A Wish, a Curse, and a Promise on New Year's Eve

The Wish (Jeanmarco)

The Wish

Jean was lonely. He and all his friends were making their way into town on New Year's Eve, and all of them were together. Ymir and Christa were holding hands, Berthold and Reiner were messing around and sharing a bottle of Schnapps, and even Connie and Sasha were quiet for once, keeping to themselves and walking close. Marco was visiting his family for all of winter break, and even though they called each other often, it usually felt like Marco was only half there. ((*snorts* see what I idid there???)) Jean missed him.

People were setting off fireworks all around them, and Jean remembered last year fondly, when Marco was scared of being hit for a while at the beginning of the night, and kept grabbing Jean's arm. He kept blushing when nothing happened, and Jean kept laughing at him.

"Jean?" Armin held up a bottle of beer. "Want some?"

"Sure," Jean took the bottle and swigged it. Armin took a drink from his own.

"You miss Marco, huh," Armin stated, looking up at Jean.

Jean glanced at him, startled. "What do you care?"

"You're walking alone," Armin said. "And everyone's in couples around here. I mean, I feel weird too. Even Eren and Mikasa are being weirdly romantic," Armin glanced at his friends up ahead, who were walking together and talking intimately.

"Fine, yeah. I miss Marco. Whatever, though. It's fine. He'll come back in a couple of days anyway," Jean drank some more beer.

"Yeah," Armin shrugged. "But it hurts while it lasts, doesn't it? Everyone's together, and we're all alone,"

"I guess that's what alcohol's for," Jean said before drinking some more beer.

"Damn straight, Jean!" Armin laughed and downed the rest of his nearly empty bottle. He meandered back over to Mikasa, who was holding all of the booze.

Jean looked up at the sky, and at the fireworks going off in it. He remembered something Marco had once said, and gazed beyond the fireworks at the stars in the sky. It was often hard to remember the constellations and star knowledge that Marco spewed whenever he so much as looked at the sky at night, but Jean could always find Orion, Marco's favorite constellation.

"So, why do you like Orion so much?" They were sat on the grass, looking up at the sky one night.

"Because of his story. It's a Greek myth, you know. Orion was like this really awesome hunter, and he could walk on water for some reason,"

"Jesus constellation,"Jean snorted.

"He wasn't a constellation yet," Marco had a sort of wonderous expression on his face, like he couldn't believe how unblelievably cool stars and constellations and myths were. It was honestly kind of adorable. "So even though he was like a really good hunter, he was a huge perv too, like, fuckboi extraordinaire. So he was spying on the goddess of the hunt, Artemis and her friends while they were bathing in a stream. Artemis saw him, and lemme tell you, she was piiiiiiised. Like, you do not want to be on the bad side of Artemis. She once turned this hunter dude into a deer and had his own hounds kill him. You don't fuck with Artemis. But anyway, so she caught Orion peeking while she and her friends were bathing, and she was so mad that she sent a deadly scorpion to chase him and bite him on the ankle, killing him. This is where there are two different versions. Some say that as Zeus, the king of the gods, was Orion's dad, so he put Orion in the sky out of pity, but others say that he but Orion in the sky so that he would be eternally chased across the night sky by the constellation Scorpio. Zeus is kinda unpredictable like that."

"And you like this story because...?"

"It's a story about ancient Greek fuckbois! What's not to like? Plus, Orion is the one constellation that actually looks like what he's supposed to be. Sort of. I also like that the brightest star in Orion is called Betelgeuse. Its like Beetlejuice, but a star. Its also the eighth brightest star in the sky. Orion also has a star called Bellatrix in it. Isn't it interesting that most of the Slytherin characters in Harry Potter are named after stars or constellations? I mean, you have Draco the constellation, Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, Regulus is the brightest star in Leo, and Bellatrix is a star in Orion. I could go on, but you get the idea," Marco smiled, still looking up at the sky. "I wonder if J. K. Rowling used those names for some particular reason, or maybe she just needed to come up with names."

Jean leaned over and kissed Marco on the temple. "You're such a nerd sometimes, you know that?"

Marco laughed and caught Jean before he could pull away, and kissed him for a long time. "I know."

Jean smiled at the memory, which took place about a year ago around Christmas time. It was at that moment he got a text. He checked his phone. It was from Marco. Think of the devil, Jean thought.

I miss you <3

Jean smiled and texted back.

I wish you were here with me.