Chapter Text
It was all the play-fighting, wrestling, grappling, rolling around with each other. It was the way that communication was easier without words, when affection could be conveyed by shoulder-checking each other into walls. Eren's body became familiar to Jean, just in the feel of it colliding with his.
I like my body when it is with your body.
Jean hadn't ever experienced his own body as an unmistakably positive thing, before. At best, he felt a sense of pride for his control over it, over his efforts to improve what he had.
Marco called him touch-starved, and hugged him more often, scent-marked him more blatantly which encouraged the rest of the tack. That felt good, too, but Eren's physicality still felt like more, something deep-seated that pulled Jean's brain out of his ears. At times when Eren acted like a heavy blanket, draping himself over Jean's legs or shoulders, Jean found himself day-dreaming of just carrying Eren around in his arms for the rest of the day.
Marco snickered into his hands. "Sounds like you have a crush, Jean."
"I don't," Jean argued. "Well, maybe, but not on Eren ."
"Oh~?"
"It's not like I want to, ew, no, I just… wanna touch? Literally all the time every single day. And I want to hold his hand."
"Sounds like you should kiss him."
"WHAT!?"
"For science," Marco smiled.
"Phwa- gre- you- I don't want my first kiss to be with Eren!"
Marco shrugged. Jean felt like he should have read the tilt of his shoulders, the angle of his jaw, the edge of his smile and the gleam in his eyes. Maybe then he would have seen it coming when Marco dipped in to place a single sweet kiss on Jean's lips.
"There," Marco grinned, blushing. "Problem solved."
Jean didn't know how he made a sound exactly like ODM gear cables retracting, but he did.
After Marco was done laughing and Jean was done stuttering nonsense, Jean covered his face with his hands. "Now I'm really confused. You kissed me, but still want me to try kissing Eren to see if I have a crush on him?"
"Absolutely." Marco sat down the rope he was braiding. "Have you ever been to one of those really fancy bakeries that sell biscuits and honey sweets and stuff?"
There were three such shops in his neighborhood growing up. "Yes," he said.
"Well, if you ask nicely, they let you try a taste before you buy a whole package of something, right? You gotta make sure you will like what you're committing to buying, and the shopkeeper wants a return customer. They don't want to sell you a bag of horehound sticks without you knowing what it tastes like."
Jean just nodded. Sometimes his childhood slapped him in the face. He had no idea that taste-testing was a thing. He'd just always known what all of the options tasted like.
"So I'd personally feel a lot better if you tried a couple different things before deciding you want my whole package." Marco waggled his eyebrows.
Jean's face practically burst into flame. "M-Marco!"
The freckled hellspawn laughed, and Jean glimpsed the evil within. "Who knows? Maybe I need to try kissing Eren. Have you looked at him? Maybe even get my mouth on that-"
Jean ran away and Marco laughed so hard he couldn't stand.
The true turning point was only a few hours after that particular conversation, during unarmed combat spars. Marco as his partner kept looking at Jean, then looking towards Eren, then back at Jean and doing something weird with his eyebrows. Jean was ready to stomp the sadistic bastard with a piece of his mind when Marco made his actual move.
"Hey, Eren!" Marco called out. "Can I spar with you? I want to try escaping that throw you used last time."
Jean felt like a particularly dense fence-post, stuck in the ground watching Eren and Marco put their hands all over rach other. Eren pressed his hips towards Marco, and Marco's tongue wet his lips. Marco got his arms around Eren's chest, and Eren corrected his grip, eyes sparkling as long tanned fingers danced across the backs of Marco's hands and wrapped around his wrists, his beautiful mouth moving as he carefully talked Marco through what he was doing.
Then Marco threw a smirk at Jean, and Eren slammed him to the ground for his distracted effort.
"CADET KIRSCHTEIN!"
Jean jolted away from watching Marco wheezing in the dirt and faced Shadis, and no he was not blushing.
"Yes, sir!"
Shadis shook his head. "Go run laps, you fucking topless palomino."