Chasing Summer

We're Converging

Back when we were kids, Jean used to have this obsession with forts. He liked the idea that something manmade could protect him from his enemies. I didn't understand why that was until the day he showed up at school with bruises on his face.

Jean never told me that his dad was abusing him. He didn't have to. The way his eyes filled with fear whenever his dad came into a room was enough for me to put two and two together. So, one day after school, when his dad was off at the only bar in town, I built him a fort made out of blankets. At the time, I had no idea that it would become his safe haven, his place to go to whenever his dad came home reeking of alcohol. All I wanted, in that moment, was to make him something that would protect him from anything.

The fort still stood to this day, though the blankets had been changed throughout the years. Jean refused to take it down, and got upset whenever I mentioned doing it myself. Petra told me the reason behind that was because the fort had been like his lighthouse when he was a kid, his beacon in the distance that would help him avoid danger.

If I didn't cry like a damn baby when she told me that. Not that Jean ever found out about it. Hell no. I'd rather chew off my own limb, but after that day, I never pestered him to take it down.

Now, on this Friday night when everyone else in this town was off celebrating, I stood in front of the fort carrying Eren. For some reason, when he asked me to take him someplace we could be alone, I thought about the fort, and how it served as a sanctuary, a place to hide away.

That's what I wanted, a place to hide away with him.

"This is kind of romantic," Eren whispered in my ear as I set him down on his feet.

A while back, Petra had hung white Christmas lights inside the fort that I plugged in before bringing him in. They were the only lights on in the whole house. I knew he'd like it, but I was also trying to be romantic, which was so unlike me, it felt bizarre.

"Do you like it?" I asked. My voice sounded foreign to me, a squeaky mess that was embarrassing to think about.

He turned to me, face softly lit by the lights. He was so fucking beautiful. "I love it, Levi. Let's go inside."

I was so nervous; my heart was pounding as though its sole purpose was to escape my chest. This would be the first time I was alone with him without Jean or Petra around to interrupt us, and we still had hours to go before he had to be home. I wanted to gather him up in my arms and keep him there forever, to extend the night until the ocean shrunk to a drop.

Eren pushed his hand into my palm, flexing his fingers out so I could spread mine apart. He pulled me under the haven of cream-colored blankets. Inside, the floor was covered in a thick, white quilt that was topped with several throw pillows that he pushed to the side in order to be able to sit down cross-legged in the middle of the fort. Once I was settled beside him, he leaned to the side and unplugged the lights.

Immediately, we were cocooned in darkness, the only sound being our breathing.

" 'Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness,' " Eren whispered before he slid his hand under the front of my shirt. "I want to see how you act when no one other than me is looking."

I couldn't even move. His fingertips skimmed over my stomach, up to my chest, and then down to the waistband of my jeans. My brain felt as if someone had reached in there and turned it off, leaving me to my own devices. Is this how he wanted me?

Unsure of what to do, I let him take me apart, piece by piece.

As he pushed my shirt up, he leaned closer to me, lips fluttering across my throat as he said, "I want to know your body as well as I know my own. Do I have your permission to do that?" He tugged on my top suggestively, and I answered him by lifting my arms up. The fabric whispered across my skin, raising goose bumps in its wake until he pulled it off of me completely. "Verweile doch, du bist so schön."