noooooo

On top of that Armin is even considerate of Jean's family. Armin invites Jean's mom out to lunch when Jean's been working a lot so they can talk smack about him, and gets involved with holidays and generally makes an effort to be apart of the family. Which, is really great for Jean, because he gets a little embarrassed about actively seeking out his family and acts annoyed the whole time he's there but he LOVES being with his family subconsciously (he was with a girl who didn't like his family as much as he pretended to not like his family and they never talked to them and he was miserable, never again). One time Jean considers the reason that Armin is so eager to be involved with his parents and cousins and aunts and uncles and the whole gang might be because he doesn't have any living family. He ends up bawling and running into the other room to a startled Armin who laughs ever-so-gently, and wraps him up in a hug, and totally... doesn't... cry too, because he's always wanted the family that Jean's been able to share with him.

When Armin is particularly affectionate Jean knows he's had a really hard night. Jean will come home and Armin will go to him immediately and sink against him and Jean drops his bags and coat where they are, sometimes with only one shoe on, to hug armin back. Jean kisses him over and over light and sweet and leads him into the kitchen where he whips up something sweet and decides how he'll spoil Armin for the rest of the night.

He yawned loudly and Armin smiled. It wasn’t often that Armin beat him awake. He was always up at the ass crack of dawn, and no matter how early he set his alarm, Jean always woke at the same time more energized than Armin could ever be.

“God, my head hurts.” He whined, falling into Armin, who struggled to keep their balance. “Water.”

Armin chuckled, and held Jean a little closer.

“Did you get the water and ibuprofen off the nightstand, love?”

“Mmhmm.” He responded rather pitifully.

Armin guided him to the couch, producing another bottle of water.

“You have to be more careful next time.”

“Mmhmm” he repeated, drawing up the hood of his jacket to hide himself from whatever light was still getting to him. He buried himself in Armin’s chest, pulling him against him, both arms wrapped unceremoniously around Armin’s significantly smaller torso.

“You only hold me like this when you’re not feeling well.” Armin rubbed up and down his back with both hands, nails gliding across the warm fabric.

It’s true, he was more a fan of holding Armin. It wasn’t often that the smaller complained, but even when he did Jean always told him that it was awkward and cramped up his neck.

“You’re a pretty good pillow.” Jean mumbled into his collar, pressing a kiss against whatever skin he could find first.

Armin couldn’t help but laugh, thinking about the vice grip he sometimes caught Jean inflicting to his poor pillows. The blue-covered, lace trimmed ones his mother had bought when she heard they were moving in together. The ones that didn’t really go with the décor, but he’d heard they were Jean’s favorite color. So they stayed.

“Jean, love, when are we going to tell your mom we’re engaged?” He glanced down at the ring on his finger; amber colored stones snuggled tight against diamonds on a gold band.

“As soon as I’m positive my mom wouldn’t kill us both.” Jean lifted his head to meet Armin’s eyes. “Has that been on your mind a lot?”

It had, and hadn’t. He’d thought about it a lot, but he thought the same about Eren and Mikasa. Sure they didn’t mind him dating Jean anymore, not since they felt satisfied that he wasn’t going to hurt Armin unnecessarily, but marriage was a whole new step.

“Wait, I thought your mom liked me.” Armin scowled. “You said I’m her favorite of your lovers since your first girlfriend that she hooked you up with.”

“She didn’t hook us up she just invited her to my birthday party hoping we’d get together and we did, it’s not the same thing.” He corrected for the hundredth time. “Also marriage is different. My mom didn’t ever like any girl who mentioned marriage around her. Said it was “much too early” and “you have a mom you don’t need a wife yet” I think she was a little jealous.”

Armin laughed again. That sounded exactly like his mom. She couldn’t let that boy go for anything. She didn’t have much to worry about, though. The only people Armin had celebrated holidays with in a long time were Eren, Mikasa, and Jean’s family. She wouldn’t see him any less. Unless she was afraid they’d move or something. One more thing they hadn’t talked about yet.

“It’s not like it would be any different.” Armin sighed. “Think she’ll be less threatened by a husband?”

Jean nuzzled in closer, if it was possible, lacing his finger with Armin out of nowhere. Armin was under the impression that Jean’s hands were otherwise occupied, but he welcomed the touch, squeezed his fingers, and pressed a kiss to his hair. Jean tilted his head up, and Armin gave him one more on his lips, grateful that in his misery Jean had still brushed his teeth.

“You know I haven’t asked her.” He kissed him again. “We can find out if you really want.”

Armin thought about that uncomfortable conversation. They had one day off together this week, and Jean was still struggling with that completely innocent headache of his. There was no chance.

“Take your time, baby. I want you to be comfortable, of course. I would never rush you into a visit with your mother if you weren’t ready!” Armin smiled, holding back a laugh.

“Cheeky bastard.” Jean smiled with him, lifting up, and shifting Armin onto his lap. “We’ll stay here, just for me. You’re such a saint.”

“Yeah…” Armin grinned as Jean drew him in tightly. “For you. I hope you’re feeling alright.”

“Definitely better.” Armin felt his heart swell when Jean kissed the back of his neck. “Thank you, sweetie. Armin I don’t want you to worry anymore about me telling my mom. I will. Let’s have dinner with her next weekend, alright?”

Instead of calling him later jean waits for his shift to be done. He takes armin home with him, and pats himself on the back cause he's not even drunk and armin tastes so sweet, and his tattoos are beautiful and he might like the stupid one on his own calf if it looked anything like armin's.

So he wakes up the next morning and armin's making breakfast in his underwear, and his tattoos look even better in the light, and he's got them all down his back and he's just really really beautiful with his hair tied up like that.

So they keep meeting and go on a few dates and Jean is a little obsessed with those tattoos of his and wants to know the story of all of them, and armin says he'll tell him one at a time so he'll keep going on dates with him. Jean laughs cause he would go on date with armin if he had no tattoos, but it's cute enough, so he agrees and armin tells him the story of one tattoo every date. Sometimes it’s a cute story about eren and mikasa traveling and something he just wanted to remember forever, and sometimes he’s really upset because it was the death of a family member, or friend, that inspired that one, and one of them covers up (more incorporates) a scar that armin had from a surgery where he almost died, and jean holds him and gets upset himself while armin laughs and tells him he’s fine.

and every night after jean gives that area extra attention, and sometimes it’s a really sensitive spot and armin’s shivering and whining, and sometimes it’s a ticklish spot so they’re laughing the whole time, and jean’s falling for this kid really hard, loves kissing him, and seeing him, and making love to him, and armin is all he draws or paints anymore, and all of a sudden he has an idea for his book!

“Uhm… Sure why not?”

Their entire lives together thus far had been a series of Jean moving too fast, and Armin not saying no.

  “I want us to be official.”

“What on Earth does “official” mean, Jean?”

“I want people to know…”

“Oh… Okay yeah sure.”

  “Armin, Babe. I want you to move in with me.”

“Good idea, my lease is almost up anyway.”

  Nothing so far had been done in the name of love, romance, or emotional fireworks.

None of this was to say Armin Arlert, the love of Jean’s life (as he had told him from month eight.), was distant, cold, or uncaring. The opposite, actually. He was warm, and inviting. Armin would wait up for hours after a long day at school, just to fall asleep in Jean’s lap after promising he would see the end of this movie. He was the kind of lover to sit Jean down in a chair, and pepper him with kisses, and rub his aching back when Jean thought he might burst into tears from stress. Armin Arlert was soft around the edges, and an eager lover in matters of the heart, and both heads.

He was the man Jean knew he would marry, though he’d been terrified to ask. Just the idea of breaking the spell, of Armin blinking up at him with indifference in his eyes; contrary to every breathless gasp, caring touch, or gentle kiss saying:

“That’s not what I wanted out of this.”

His fears were grounded in nothing. This was Armin. Armin, who had stood beside him at his mother’s funeral delicate fingers clutched tightly around Jean’s trembling wrist. He kissed his hair and pulled him close when Jean was sobbing on his knees. His lover pretended so well that he wasn’t uncomfortable standing too close together in public, as he wrapped his entire being around him.

  “Uh… Jean?” Armin brought him back to the situation at hand.

“Oh, uh...” He trailed off.

What could he say? Yeah, technically he’d been waiting all this time for Armin to do just this. Maybe he should be having more of a reaction. There were a few times where he’d beaten himself up over what it meant that Armin didn’t say it. Talked to his friends, reassured himself in that they’d never heard the word “love” either. Armin Arlert just wasn’t the kind of guy that said “I love you,” and Jean wasn’t the kind of guy to push him. In five entire years he never even talked to him about it, out of fear that Armin would feel pressured to.

“Armin, do you remember the first time I told you that I loved you?”

“On our first date when I told you I bake?”

“That was an accident!” He laughed, bending down to pick up the pieces of his dropped mug. “The real first time.”

“I remember, Jean.” Armin brushed a hand through Jean’s hair as he passed by him, reaching for paper towels. “It had almost been a year, right?”

“Eight months.”

“Oh, Jean…” Armin laughed like bells, kneeling as Jean stood. “You looked beautiful that night. I remember when you said it I felt so much relief.”

Jean grabbed at Armin’s hair this time; playing with the strands he could get a hold of while Armin cleaned his mess.

“Relief?” He prompted.

“I was so glad this was more than what it could have been.” Armin shrugged, reaching over from where he sat to toss the towels into the trashcan. “I guess you could have been lying to me, but something was so sincere that I knew you were telling the truth, and you acted it too, but I was just so happy you weren’t going to leave.”

He didn’t move to get up, and Jean joined him, cross-legged on the kitchen floor. They’d had romantic moments in weirder places. They weren’t the couple to make sure there was a nice bed and warm bath for every important moment.

“I never thought you would leave.” Jean said and took Armin’s hand, thumb stroking the back of their laced fingers. “Even though you never said it.”

 “I’ve lost a few more people, I guess.” And he had.

Jean leaned forward to kiss his cheek.

“You’re not going to lose me.” He said. “I don’t care if you never tell me you love me again. I know you do, even if you don’t exactly know you do. You don’t have to say so. I think you make it obvious enough, and I love you too.”

Armin’s eyes were wide, and bright as he smiled fondly. His eyes tightened, and brimmed with tears, and if not for his smile and the dusting of blush across his slightly upturned nose, Jean would be worried.

“I do, Jean, I love you.”

“Had to think about it for a minute or two?” Jean smirked and raised an eyebrow.

“Of course, one of us has to do it.” Armin went right back at him. “Is that what you were waiting for?”

Jean’s eyebrows turned up, and he wasn’t sure what he should say.

“I mean I’ve wanted you to say it, ever since I did the first time, but it’s not like I’ve been on the edge of my seat for five years.”

“The first time or the first time?” Armin teased, climbing into Jean’s lap.

“The first time, asshole.”

Armin pressed against him, his back to Jean’s chest. Blond hair tickled his jaw as Armin rested his head against Jean’s shoulder. Jean wrapped his Arms around him, and Armin put both his hands over larger ones.

“But is that what you were… waiting for?”

Jean opened his eyes, looked down to see just the tip of Armin’s nose visible.

“To ask me.”

His heart stopped beating for a second time.

“To ask you what?”

Armin huffed.

“You’ve been the first to do everything. I think all of this is just more important to you than it is to me, you know? It’s not that I don’t want to, but I’d been wondering how you were going to tell me you loved me after 8 months and then wait five years and not even bring up the prospect of…”

“Armin?” Jean prompted for him to keep going.

“Oh Jean, if you’re not getting the hint out of all of that I think you’re just not in the same place I am about it.”

He was more passionate than Jean expected him to be. Of course he knew what he was talking about, and it actually was exactly what he was waiting for. How could he be smart enough to figure all of that out, and then act as if Jean didn’t want to ask him?

“Armin, if you’re asking me to marry you, then yes.” He chuckled.

“What? I— no!” Armin nearly jumped up. “I wanted you to— I just want to ask if… ugh!”

He pushed up from Jean, who laughed, and pulled after his hand, using Armin’s momentum to get up himself.

“Armin, baby, wait.” He laughed, wrapped his arms around a thin waist and buried his face just behind his ear. “Armin I… Yes, I was waiting. Would you, though?”

“Would I what?” He sounded slightly breathless.

Jean could play this game. Shower him in attention and affection. Say it with his words because just implying wasn’t enough this time. Armin Arlert, the love of his life had learned over the years to revel in the frills and ribbons of being adored. Jean had spoiled him rotten.

“Armin.” He turned him around, grabbing him by the shoulders. He traced a hand up his shoulder to rest just below his jaw, thumb stroking his cheek. “I will never in my life love another person like I love you. It would cause me great distress to have to spend a single morning waking up without you there with me. Will you marry me?”

Armin’s eyes were lit up from the second he met Jean’s, and Jean was sure nothing compared to the feeling of satisfaction he got out of rousing that smile, those twinkling eyes, and the blush across his nose and cheeks.

“You don’t even have a ring.” Armin tried to laugh as he nodded, and that was when Jean realized he was holding back tears. His sparkling eyes spilled over onto his cheeks and Jean’s breath caught.

He wasn’t sure when he started crying, but he was warm now, pushed into Armin’s neck, wrapped around him tightly. He shook his head, because that was exactly something Armin would say, his Armin. He laughed imagining Armin at the altar refusing even an “I do” and opting for something a little more like “well we’ve already spent all this money.”

“We’ll get a ring later.” He smiled. “Are you going to make me wait until the day before to actually say “yes” to me?”

"I would die for you too, and that's why I have to do this. For you, and for everyone." Armin looks up, reaches for his damp face, gazes into amber eyes, the ones he's fallen asleep to every night since they met, and chastely kisses his lips. "I am going to die for you. You'll be safe."

"If we're not together what's the point?" He says. "I don't want to be safe, I want to be with you! Let's find a way, we can find a way to beat this thing without your sacrificing yourself. Armin, don't, not after all of this. Don't end it here. Don't leave me alone."

He stops talking, pressing urgently against armin's still lingering lips. Armin takes in what he can of Jean, because after this everything changes. After this they fight, and after that he dies. It's the burden he took on, he knew when he started, as did Eren and Mikasa. All of them knew when they began, but Jean didn't. Jean found out. He never had time to contemplate, to come to terms with, and now here he is, his lover being ripped from his grasp in mere moments.

"Please don't leave me." Jean chokes a sob and Armin's vision blurs.

"Jean that's enough, you're upsetting him. He needs to focus." Eren speaks.

Jean's whisper is broken and something small and fragile in Armin shatters and suddenly he doesn't know if he can do this anymore.

armin cleaning his blades, and catching his reflection accompanied by his hands and the first thing he realizes as he makes eye contact with himself is that he doesn't hate how delicate they are, and he stares at them for a second, and everyone's like "Armin are u ok you've been getting really lost in thought lately" and he just smiles like "yeah I'm really great lately, don't worry" and Armin Arlert is falling in love with himself.

I feel like Jean likes to tell him these things when they're together, anyway, he'll put his hands on his hips and tell him he has really nice hips, or stick his nose in his neck and tell him his collar bones are fucking pretty cause Jean's a moron, and he's used to armin telling him to stop being embarrassing or to argue with him or give him a "they're alright" but one time he just stops and gets the biggest smile on his face cause armin says for the very first time "I know"

More Armin panicking over the trashcan in search of an important document he's sure he threw away while Jean quietly grabs it off the top of the refrigerator and tells Armin to be more careful.

And more scatterbrained armin too.

An Armin who could name every star in the sky, but couldn't say what he had, or if he even ate, breakfast

Give me an Armin who completely glosses over anniversaries, holidays, and birthdays, and a Jean who leaves valentine's day tissue paper on the floor of armin's office 2 days early if he wants him to remember (and doesn't really mind reminding him).

Bring me the conflict too.

A Jean who is exhausted up to his eyeballs over a 60 hour week, only to get home and yell at Armin because he hasn't eaten since Jean left.

An Armin who is finally tired of Jean nagging him only to be reminded of everything he does for him by Mikasa.

A Jean who is this close to spending a few days with connie and Sasha, only to come home to a spotless house, dinner on the table and a warm bath. The dinner trend continues for a few days, weeks, months and Armin, thank the heavens, has learned a new skill (if only he could add the cleaning, and bath into the deal).

An Armin scared to tears that Jean is going to leave him when he realizes he once again forgot to pay the water bill.

Jean finally realizing that he not only loves Armin, but loves him exactly how he is, though dinner still being ready when he's home is nice.

He never knew his dad and the King treats his mother poorly, at least emotionally. She's well cared for and he's grateful for that, since he could have done much worse, but he won't let her forget what she did, and Jean is evidence of that, so he treats him the same. Calls him a bastard and reminds him he's living off of charity.

They both have pretty good lives regardless, but they both make a point to not poke fun about certain things in the future. Jean takes to making fun of Armin's hair, who found out through out the night Jean is actually quite fond of (he won't take his hands out of it). Before they part for the night, Jean takes both of Armin's hands in his and lean's forward to kiss the corner of his mouth, and Armin blushes.