Childish Games

Childish Games - Four

-Chapter Four-

It was all he could think about for the entire day. Marco had put his hand atop his own and he obviously didn't pull away, even if the warmth from it almost made him explode. Then the boy had kissed him on the cheek, but blamed it on boredom instead of anything else. Was it platonic? It must've been, surely. Marco had never shown any interest in another guy before so Jean was almost certain that he was as straight as a ruler made of rock; completely un-malleable. But if he looked at it that way, he himself had never shown any obvious interest in another guy. There was of course the infatuation with Levi for about the first week of seeing him, but you'd be lying if you said you hadn't had dirty dreams about him at least once. He knew he certainly had and it wasn't unpleasant, actually.

Of course he'd never tell anyone about that, but most people just assumed that at least every male and female, straight or not, had at least one fantasy about him, so nobody bothered asking or telling. It'd be quite obvious anyway the day after it happened, because whoever had the dirty dream would get flustered at the mention of his name let alone seeing him in person. So questions weren't raised, in order to save embarrassment. This, however, was different. The situation he found himself in with Marco was completely different to filthy, graphic dreams about Captain Rivaille. He wasn't seeing Marco in a sexual light (yet), he couldn't imagine him naked, didn't particularly want to at this point but the fact that he couldn't showed something was completely different. He'd tried it out on other people since it didn't work on Marco and eventually he could imagine the whole room naked, and Marco would be stood there still fully clothed and smiling at him all innocently. So it wasn't broken, Marco was immune. He found himself wanting to just be around the boy more, not exactly touching him and making him gasp out his name (no matter how appealing that sounded). He wanted a good friend, most of all, someone he could tell everything to before he told anybody else. Somebody to protect, other than himself, so he'd have more purpose to fight instead of the lives of people he didn't even know. He had a feeling that two guys together could possibly be frowned upon. Not because they were guys, as such, but because they couldn't have children to repopulate if the Titans were to be defeated. Ha. That's the biggest 'if' thats ever been uttered anywhere. It was more likely that pigs would sprout wings and start flying than it was for Titans to die out. They had no idea how the lumps reproduced. Jean opted for mitosis. He believed that eventually, a titan would lose so many brain cells that it'd have no other choice of survival than to split into two identical titans, and that's why there were no female titans. There could be some, but they'd never seen any so nothing could be said for certain. Of course, that only qualified if titans even had brains. Even Zoe Hanji hadn't figured out that fact yet. Every titan she captures gets either killed or tries to kill her, so then it's killed after getting too close for comfort.

Jean found himself lying in his bunk, staring blankly up with his arms folded over his chest. He guessed it was about 23:00 and everyone else would be asleep or drinking. He slid out of his cabin and started to just wander, sitting down atop a hill and staring up at the stars like he and Marco had done not too long ago. It really was peaceful, he had to admit.

'Hey, I didn't expect to catch you out here.' Came a voice. A very distinct voice that could really only ever belong to that freckle faced boy.

'Oh, hey.' Jean smiled, 'Felt like getting some air.' Marco nodded and made a little noise in agreement, he sat closer than necessary on the big hill and Jean noticed this. He turned to face the taller boy and smiled softly again.

'What?' Said Marco.

'Oh, nothing.'

'No, what is it, you're clearly thinking about something. I can see it trying to fly out of your ears.'

'Alright, alright.' He gave in, taking a deep breath and looking at Marco, completely serious. 'Marco, do you like me?' Marco raised an eyebrow and chuckled.

'Of course I do, why wouldn't I?' Jean shook his head a little bit.

'I meant, do you like me?' He could feel his cheeks heating up and Marco chuckled again, but a little quieter.

'I know what you meant. And my answer is still the same.' He said, reaching a hand up to run through Jean's hair, pushing it back a little bit and smiling before he was distracted by Reiner calling for him.

'Marco! Curfew's in like five minutes! If you're caught outside after that, then you'll get your balls cut off and ground into dust!' Jean grimaced a little at the thought of that and stood up, offering a hand to Marco so he could get up.

'My cabin's the opposite direction to yours.' He said, looking up at the boy and smiling still. Marco nodded and pressed the briefest kiss to his forehead, literally lasting a split second before he started off.

'See you tomorrow!' He called back, waving backwards at him before disappearing into his cabin when he got there, leaving Jean stood on the hill with the stupidest smile on his face ever.