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Jean pulled down the metal grate behind the gallery windows and locked it into place. Beyond the grate, he could just glimpse swipes of vivid color dimly lit by the lone light on the back wall. He gritted his teeth. He understood all too well that the gallery’s first priority was showcasing only the most marketable art, but did they really have to exhibit the work of his nemesis?
As the seniormost employee second only to the gallerist themself, Jean had lobbied vigorously against displaying the art of one Floch Forster. Even a passing mention of the name set him on edge. They had been classmates back in art school, and once, they were even friends. But that was before their rivalry, before the style theft, before everything. That was before Floch made it into a gallery when Jean couldn’t get anyone to even give his art a second thought.
“It’s so daring,” Hange had said when they first looked through Floch’s application. “So unique.”
It’s unique, alright, Jean thought.
And sure, Floch’s work definitely caught the eye. Even Jean couldn’t deny that his color schemes were fascinating, his visual rhythms avant-garde. But was his art really gallery worthy? No matter the counterargument Jean lobbed against it, Hange seemed to think so.
In the weeks that followed Floch’s gallery opening, Jean had racked his brain endlessly for answers, wondering what, exactly, Floch’s art had that his didn’t. He’d presented his portfolio to Hange a handful of times, hoping they might be able to help him understand why it was so unmarketable. Each time, he’d been able to make some improvements based on their feedback, but his last few applications at local galleries had been turned down nonetheless.
It lacks visual cohesion, Hange had said during the last round of critique. Standing there, staring at the mess of forms, lines, and values that made up the abstractions Floch called art, Jean wondered what exactly was so cohesive about it. Yet despite his disdain for the work, he’d done nothing less than sell the hell out of it. That day, in fact, he’d sold one of the priciest paintings of the set.
As he headed for the bus stop, he shoved his hands in his pockets and stewed. Normally after getting a commission of this size, he’d take his boyfriend out for a night on the town. They’d go out dancing, maybe, or they’d see a show, or they’d split a fancy meal while he made fun of the overwrought menu and Jean would pretend not to think it was funny. But truth be told, Jean wasn’t sure he still had a boyfriend.
It had been four days since he’d last seen Eren, a fact he was acutely aware of as he waited at the bus stop alone. Back in the early days of their relationship, when things were still fresh and new, Eren would meet him there after work, pulling him into a salacious kiss that earned them stares from passersby. Jean, love-drunk and flustered, used to think those days would last forever. Now, as he crammed himself into an isolated seat near the back of the bus and watched his breath fog up the glass, he knew better.
The night he met Eren, the gallery had just sold its most valuable painting in the company’s history. To celebrate, Hange took everyone out for drinks, dragging them out to this little hole in the wall a good half hour away. They had passed plenty of perfectly good bars along the way—a fact which Jean had been quick to point out—but when they piled in through the doorway, Jean understood why Hange had picked it. Though the floor was sticky and the air stuffy and thick, the bar had clearly been crafted with an artist’s sensibility. A thin veil of smoke obscured a giant mural covering the entire back wall, which was painted with an impressionistic vision of the kraken smashing a ship to smithereens.
“I know the lady who painted that, you know,” Hange said, elbowing him. “She was the first artist I exhibited.”
Jean snorted. That would explain why they made the trip.
He slid into a booth beside his coworker Hitch and studied the mural as they waited for their drinks. The more he looked at it, the more details he noticed. He’d seen plenty of murals in his life, and most were nothing to write home about, often featuring misshapen forms, misplaced details, and mismatched colors. This one, though, was made by someone who knew what they were doing. The clouds in the sky were fluffy and delicate, their pinks and yellows intermingling artfully with purples and blues. The last rays of the sun shone off the kraken’s shiny mantle and glinted in its glassy eye, while a pale and watery moon rose just above the horizon. On one end of the wall, tiny sailors screamed as they plummeted from the deck of the ship into the dark waters below. On the other, a rock bathed in sunlight supported a host of sirens, some singing, others combing their hair.
Jean could have stared at it forever, but just then Hange arrived and set down a tray of shots with a clunk. Hange raised their glass. “A picture’s worth a thousand drinks, eh, fellas?”
Jean rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t resist a grin as he clinked glasses with his coworkers.
An hour and three drinks later, he sat at the table, droopy-eyed, still staring at the mural. Not long after he’d arrived, the tall center tables had been cleared away to make room for a small dance floor. Trippy blue and purple lights made the whole scene feel like it was underwater. Hitch had her tongue stuck halfway down some girl’s throat, and Hange was dancing with a guy he didn’t recognize. Jean had attempted to find someone to pass the time with, too, but no one really caught his eye. That left him and the new hire, Marlowe, sitting at the booth. Jean could tell Marlowe was a recent art school graduate by the way he still wanted to talk shop when he should have been trying to chat someone up.
“Most people know Da Vinci was a great artist,” Marlowe was saying, “But what they don’t know is that he was a great mathematician, too.”
“Everybody knows that about Da Vinci,” Jean muttered.
“Huh?”
Jean cleared his throat. “I said, uh, I’ve gotta get another drink in me.”
“Hey, would you get me a beer?” Marlowe called after him as he straggled toward the bar, disoriented by the change in lighting.
“Sure thing, bud,” Jean said, and maybe it was a good thing that his voice was swallowed up by the music because he didn’t mean a word of it.
The large wooden bar was fashioned like the bow of a ship, lacquer-smooth and shiny. As he approached, he was disappointed to find that the bartenders weren’t wearing little sailor outfits. The nearest bartender had his back to him when he approached. Jean appraised him briefly, noting the long, dark brown hair and the racerback white tank top, and the tattoo of a red rose on his left shoulder blade. The rose was wreathed in vines that curled and writhed and dug into his back, ending in inky drops of blood where the thorns seemed to disappear beneath the skin.
“This place is making me seasick,” Jean joked, mostly to fill the air.
The bartender whom Jean would soon come to know as Eren turned to him, and that was when Jean wished he’d said something more clever. Jean didn’t look at his face first. No, when Eren turned, Jean’s eyes went straight to his tits. They were small and perky, and Jean could tell through the paper-thin fabric that his nipples were pierced. He couldn’t help but want to know what they looked like under there.
“Not big on tentacles?” Eren said, and that was when Jean finally managed to tear his eyes off his tits to look at his face. His eyes were a glimmering green, and he wore a smirk on his pink lips. He’d obviously caught Jean looking.
Confronted with what was possibly the most attractive man he’d ever seen in his life, Jean scrambled for something to say. He did the first thing that came to mind and pulled up the rolled sleeve of his button-down, revealing his only tattoo: a red rose, like Eren’s, though the vines merely encircled his bicep rather than appearing to penetrate it.
“I’m more of a vine guy myself,” he said.
Eren stuck a towel in a wet glass and swirled it around. “A rose, huh? Are you a romantic?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
“Not really, but I guess I’m trying to be. A friend of mine said it would do me some good—to ‘look for the romance in the little things.’”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Hmm…” Eren smiled. “Like a frog croaking in the rain.”
Jean snorted. “A frog? That’s romantic to you?”
“Well, think about it,” Eren said, pausing for a moment to mix a cocktail, “Frogs live in ponds ‘cause that’s where the water is, right? But on a rainy day, when the rest of the world hides away, the humble frog owns the Earth. That’s romance to me.”
“You could say that’s beautiful, sure—majesty of nature or whatever. But it’s not romance,” Jean said. “It’s different.”
“Alright, smart guy. What’s romance to you?”
“Hmm. I guess it’s like…” Jean mused, tapping his chin, “Romance is like the sun and the moon. Those moments when they share the sky are life’s most beautiful, and yet they’re inherently estranged. It’s tragically romantic, but romantic nonetheless.”
“Don’t you think using the word ‘beautiful’ in your definition of romance is cheating a little?”
Jean arched an eyebrow. “Are you always this pedantic, or did your friend teach you that, too?”
Eren laughed then, a big belly laugh that slipped between Jean’s ribs and made itself at home there.
“That’s all me,” he said, leaning in so close Jean could feel a puff of breath on his face. “Hey, what’s your name?”
“Jean. It’s Jean,” he said, flustered by the proximity.
“So, Jean,” Eren purred, “What can I get you?”
They talked off and on for the rest of the night, broken only by the annoyed calls of other customers decrying the shoddy service. That was when Jean learned his name, that he had no problem drinking alongside his customers, and that he was a bartender during the night and a menace during the day (his words). He also learned that yes, Eren had a pussy, which Jean had suspected, and that he had six tattoos, but Jean would have to get him naked in order to see them all. By that point, Jean was wondering if Eren was just flirting with him in order to get a good tip until he leaned way over the bar, letting his tank top gape in the front, and said, “I get off in fifteen.”
Jean knew he had a choice then, but it was hardly a choice at all, because from the moment he looked he knew he would leap.
“Yeah?” he said, “And what time do I get off?”
Fifteen minutes later, Eren shrugged on a leather jacket and gave him a look as he disappeared through the service door, and Jean scrambled to follow. The door opened onto a steep flight of stairs down to a dark, damp alley. Eren waited for him at the bottom, a smoldering look in his eye, and kissed him before he could ask if they should call a cab.
Eren’s mouth tasted of stale liquor and his hair smelled of cigarettes, but Jean hardly noticed it, intoxicated by his warmth and his softness and by the little moan that slipped from him when Jean grabbed his ass. He pushed Eren up against the nearest wall face-first and took him right there, the slap of their bodies and their hushed exclamations drowning out the sound of the drunk puking on the street corner. Jean had never had someone who begged for it quite like he did, who moaned louder each time he pulled his hair. Eren rubbed his clit and came on Jean’s cock and clamped down around him so tight that Jean lost himself inside soon after. When Jean pulled out, he watched his spend dribble down onto the cobblestone below and said “Fuck, a condom,” but Eren just shushed him and told him he was on the pill.
When they were done, Eren pressed a crumpled piece of paper with a smudged phone number written on it into his palm and whispered, “call me,” and Jean did, and Eren didn’t pick up the first time, or the second time, or the third time, but on the fourth time—the last, Jean swore—Eren did pick up. They met at a public park to “feed the ducks,” after which Eren shoved him into a gross public restroom and fucked him right there, wet and sloppy on the sink. Jean yanked down Eren’s underwear and spotted two more tattoos, a pair of skulls on his hipbones, and thought as he sank into that heavenly heat that Eren really might be the death of him.
Either the sink was old or they were just that vigorous, because a pipe came loose from the wall, spraying water all over the bathroom and soaking their shoes. Eren let out a crazed laugh as he squeak-squeak-squeaked away from the scene in wet sneakers. As they ran, Jean yelled “Shouldn’t we call someone?” but Eren just said “Who cares!”
At home later that night, Jean thought of the housekeeping nightmare they’d left behind and vowed not to call Eren again. But he didn’t have to, because the next time Eren called him instead, saying something or other about a band he liked playing at a bar across town, and Jean figured it was just an excuse to fuck in a public place again, since by then he’d gotten the sense that Eren liked having eyes on him. When he arrived, he was surprised to find that Eren actually wanted to listen to the music. He’d worn an outfit to match, a ratty old band tee and ripped jeans and spiked bracelets and messy eyeliner, and Jean was ready to march to the bathroom and take it all off him when instead Eren grabbed his hand, laughing and jumping and dancing wildly, and in the presence of energy so infectious how could Jean do anything other than dance with him?
After the show, Eren took Jean back to his apartment for the first time. It was a one-room studio type with an industrial vibe—a converted warehouse, Eren told him—with stars painted on the high ceiling and a king-size bed enveloped in gossamer canopy. Eren pushed him on the bed and did a striptease for him, revealing a lacy black number hidden underneath his clothes, and when he bent down to take off his underwear, his hair shifted to the side and Jean caught sight of the little four-leaf clover tattoo tucked behind his ear, and he wondered how he could have gotten so lucky. Then Eren rode him until he couldn’t see straight, and when he awoke later to soft morning light filtering in through the canopy, Eren was gone.
Lock up when you go, Eren had scrawled on a note on the kitchen counter beside a spare key and a donut with a single bite taken out of it. As Jean ate the rest of the donut, he wondered, who the hell gives a stranger a spare key? And then it occurred to him that they weren’t strangers anymore after all.
After that, their hangouts became more casual and frequent. Sometimes they didn’t even have sex. Eren would come over to the studio space beneath Jean’s apartment and he’d laugh and sigh and rest his head in Jean’s lap as Jean worked on the underdrawing for his newest painting, which he knew he’d show Hange and they’d say hm, interesting, but with Eren there, that prospect didn’t bother him quite as much.
“Will you paint me?” Eren said on one such afternoon, propping himself up on his elbow, not seeming to care that his crop top had ridden up just enough to expose the underswell of his tits.
“Yeah? How much are you gonna pay me?” Jean quipped, glancing away from his still life study, a boring but necessary exercise, and feasting his eyes on something much more interesting.
Eren was lying on his back, his hair splayed out on a throw pillow and his feet in Jean’s lap. He tapped his cheek with a chipped painted nail as he looked at Jean through his long eyelashes and contemplated. “Hmm… I’ll give you a hundred blowjobs.”
“You suck at giving blowjobs,” Jean said, turning back to the drawing.
“I do not!”
“Last time you bit my dick.”
“That was an accident and you know it.”
Jean shrugged as he shaded the peel of a banana. “My point still stands.”
“Okay, but think about how good I’ll be after the hundredth blowjob. Hell, after the tenth! Jeaaaannn…”
“I don’t want your damn blowjobs,” Jean said, setting his pencil aside. “But there is something I do want.”
Eren’s eyes just seemed to get bigger as Jean leaned over him, boxing him in on both sides with his arms. “What is it?”
Jean’s stomach flopped. He knew somewhere deep down inside that this was a bad idea, but he couldn’t stop himself.
“Be mine,” Jean breathed, tracing his finger along the edge of Eren’s jaw. “I know you’re still fucking guys from the bar. Don’t. Just be with me.”
The silence between them seemed to stretch on into eternity. Jean was already pretty convinced that Eren would say no before he even asked, but he had to ask anyway, had to know if Eren liked him the way he liked Eren, had to know if he was wasting his time so he could disengage before he got in any deeper, let himself feel more.
But to his surprise, at the end of that long, long moment, Eren shrugged and said, “Sure.”
“Yeah?” Jean said, half in disbelief.
“Yeah. Why not?”
Jean didn’t feel the relief he expected to feel in that moment. Instead, his trepidation only grew. Did Eren really understand what he had just agreed to, or was he just following whatever urge he felt at the time? He didn’t have time to ask, because that was when Eren sprang up, smashing their lips together as he pushed Jean down onto the couch and crawled into his lap. Jean wasn’t confused by Eren’s sudden change in energy or demeanor, accepting the kiss without hesitation. Spontaneity was Eren’s way. It was almost impossible to plan around his whims, and truthfully, Jean liked that about him. Before he met Eren, the impulsive spark that had driven his hot-headed youth had long gone dormant. He hadn’t realized just how high of a wall he’d built around his clockwork-steady nine-to-five life until Eren drove a wrecking ball through it. Now that Jean had seen what was on the other side, there was no going back.
“Okay,” Eren said, his lips shiny and kiss-red, “How do you want me?”
Although Eren’s painting proposal had been informal, Jean took it as seriously as he would a client, sitting Eren on a stool and turning on his portable studio lights one by one, shifting them around until the planes of Eren’s face were bathed in artful swaths of light and shadow. Next, he undid Eren’s ponytail, brushing his hair out, arranging his bangs to frame his face just so.
Lastly, Jean tugged at the crop top. “Take this off.”
Eren removed it with a smirk, tossing it to the side. Beneath it, his tits were bare. He’d ditched his pants just inside the studio door, complaining of the summer heat, and now he wore only a thin pair of black briefs.
“Like this?”
“Almost.”
Jean bent down and kissed him, cupping his neck and exploring his mouth with his tongue, then moving downward, leaving hot kisses all down his neck, and finally attending to his tits, sucking each nipple until they were puffy and pink, tugging at the piercings with his teeth as he pulled away.
“What was that for?” Eren said, panting.
“You’re all rosy now,” Jean said, fingertips brushing along Eren’s flushed chest. “I have just the color for this.”
It took all of Jean’s willpower to turn away from the hunger he saw in Eren’s eyes, instead setting up his easel and squeezing acrylic paint onto the palette with shaking fingers. Eren wouldn’t be able to tolerate sitting for long—he knew that much—so he abandoned his meticulous planning process in favor of rushed, unplanned paint strokes. He barely thought, he just did, and as the painting slowly came together before his eyes, Jean felt a rush of exhilaration. He hadn’t felt so free since before art school, before the voice in the back of his mind had grown like mold over his thoughts, telling him his works were ugly, uninspired, unworthy. His concentration was only broken when Eren yawned, stretching his arms high above his head.
“I didn’t know it would be this boring,” Eren said, dewdrops glistening in the corners of his eyes.
Jean blinked, disoriented, as he tore his eyes away from the painting in front of him. How long had it been since he’d started working? Minutes? Hours?
“Sitting for a portrait isn’t as sexy as it sounds, is it?” Jean said.
“Could have told me that before we started,” Eren grumbled. “Can I look?”
Jean eyed the painting. It was only about half done, but it was definitely coming along. The background was a fiery red, tempered with yellows and blues, while his skin was soft and translucent. Jean hadn’t shied away from including all his little imperfections, painting in the perennial dark smudges beneath his eyes and the uneven strands of hair cut by his own hand. Gazing upon that painted face, Jean knew then that he would do anything for him.
“Alright, come over here,” Jean said.
Eren made an excited noise in the back of his throat as he scurried over.
“Fuck, Jean. You never said you were actually good at this.”
Jean’s cheeks flushed. It had been a long time since anyone had anything nice to say about his art.
“You’ve been watching me paint for weeks,” he said, hoping to play it off.
Eren rolled his eyes. If he could tell Jean had gotten choked up, he didn’t acknowledge it. “Sure, but all you’ve done since I’ve been here is paint fruit. I thought maybe that was your thing.”
Jean opened his mouth to retort, but the words died in his throat when Eren leaned in close, poring over the details. Jean had elected not to shade him realistically, using swipes of dark blues and warm greens in contrast to the main red that formed the base of the composition.
“I like how you…” Eren didn’t seem to know how to describe it, so he dipped his thumb in the paint instead, swiping the green down his neck to mirror how Jean had painted him. Jean was transfixed as Eren attempted to replicate the paint strokes on his own body, smearing himself in red and purple and green. At some point, it stopped being about recreating the painting. Their eyes met as Eren’s hand snaked down his torso, painting himself crimson, fingertips toying at the waistband of his underwear.
“You’ll hurt yourself,” Jean said, catching his wrist.
“Then I guess you’d better help me out,” Eren said, his voice husky.
Jean kept hold of his wrist and stood, pulling him close, kissing him deeply. Eren snatched the palette and led Jean to the dropcloth in the middle of the room.
“My turn,” Eren said.
Jean stripped and lay back as Eren covered him in paint, swiping blue along his collarbones, dotting yellow on his joints, and finally, slashing red across Jean’s throat as he positioned himself to ride. But Jean unseated him instead, laying him down on the dropcloth and painting swooping swirls and sunbursts on his chest and ribs. And when Eren was at last like putty beneath his hands, panting and writhing and begging to be fucked, Jean bent between his legs and claimed him with his tongue.
Angel, the old, fuzzy, blown-out tattoo above Eren’s pussy proclaimed in looping cursive. But there, as Jean licked between Eren’s thighs until he trembled, he had to disagree. Helplessly intoxicated by just the taste of him, addicted to this despite the growing suspicion that it would end in disaster, he wondered if Eren might really be the devil.
Eren moved in not long after that, though it was more accurate to say that one day, he simply stayed. Eren used to leave after they fucked, but when he started sleeping over, Jean didn’t think much of it. He offered Eren a drawer in the nightstand and Eren accepted, and then he took over the next drawer, too, and then he started leaving his clothes in the closet, and then one day he came over and said, “My lease expired.”
Jean had quite liked his apartment, so he’d been a little disappointed. “Do you want help looking for a new place?”
“No.” Eren shrugged and flopped down on the couch, popping a handful of chips stolen from the pantry into his mouth. “But I was wondering, do you have room for a king-size mattress?”
They kept the bed but lost the canopy—it was too tall for the room. To replace it, Eren suggested they hang Jean’s unfinished portrait of him above the bed.
“I want to look at it when I fuck you,” Eren had said, and that struck Jean as being pretty self-obsessed, but who was he to argue when faced with the promise of sex?
There, lying that night in Eren’s bed in Jean’s apartment with the portrait of Eren hanging above them and Eren himself beside him, Jean figured things were pretty well settled between them. The events of the coming months would soon prove him wrong.
Their arguments started out small at first. They quibbled about little things, like who should do the dishes or fold the laundry. But as Jean came to understand Eren’s habits and patterns, he realized just how chaotic Eren’s life really was. At first, Jean thought Eren had changed, but gradually he recognized that he was simply seeing the full spectrum of Eren’s existence now that they were living together.
Eren rose and slept by no set schedule, some days waking up at the crack of dawn and other days sleeping until late in the afternoon. He frequently forgot to eat, and Jean was unpleasantly reminded of his mother when he pestered him about it.
“What’s it to you?” Eren would say, dead-eyed on the couch, and Jean wouldn’t know how to explain to him what it was like to care about someone who couldn’t seem to take care of himself.
Then came the late nights. Since Eren was a bartender, Jean had expected that to some degree, but what he hadn’t expected was for Eren not to come home without any indication of where he was going. Jean tried hard not to play the part of the overprotective boyfriend, but he knew what Eren was like—knew that Eren didn’t think things through, that he could change with the wind, and that one day, he was going to get himself into trouble. So the worry that he crammed deep down in his gut so as not to be stifling gradually festered into resentment.
Four days ago, their latest fight had begun just like any other. Eren had come home nearly a day after Jean had last heard from him, stinking of booze and smoke, and barely had two words to say to him upon his return.
“I texted you,” Jean said quietly, picking at his half-eaten dinner for one.
That had been his only ask: not that Eren change his habits, or come home early, or take better care of himself, no. Jean had simply asked Eren to tell him if he wasn’t coming home. That was it, and he couldn’t even do that much.
“Must’ve missed it,” Eren said, his back to Jean as he rooted through the fridge and cracked open a soda.
“Yeah?” Jean said, his voice raising slightly, “Did you miss the three calls after that, too?”
Eren leaned against the counter with a shrug, taking a long, indulgent gulp of his drink as their eyes met. “Guess I did.”
Jean took that moment to really get a good look at him. His hair was greasy and tangled, he looked hungover, and the circles beneath his eyes were darker than usual. Jean wondered if he had even slept last night.
“I just don’t get why you don’t want me to know where you are,” Jean said.
Eren rolled his eyes. “Here we go again.”
“I’m serious! What is your problem with sending me a text? Where do you disappear to? Why is it some big secret?” The words spilled out before he could stop them. “Are you sleeping with someone else?”
Eren let out a sharp laugh. “Yeah, you would fucking love that, wouldn’t you?”
Jean sprung up and followed Eren as he stalked to the bedroom. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Because then you’d have an excuse to control me,” Eren said, shucking his pants and rifling through the drawer for fresh ones. Beneath his clothes were a vast array of strange bruises.
“Control you—?” Jean seized Eren’s wrist, gesturing to the marks on his arm. “This is why I want to know, Eren! You come home looking like hell, and you expect me to just accept it! Day and night, I sit here and fucking worry about you. If you don’t fix this soon, I’ll—”
“You’ll what, Jean?” Eren said, wild-eyed. “You’ll what?”
Jean realized then just how tightly he was grasping Eren’s wrist. He let go suddenly, stepping back. Bile rose in his throat as he wondered who, exactly, he was becoming.
“I just,” Jean tried, his throat dry as he watched Eren pull off his shirt, briefly exposing the bird tattoo on his ribs, “I just wish you would take care of yourself. Look at you! You’re a mess. If Carla could see you like this, it would break her fucking heart.”
“Keep her name out of your fucking mouth!” Eren said, jabbing a finger into his chest.
Eren snatched a shirt from the closet and marched down the hallway as he tugged it over his head. Sheepishly, Jean trailed after him.
“Eren, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought her up.”
“Whatever. God, I’m so done with this. Have a nice life, Jean,” Eren said, walking out and slamming the door behind him.
Suddenly exhausted, Jean had collapsed on the couch and put his head in his hands. The afterimage of Eren’s bird tattoo swam behind his eyelids. That was who Eren really was, he had thought. Eren would always, above all else, strive to be free. To him, their relationship was a cage. When he interpreted care as control, what else could it ever be?
As Jean stepped off the bus and headed for their apartment at the end of the fourth day since that final argument, he let out a resigned sigh. Though Eren had not yet come back for his stuff, Jean figured it was probably over for good this time. Maybe it was for the best that he let Eren go. Eren, it seemed, had already let go of him.
Or so he thought until, standing beneath the shelter of their familiar stoop, he noticed that the front door was ajar.
A number of possibilities ran through his head in that moment. Eren could be careless, but he wasn’t usually that careless. Eren had been there, that was for sure. Had he simply left it ajar after coming and taking his comically large mattress, or was he still inside?
Jean’s heart pounded as he grabbed the knob, unsure of what he even wanted to find on the other side. Part of him hoped the apartment would be empty, that Eren had just taken his stuff and gone, so they wouldn’t have to face the tragedy of it, how they had burned so bright and fizzled out so fast. But another part of him, a larger part, hoped to find Eren there in the kitchen in nothing but a long t-shirt that just skimmed his thighs, halfway through burning dinner with a cigarette hanging out the side of his mouth despite Jean asking him not to smoke inside a thousand times over. If Eren were there, if he were back, he wouldn’t care. He’d pluck the cigarette from Eren’s lips and replace it with his mouth, and instead of asking Where were you? he’d say Welcome home, and instead of saying I’m sorry Eren would say Dinner’s ready, and they’d sit and eat and they wouldn’t have to talk about any of it until it came up explosively in their next fight, an hour or a day or a week from then.
The door creaked open as Jean stepped inside. The living room and kitchen were empty, but Eren’s well-worn sneakers were in a heap by the welcome mat. Jean’s heartbeat quickened as he looked around the dark apartment. Maybe Eren was in the bathroom, or maybe he was taking a nap. Yet as he drew closer to the bedroom, he heard a sound he knew all too well. It was Eren’s voice, breathy and low, in the throes of ecstasy. And he wasn’t alone, either: he heard another voice, too. Eren was with someone.
The blood drained from his face. Could it really be that Eren had returned just to fuck someone else in their bed?
This wasn’t an accident. Jean knew that. Eren must have left the door ajar as an invitation, to come, to look, to see. Jean felt himself compelled toward the bedroom door as if by a supernatural force, despite knowing what he would find there, despite dreading it.
Jean’s legs turned to jelly with each step toward the bedroom. He toyed with the idea of heading to a hotel for the night and leaving a fuck-you note on the counter, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He had to know who Eren was with.
He pushed the bedroom door open firmly, making no secret of his presence. Despite that, the two people on the bed didn’t acknowledge him. The first thing Jean saw was two sets of limbs tangled together. Eren was on top, his back muscles shining with sweat as he bounced on someone else’s cock. Jean was almost hypnotized by the sight before him, like he was watching himself fuck Eren from an outsider’s point of view.
He had always thought that in this kind of situation, he would be filled with a righteous anger, that he would know what to say and do, but he didn’t. He just stood there, speechless, as they drew closer to climax. Jean could tell by the pitchy tone in Eren’s voice, by the way he said no words, using only breathless, half-formed syllables, that they had been at it for a while. Eren hadn’t stopped touching himself since Jean entered. Being discovered by his boyfriend had clearly done nothing to kill his boner.
The other guy was quiet. Jean leaned against the doorframe and watched as the pitch of Eren’s voice went up, up, up, and he threw his head back and cried out, and the name ripped from his lips hit Jean like a ton of bricks:
“Floch!” he cried, and Jean’s blood ran cold.
Not him, Jean thought. Anyone but him.
Jean realized then that he should have seen this coming. Eren had long made a habit of flirting with other people. They’d go out and Eren would find someone to rub up on, and he’d act interested, but he’d shoot Jean a coy look, feeding on his attention, liking that he was watching.
And Jean, in turn, liked to watch. He liked to see Eren make a show of desiring and being desired, because at the end of the day, he was the one who would take Eren home and fuck him. He was the one Eren kissed first thing in the morning, whose shoulder he fell asleep on when they lounged on the couch watching shitty TV, whom he whispered I missed you to as he climbed into bed after another late night. As far as Jean had been concerned, it was all for show, just a game they played to keep things interesting.
Or so he thought.
Now, he saw those moments in a new light. Eren wasn’t trying to rile Jean up so he’d get a little rough in bed later, no: he was looking for someone in particular, for the right someone, the one who would get him the reaction he was looking for. He’d found that someone during the night of Floch’s gallery opening, when Jean had naively invited Eren along with him for a bit of moral support.
Jean’s vision for that night had been so clear. They’d mingle and schmooze and occasionally they’d make eyes at each other that screamed, oh brother, these artsy types, and in that way, Jean would manage to get through what he had assumed would be the most annoying night of his life. And he’d been right about that last part, though not in the way he’d expected. Eren came in, draped over his arm and dressed to kill, and made the rounds as expected, charming or pissing off everyone he met, depending. But when he’d finally made his way over to Floch and looked up at him with fluttering eyelashes and a light touch on the forearm, Jean’s stomach had sank.
Anyone but him, he’d thought then, as he did now. Eren must have seen it on his face, must have known that this would be the thing he couldn’t get past, and that was when he knew he’d found the right guy. Jean knew well that Eren would just as soon create something beautiful as he would destroy it. He just didn’t think it would happen to him.
When Eren rolled onto the bed, sinking into the pillows with a self-satisfied sigh, Jean’s eyes met Floch’s first. Floch’s hair, normally so perfectly coiffed—helmet hair, Jean had said derisively on more than one occasion—was now in disarray, some sticking to his forehead, other strands curling upward. Floch said nothing, just sat there with a smirk and glint in his eye that said, I win. He didn’t seem the least bit bothered by being caught. And why would he be? They had probably been planning this for days, or maybe even longer. Maybe Eren had just been waiting for the right moment to twist this particular knife.
Get into any galleries yet, Jean? Floch’s shitty smug voice echoed in his head from that fateful night when Floch and Eren met. Jean’s hands balled into fists at his sides. Floch had taken the top spot at their graduation showcase. He’d taken up space in his gallery. And now, he’d taken Jean’s boyfriend, too.
“Hey, Jean,” Eren said with a lazy smile as he lit a cigarette, reclining back like he was the king of the world.
“Welcome back,” Jean said, his tone oddly empty.
As he approached the bed, he wondered if it was age that had cooled his once-molten fury into the solid lump of obsidian that sat heavy in the pit of his stomach. Eren’s gaze on him glinted with a silent challenge as Jean plucked the cigarette from his lips and ashed it on the nightstand, paying no mind to the scorch mark the ember left behind.
“I’ve asked you not to smoke in here,” he said.
“Oops,” Eren said, and though the word itself was simple, its tone cut like glass.
With a trembling finger, Jean traced a long line down Eren’s body past his collarbone, between his breasts, down his happy trail, and finally through the gathered moisture on his labia. Eren’s breath caught in his throat at Jean’s touch.
Ignoring Floch’s presence for the moment, Jean flipped his hand palm-side up and plunged three fingers deep into Eren’s freshly-used pussy. Eren cried out as Jean’s fingertips arched and pulsed inside of him, rubbing that spot he knew would drive Eren crazy. Eren’s eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks, delicate little moans floating out from between his wet pink lips.
With an upward sweeping motion, Jean scooped up as much of the fluid inside Eren as he could and pulled out, spreading his fingers apart and watching Floch’s come separate into thick strands between them.
“Is this what you wanted me to see?” he said softly, so softly, as if he were sharing a secret.
“Maybe,” Eren murmured, his cheeks red, his breasts rising and falling with each heaving breath.
Jean dragged his hand roughly down Eren’s face, smearing him with come. Eren gasped, but he didn’t try to get away.
“Well, congratulations. I’ve seen it.”
Jean’s hand wandered along Eren’s jaw and down his neck, landing on the hickeys Floch had left there, his fingertips digging in and leaving dimples in his skin.
“Choke me harder, daddy,” Eren said mockingly, his mouth curving into a cruel smile.
That was what finally woke the dormant anger inside him. Eren wasn’t hurt by any of this. In fact, he seemed to revel in it. Jean realized then that it was impossible to hurt Eren in a way that mattered. He could do anything he wanted, and he’d just expect Jean to take it, and take it, and take it. Jean understood that then, deeply, intimately, and all he could feel was rage. What could he do then but squeeze harder?
“Come on, Jean,” Eren said, his voice strangled, “Do it properly. I know you want to.”
Jean’s jaw clenched. He knew Eren was just goading him, but he was, as he had always been, powerless to resist. So he gave Eren what he wanted. He straddled Eren on the bed and leaned into the choke, squeezing with both hands.
At first, Eren seemed unimpressed. He stared up at Jean boredly, daring him to go further. Floch sidled up to them, gazing first at Eren and then at Jean with something in his eyes that could only be described as fondness.
“Can I help you with something?” Jean said, since he couldn’t push Floch away with both hands occupied.
“I’m helping him,” Floch said, gesturing to the half-choked Eren laid out on the pillow. Jean couldn’t see Floch touching him, but he could tell it was happening by the way Eren’s face changed, his eyebrows knitting together as Floch rubbed slow circles into his clit.
They were so fucking shameless. His grip tightened as the thought only made him angrier. Slowly, Eren’s face began to turn red. Jean felt lightheaded as Eren’s pulse thrummed beneath his fingertips, but he didn’t stop. After all, wasn’t this what Eren wanted?
Eren’s nonplussed expression was gradually overtaken by one of pleasure as Floch’s ministrations brought him to a quivering high. He looked so ugly like this, his mouth opening and closing like a fish’s, his eyes crossing as he gasped for air that wouldn’t come.
“That’s it,” Floch cooed. “Come for us.”
Jean’s temper flared, sudden and vicious. There was no us. There was just Jean and Eren and the cudgel he’d chosen to beat Jean with for having the audacity to care about him. If Floch really was Eren’s new toy, he’d come to understand that soon enough.
Eren’s legs scrabbled on the sheets as his pelvis thrust up into Floch’s movements, bumping up against Jean’s ass. This orgasm was so different from all the others—utterly silent, devoid of Eren’s performative moaning, yet clearly powerful, if the full-bodied tremble of every one of Eren’s muscles was any indication.
And then it was over. Eren frantically smacked Jean’s wrists, begging to be let go. For one crazed moment, Jean didn’t let up. It would be so easy not to, to end this mess, to stop Eren from hurting him ever again. The mere existence of that thought in his mind scared him so much that he released Eren abruptly, percussively, leaning back as Eren gasped beneath him.
Suddenly, Jean let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. His arms ached. All the blood rushed to his head at once as the adrenaline of the moment wore off. He rolled over to lay on his back beside Eren, barely noticing that he’d almost squashed Floch in the process. As he collapsed into the pillow, he realized he was breathing nearly as hard as Eren was.
“Why did you stop?” Floch said with a pout.
“Didn’t think you’d help me bury the body,” Jean grumbled.
“Ye of little faith, Jean. Ye of little faith.” Floch’s eyes traveled down Jean’s body to the tent in his pants. “Seems like Eren’s not the only one who enjoyed himself.”
Jean’s cheeks burned. “Fuck off.”
“Oh Jean,” Floch said, his voice taking on a silky-smooth tone that Jean knew meant he was up to something. “You’re still so tense. You always have been. I thought you might have grown out of that by now. When was the last time you let yourself have fun, huh?”
Floch’s hand brushed over Jean’s growing erection, softly at first, then with more intention, until his cock pressed against his zipper painfully. It wasn’t the first time Floch had touched him like this. Last time, they were freshmen in college, desperate for connection when they found one another, the only art majors at a party full of jocks. Floch had blown him in a spare bedroom, and Jean hadn’t thought much of it then, but he’d had many opportunities to regret it since.
“You don’t know me half as well as you think you do,” Jean said through gritted teeth, trying to get his breathing under control as Floch caressed him.
“Don’t I?” Floch continued in that same velvety tone, leaning in so close Jean could feel his breath, reducing his voice to a whisper. “I know it turned you on to see him struggling. To watch him strain for life. Didn’t it?”
Jean tried to muster the biting refusal that comment deserved, but how could he? The evidence was right before his eyes. The impulse to push Floch’s hand away, to ask him what his fucking problem was, was drowned by the wave of pleasure that surged through him when Floch undid his zipper and freed his cock from his pants. The muscles in his thighs twitched as Floch’s thumb swept over the head, smearing a pearly bead of precome across the slit.
“If you’re gonna run your mouth, you might as well do something useful with it,” Jean said, seizing Floch by the hair and pushing him down onto his cock. He half expected Floch to resist, but he didn’t. Instead, Floch merely opened his mouth and took Jean’s full length down his throat in one go.
“Fuck!” Jean cried as, all at once, he was enveloped in the warm, wet heat of Floch’s mouth, his soft tongue tracing patterns along the underside of his cock. Floch tried to come up for air, but Jean pushed him down again, trying to choke him on it. Floch seemed to take it in stride. How could the bastard possibly manage to look smug in a situation like this?
“Damn, Jean,” Eren rasped, turning onto his side, “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
He looked tired, and his cheeks were red and blotchy, and there was an angry pink line around his neck where Jean had squeezed it, but his eyes were bright and shining. Clearly, some light asphyxiation hadn’t dulled his spark.
“Everyone here seems to think they know a whole fucking lot about me, don’t they?” Jean said, shuddering as Floch’s tongue swirled around his cock. He would resent the statement less if it weren’t so true. Between the two of them, they knew the full constellation of his strengths and weaknesses, and they could easily exploit them at their leisure, and he was pretty sure they knew it, too.
His anger at Eren flared at the thought, but he channeled it into Floch instead, gripping his hair tightly and guiding his mouth up and down his cock with some force. Clearly Floch had gained some experience since their first and only encounter back in college, hollowing his cheeks and covering his teeth with his lips, his eyes never leaving Jean’s face. The fact that he gave a great blowjob was just another reason to hate him. It was bad enough that he’d screwed Jean’s boyfriend. Screwing Jean and making him like it was so much worse.
The muscles in his stomach tightened. His orgasm loomed, but he elected not to tell Floch, hoping he would choke on it. He let go of Floch’s hair, half expecting to be left hanging, one final insult to punctuate an already humiliating night, but he didn’t stop. If anything, he was working faster now that Jean wasn’t holding him back. Jean leaned back on the pillows with a groan, content to let Floch get him there.
But before he could get the chance to come down Floch’s throat like he craved, Floch was pulled abruptly off his dick. Jean looked up, ready with an angry retort, when he saw Eren’s hand tangled in Floch’s hair, pulling him away. A long trail of spit connected the head of Jean’s cock to Floch’s shiny reddened lips.
“Naughty Floch,” Eren admonished him. “Quit hogging my boyfriend.”
Floch shrugged and wiped his mouth. “He asked for it.”
“Eren, what’s your problem?” Jean said.
“It’s not fair that you two get to have all the fun,” Eren said, and he straddled Jean’s lap and sat down on his dick.
Jean gasped, utterly unprepared, as Eren’s pussy enveloped him in pulsating heat. His head swam with pleasure. He’d already been close before, and this definitely wasn’t helping. But he couldn’t come too quickly inside Eren—not in front of Floch. He had to keep his head on straight.
Eren planted his hands on Jean’s chest and arched his back, moving his hips just so. Like everything else he knew about Jean, he knew just how to please him, and his smug expression showed it. Jean grabbed Eren’s hips and thrust into him viciously, making Eren’s mouth fall open with a strangled moan.
“What happened?” Jean spat. “I thought you’d found someone else to fuck.”
“Can’t I want to fuck you both?” Eren said, gasping as Jean thrusted into him. “They’re not mutually exclusive.”
“Yes they are, Eren. That’s what being exclusive means,” Jean said through gritted teeth, his thighs trembling as the soft sensations around his cockhead drove him nearly to incoherence.
“Now—ah!—Now who’s being pedantic?”
Jean couldn’t resist an irritated smile. Of course Eren would bring up the night they met in a situation like this. But before he could muster a retort, the sight of Floch rifling through the nightstand caught his eye.
“Where’s the lube?” Floch said.
“S-Second drawer,” Eren said, his voice strained as Jean bottomed out inside him.
Floch appeared behind Eren a moment later, smearing lube on his fingers.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jean said.
“He’s got two holes for a reason,” Floch said simply, then looked at Eren. “Bend over.”
Eren leaned forward, but clearly not enough, because Floch grabbed Eren by the hair and forced him down until he was face to face with Jean. Eren gasped as Floch’s fingers plunged into his ass. His gaze softened and he bit his lip as he got used to the intrusion, arching into every touch. They were pressed chest to chest now, his hardened nipples brushing Jean’s skin. His eyes were half-lidded as he captured Jean’s lips in a deep kiss.
Eren’s tongue was hot in his mouth, and his lips were warm and familiar, a small comfort in an utterly impossible situation. After everything, how could Jean bear to have him so near? Why did he still crave Eren so desperately? Would he ever break free, or had he sold his soul to Eren the moment he welcomed him into his bed?
As Eren broke the kiss, he petted Jean’s hair, smoothed it back from his forehead, and stroked his cheeks, searching his eyes with a desperate, pleading gaze.
“Jean,” Eren whispered, his voice quivering as Floch fingered him open, “Jean.”
Jean looked in his eyes and thought he understood it then, why Eren had done all this. Why he’d seemingly blown up their relationship for nothing. It was because he needed proof. Proof that Jean loved him, that Eren was worth it, that he would stay.
Please love me, his gaze said. Please don’t leave.
Jean grasped Eren’s wrist, thumb rubbing over his seventh and newest tattoo, a shining sun and crescent moon overlaid atop one another. He looked at that tattoo and considered everything they had been, were, and might someday be. He knew he should leave, knew that the mess of them was unsalvageable, but how could he? No one had ever made him feel the way Eren did—desperate, tortured, and crazy, sure, but above all else, alive. He was drunk on Eren’s presence alone, on the sight and scent and taste of him. It didn’t matter what he did to Jean, or how he betrayed him. Jean was Eren’s, and he knew, deep down, that Eren was his, too. They were fated lovers, estranged yet inextricable, and if Eren were to one day burn out, Jean would have no choice but to follow.
“Baby,” Jean murmured, feeling every bit like the fool he was as he cupped Eren’s nape and crushed their lips together. Eren moaned into his mouth as Floch slid inside him. Jean shuddered, feeling Floch’s cock pressing against his so clearly despite the flesh between them.
Jean spared a glance at Floch and saw that at last he finally seemed to be affected by all this. His brow was furrowed in concentration, his gaze hazy with lust as he feasted his eyes on the sight of Eren and Jean beneath him. Jean kissed Eren again, but this time, he made sure Floch saw it, that he knew Jean wouldn’t give Eren up so easily.
“Fuck me,” Eren pleaded against his mouth, writhing between them. “Please fuck me.”
Floch looked pointedly at Jean. “After you.”
Jean’s cheeks flushed with indignance. “I don’t need your permission—”
“Jean, please. Please, please, please,” Eren whimpered, arching his hips against him, fucking himself on their cocks as best he could with the limited leverage he had. Jean shuddered as Eren squeezed around him. He wanted so desperately to ignore that call, to punish him for everything he’d done, but how could he when Eren was already falling to pieces in front of him?
Unable to hold off any longer, Jean gripped Eren’s hips and thrust into him hard, moaning as he bottomed out. His erection had flagged in the interim while Floch was preparing Eren, but now it was back with a vengeance. Even the sensation of Floch’s piercing gaze on him did nothing to dull his arousal. He felt the ridges of Floch’s cock rubbing against his own through the thin membrane separating them and barely held back a groan. Was Floch trying to make him feel good on purpose? Loath though he was to admit it, it was working.
Desperate to banish Floch from his mind, Jean focused on the sight of Eren coming apart before him. Eren was sweaty, his face red, his mouth open in a wide O as the twin sensations of Jean and Floch fucking him took over any impulse to speak or act. Through the haze of desire that had clouded his senses, Jean was still able to recognize exactly what Eren needed. He reached down between their sweaty bodies and rubbed the pad of his thumb against Eren’s swollen clit.
“Ah!” Eren cried, arching into the touch, pushing his tits in Jean’s face. Jean captured a nipple between his teeth and rubbed his thumb in firm circles. Eren jerked upward from the stimulation, pulling his nipple out of his mouth and scraping his piercing against Jean’s teeth.
“You gonna come?” Jean said, his free hand digging into Eren’s hip.
“Yeah,” Eren whined.
Never one to be left out, Floch gripped Eren by the hair and pulled him up flush against his body as he fucked into him relentlessly. Jean might have complained if not for the view. Like this, Eren was fully on display for Jean, from his sweaty forehead to his flushed chest all the way down to his glistening pussy, where Jean could feast on the sight of his cock disappearing inside Eren just beneath his swollen clit.
Floch wrapped one arm around Eren’s chest and the other on his hip, his fingers brushing against Jean’s. His face peeked over Eren’s shoulder with a look that said, Look what we did to him. Isn’t it beautiful? And how could Jean argue with that? The look of Eren, destroyed on both their cocks, was more beautiful than any work of art.
As Jean increased the pressure on Eren’s clit, he could tell he was close by the way the muscles in his thighs trembled and spasmed. He took deep gasping gulps of air, but he could never quite seem to catch his breath.
“Jean—I’m—I’m gonna—”
Eren moaned desperately as he came, his pussy tightening around Jean’s cock and nearly sending him over the edge. Jean took a deep breath to steady himself. All he had to do was outlast Floch. It couldn’t take much longer, right? In that brief moment of contemplation, Floch used the opportunity to push his hand aside, abusing Eren’s oversensitive clit.
“I think he’s had enough,” Jean said as Eren cried out on top of him.
“He’s a big boy, Jean. He can take it.”
Completely overcome, Eren collapsed, half on top of Jean, nestling into the hollow of Jean’s shoulder. Jean shuddered as each puff of breath chilled his sweaty skin.
“Jean,” Eren moaned. “Fuck.”
“Give us another one, baby,” Jean said, and he told himself it was about wanting Eren to feel good, not about wanting Floch to make him feel that way.
Jean was close now. He hardly dared to move for fear of going over the edge. Yet as Floch brought Eren to another shattering orgasm all too soon, Jean gradually realized his design. He felt Floch thrust inside Eren just so, rubbing against his cockhead over and over, and Jean realized that Floch wasn’t trying to get Eren off. Floch was trying to make him come.
Then Eren came apart, shuddering and oversensitive, moaning incoherently in Jean’s ear, and between the thrusting of Floch’s cock and the squeezing of Eren’s pussy all around him, it was too much. Jean closed his eyes and came with a shuddering groan, burying his nose in Eren’s hair and gripping his ass.
Floch pulled out of Eren and took himself in hand, stroking vigorously, his gaze bright and sharp even as the pink in his cheeks spread into his chest. He thrust into his hand once, twice, and then he was coming, thick ropes painting Jean’s face and neck. Jean turned his head just in time to avoid getting it in his eye.
“Floch, what the fuck!”
“Hmm,” Floch murmured, a strange smile on his face, “It looks good on you.”
Jean glowered at him. Floch’s come was hot on his skin, running down his cheeks and neck in rivulets. Eren nuzzled up against him as he swiped a hand across his face, frowning at the mess that came away on his palm.
Floch rose to his feet and headed for the bathroom. Jean sighed with relief when he was gone. Hopefully he’d take a piss and then get the fuck out so they could start piecing back together what remained of their relationship.
Just as Jean reached for a tissue to clean himself up, Eren caught his hand and brought it to his mouth, licking his palm clean. Jean’s breath caught in his throat. Despite the circumstances, he had to admit it was hot.
“He really made a mess, didn’t he?” Eren said, licking the last of Floch’s come from his lips.
“He’s not the only one.”
The smugness in Eren’s expression melted away. “Jean, I—” His voice faltered. “I…”
It was pointless to let him try to finish. He wouldn’t. I love you and I’m sorry weren’t part of his vocabulary, but Jean appreciated the impulse nonetheless.
“I needed an excuse to control you, huh?” Jean said, rescuing Eren from himself. “Is that what you want? To be controlled?”
Eren smirked. “As if you could.”
Jean pinched Eren’s jaw between his thumb and forefinger, pulling him into an open-mouthed kiss. He tasted Floch’s come on Eren’s tongue, and he knew he should have been grossed out by it, but he wasn’t. In fact, he might like to taste it again sometime. If this was the game Eren had chosen for them to play, Jean didn’t plan to sit back and let him win it.
As he pulled away, he examined Eren. His fingers traveled downward slightly, over the light bruises he’d left on Eren’s neck, feeling the tenderness of them. Eren shuddered at the touch, his eyes half-lidded as he watched Jean. No, despite it all, Jean still loved this body, and he loved the person inside it, too. Jean didn’t want to control Eren. Somehow, irrational though it was, he loved Eren just like this.
“Where have you been hiding this one? It’s the best thing you’ve made in ages.”
Jean turned abruptly to find Floch standing there, fresh from the bathroom, cock still on display. He made no move to dress himself as he gestured to the painting above the bed.
A lot of emotions went through Jean in that moment. He elected to examine none of them, instead simply saying, “What are you still doing here?”
“What, did you think I was going to play unicorn for you and go?” Floch flopped down on the bed. “Are you kidding? You two are crazy. I want to be here when you murder each other.”
Jean balked. “Nobody’s murdering anybody—”
“I’m ordering a pizza. Any requests?” Floch said as he grabbed his phone off the dresser.
“I want pepperoni,” Eren said with a sleepy smile.
Jean shot Eren a pointed look as if to say, What the fuck?
Don’t look at me, Eren’s shrug seemed to suggest, even though he was the one who had gotten them into this whole mess.
“Jean?” Floch said expectantly, looking up from his phone.
A million responses ran through Jean’s head in that moment. Fuck off, or fuck you, or get the fuck out, but he didn’t say any of them. Truthfully, there was some small part of him that wanted to know where, exactly, this was going. What Eren had done couldn’t exactly be undone. Now, the only way to go was forward.
So instead of kicking them out like he most definitely should have, he just groaned in resignation and said “Pepperoni’s fine.”
“Mm… good choice, Jean,” Eren said, snaking a lazy arm around Jean’s chest.
As Eren and Floch bickered back and forth about what to put on the TV while they waited, Jean stared up at the ceiling and sighed. There, sandwiched between a demon and the devil himself, he wondered if he might really be in hell.