speak anymore, your world becomes a whole lot lonelier. You're suddenly surrounded by both noise and silence. It's hot, but you have chills. You can't see, yet your eyes won't shut. You just...sort of...stare at them. Wait for the punchline.

Death has no punchline. It's a feeble, halfhearted chuckle at best, and even that takes years to muster. No, there's nothing to laugh at when it comes to death. The only thing you can do is stare.

People are afraid to admit that death doesn't actually matter to them...most of the time. They don't understand how real death is until it seems like the only option.

Right now, it feels like the only option. I understand death. Because I have died. Not physically. Physically, I am alive and well. Some might say optimal. Marco would've said optimal. In fact, I'm sure he had once or twice.

He wasn't subtle, which made it more fun when I called him out on it. That evening, behind the mess hall, I'd called him out on all of it. The nonsensical praise, the constant staring, and most importantly, the way he always put himself down to me, made it out like he wasn't nearly good enough to do anything.

Heh...he was a manipulative son of a bitch, I'll give him that. If you'd have told me three months ago that I'd be making out with a boy I'd considered a friend for as long as I'd known him behind the mess hall, I'd have laughed so hard I might've choked. But...he was way more than my friend after that.

To say that he was my everything would've been a lie. Because there were bad things in my life that even he couldn't fix. But he was everything good. He was everything I kept going for, for the thought of us living in a different, happier life together. I imagined so many things, so many false memories that I'd slept with a smile dreaming about.

He constantly talked about wanting a daughter. I joked with him that neither of us were "equipped" to provide that, and we'd spent the rest of the day jokingly discussing which girl in the 104th would make the best surrogate, as ridiculous as we both knew that was.

The obvious omission was Annie...no child of mine is inheriting genes from a woman that scary. Sasha was a similar case, except ferocity was replaced by stupidity. That left us with Mikasa, Ymir, and Christa, counting those that had a chance of even knowing who we were.

Marco commented at the time that Ymir's freckles would be similar to his, but that wasn't nearly enough to consider that route, and neither of us were stupid enough to think that Mikasa had any chance in hell of saying yes, which left Christa as the only possibility.

Although, unfortunately for us, Christa wasn't a possibility. Reiner...yeah, I'm not fighting that dude at all. Children are sweet and all, but I want to have limbs left with which to raise them.

Such a ridiculous fantasy that felt so real at the time. And now, it felt like shattered china plates. A beautiful work of art...broken and abandoned. Dead to the world. Bitten in fucking half.

I still haven't moved. I'm just staring at death. Death that I know has come for me as well. It might as well have. I'd be as happy dead as I am now. Marco had died, but so had everything else. The world around me had died. There was no movement, not even a Titan in sight. All I could see was him. Dead.

My future was dead. I had no ambitions beyond Marco. We were going to the interior together after this battle. If...if it had only been one fucking day later, we would have been as free as birds. But now, we're dead. We're dead, and we aren't even together. We can't even have the luxury of dying together.

I don't exactly remember when I started to cry. My tears stung my face from all the fumes in the area, my surgical mask sweaty as I knelt beside him and wept. Another common misconception that people have is that dead bodies are somehow disgusting to look at. As if the person they used to be is completely unrecognisable. And here I am, lying next to my dead boyfriend, sobbing into his dead shoulder and clutching his dead hand as if he were going to comfort me somehow.

Someone did. I didn't bother looking who it was, but I ended up sobbing into someone's shirt. It was probably someone who knew about us. That narrowed it down to Connie and Eren. Eren was detained by Levi of the Scouts, and besides, I don't think he'd comfort me like this even if he were here.

Eren, in a way only he could, found out by accident. We'd both excused ourselves from lunch to go and have some...fun in the barracks while they were sure to be empty for a while, but the President of the Idiot Committee didn't seem to get this message, and came to check on us to see if we were ok. He figured out that things were ok when he walked in on us with our tongues in each others' mouths.

Anyway, that meant that the strong arm around me was Connie's, and for that I was grateful. Anyone else I don't think would understand this reaction, seeing me break like this. It happens more than I'd ever admit, but now I didn't care.

"Jean, we...we need to...they're setting up the pyres now...do you want me to-"

"No!! No, I'll...I'll take him myself...thanks Connie..."

"Ok...just...look at me and tell me that you're gonna get through this, ok? Don't do anything stupid..."

I looked at him, though I could barely see him. I nodded, and he seemed to accept that as good reason to leave me alone. He patted my shoulder before heading off, disappearing into the blur that existed beyond five feet in front of me.

I didn't suppress anything as I carried Marco's lifeless body to the large pyre that was closest to where I'd found him. I let everyone see what this meant to me. Vulnerability that I'd never shown before. A type of vulnerability that I wasn't sure I knew I had. I knew I was sensitive...

But pain never hurt this much.

"I hope you don't get mad at me when I say this, but...you're not a strong person...so you can relate to how the weak feel"

Words...are invaluable
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