Work Text:
Jean is walking fast through the forest, ignoring the yells coming from Reiner. His face is hot to the touch, and he’s especially terrified. He keeps walking crunching leaves and twigs. Hot all over.
“Jean! Will you stop! You’re going to get lost!” Reiners voice the very thing he’s trying to escape.
“No! Leave me alone!” He walks faster.
“You’re being ridiculous! Jean stop!” Reiner sounds out of breath and Jean is thankful for his long legs in that moment.
He’s running away from Reiner because the blonde had smiled a sweet lovey dovey smile and said he was in love with him. Jean bolted after that. Panic and nerves coiled all up his stomach into his throat. He knew he was being irrational but he couldn’t stand that look. That in love look. How Reiner’s intense eyes softened and his smile so happy and the light blush that crept onto his cheeks. Jean wasn’t running away because he didn’t feel the same he was running away because he was terrified that he felt the same.
So he kept walking further and further into the forest, hoping that Reiner would see that it was a lost cause to get him to stop but the blonde just followed after him.
“Why are you so scared?!” Reiners voice yelled then.
Jean stopped walking and he turned slightly to look at the blonde behind him.
“I’m not scared.” He was terrified, horrifically frightened.
“You are! why? I know you feel the same way just talk to me please.” Reiner’s voice was pleading.
Jean really should’ve turned and talked to the blonde. The man he loved but he was so scared of love. That big word with its hungry ache. He felt deep in his mind he didn’t deserve it, wasn’t worthy of it. A deep insecure part of himself that he couldn’t push off a cliff completely. It stubbornly held onto the edge of the cliff in Jean’s brain. He felt like a second choice and he was terrified of being someone’s first choice.
Instead of talking he started walking again but it wasn’t as fast as before and he heard Reiner sigh deep with agitation. Reiner was almost directly behind him, Jean was very familiar with his presence like a second shadow.
“When you’re done acting like a child I would really like to have a conversation with you.” Reiner said then. Jean could see the expression on his face, his frown, his eyebrows furrowed with frustration.
The sky was getting warmer, more purple and orange and they were walking deep into a forest they weren’t all that familiar with. He tripped over a thick tree root and cursed.
“It’s getting dark soon we won’t be able to see anything.” Reiner said again.
Jean huffed and ignored him the long trek into the woods was calming him down. His panic was subsiding but he was still scared and felt sick. Maybe love sickness? He really wished he didn’t feel this way. He was lost in his thoughts when he tripped and fell. He felt his body roll at weird angles down a steep hill that he hadn’t seen.
Rocks and twigs cut into his face and body and when he finally stopped rolling he felt a hot shot of pain go up his right wrist. He groaned and laid on the dirt floor, miserable and annoyed. He heard movement around him and refused to open his eyes.
“Jean! Are you ok?” Reiner was next to him on the ground. He groaned as he was pulled into a sitting position. He leaned his head on Reiner’s right shoulder.
“I told you-“
“Don’t.” Jean opened his eyes to glare at the man. Reiner rolled his.
“You ok? Anything hurt?”
“My wrist.” He mumbled and then he winced when Reiner’s gentle hands started feeling around the tender area.
“I don’t think anything’s broken.”
“Ok.”
They sat at the bottom of the hill together. Jean kept his head on Reiner’s shoulder. The air was still warm, the breeze was light. Summer was pushing out to fall and soon winter would be on its way. He supposed he was lucky then that Reiner confessed in fall rather than the snow.
The blonde kept rubbing his wrist gently, he would stop when Jean would hiss or groan and then move to a different area to touch.
“Why did you run away?” Reiner finally broke their silence.
“I’m scared.” No point in trying to deny it or hide it.
“Why?”
“Because I love you too.” Jean whispered. It was the truth, something he realized a few months after the rumbling when they were helping rebuild the world.
He was in love with Reiner Braun and he was terrified of the feeling and the power it held. They drifted towards each other, they slept together, ate together, worked together, they spent so much time around each other that Jean would be looking for Reiner when he wasn’t with him or he wasn’t at his usual spots in the little camp they were in now. They shared nightmares together, dark days together, he helped pull Reiner back together and Reiner helped him in return. He looked forward to sleeping with him and waking up next to him. So he could look at him and just watch Reiner come to life.
To his surprise Reiner laughed.
“You’re ridiculous. You know when someone says they love you, you can just say it back instead of walking away.” Reiner kept chuckling and Jean felt his face heat with embarrassment.
“Shut up! No one’s ever said that to me before.” No one besides his mother or Connie.
“Well I’d like to tell you again, over and over as many times as you’d like but I’m not letting you run away again.” Reiner stopped rubbing his sore wrist and shifted their positions so they were staring at each other.
Jean flushed as he stared at Reiner’s sincere face. Then he smiled again that special happy lovey dovey smile from earlier and it still set Jean on fire but in a different way. Maybe he wasn’t as scared as he thought? Maybe he was…excited. He licked his chapped lips. Reiner grabbed his hands, being extra careful with his right hand and interlocked their fingers and Jean squeezed back with his left.
Reiner opened his mouth to speak but Jean cut him off. Feeling very sure of himself.
“I love you.” Jean inched closer more confident but still a little nervous. “so much.”
“I love you too, so much.” Reiner’s smile widened and he looked healthier and younger. He was so handsome.
Reiner leaned closed the space between them and planted a kiss to his lips. Jean felt electrified. A simple kiss nothing more just lips touching lips. A shy kiss but Jean knew he already wanted more. Reiner pulled away and Jean followed to kiss him again. It had been sometime since Jean had kissed anyone, embarrassingly long. He moved his lips slow and Reiner followed, slow at first then it picked up rapidly. Reiner let go of his hands, those warm slightly calloused hands landed on his face, holding him. Jean wrapped his arms around Reiner’s neck ignoring the way his right wrist erupted in pain.
They stayed locked together, kissing and pulling away to breathe before meeting each other again. Jean shifted again ignoring the achy feeling his back, sat in Reiner’s lap. He felt the blonde smile against his lips. He pulled away and Jean whined. Genuinely whined. If his face got any hotter he thought he’d explode. Reiner laughed, a warm sound that made Jean smile.
“As much as I’d like to continue this we should try and find our way back to camp. Someone got us lost.” Reiner gave him one last kiss and Jean nodded moving off of him.
“You started it.” Jean mumbled. Reiner pinched him.
They walked back through the woods as the sky got darker and darker, Reiner led them holding Jean’s left hand.