it's never over.
jean kirstein x fem!reader, modern a.u.
summary ; falling in love with jean kirstein was too easy. trying to believe that he could ever love you back, however, was impossible. warnings ; unrequited? love, mentions of alcohol, angsty, self-image issues, heavy (?) NOT PROOF-READ a/n ; everythings ok! im using this fic/fic series because i need to get this shit out of my system because im #emo like that. anyway. im not expecting a lot of traction of this fic, i think i might lowkey delete it in a week or so. im unsure. hope you guys like it nonetheless. taglist ; @holding-infinity-and-a-book , @jeanscremebrulee , @mrsnobodynobody , @hopeless-anti-romantic-again , @berrijam , @happxme , @cherrypieyourface , @imgayandshesanime , @moonmalice , @raazberry , @kivernova , @potaho3frog , @xakilicious , @gojo-ana , @ppushable , @zombiefiedskeivy , @candleofhappiness , @alt—er—love , @1ovede1uxe , @sevriizy , @toscapaeron , @whoevenisjessica , @simone-tb , @mrsryuguji , @bxsmxx , @mxhemmings-l , @jazfartz2
this can be read as a standalone fic, or as a part two to this fic! ✿
masterlist is in pinned post! ✿ enter my taglist! ✿ requests for headcanons are closed! ✿
Falling in love with jean kirstein was catastrophically easy.
Being self-destructive was almost in your nature. In your several years of living, you couldnt harbor even a singular lovable bone in your body, the lowly creature it was. It was a commendable act, really, your inability to be someone that somebody else could potentially want, and your stubbornness could be admirable in a better light. But it wasnt, and the lights that shine on you right now are residual - the streams coming from the living room, shining across your face in a way that made you wonder what you looked like from the outside of your cracked open ribs.
Were you beautiful?
You wanted to be. Commendable if you werent, stubbornness that could be admirable if it wasnt for that light hitting your face. Your eyes only fixate on the peach drink in your hand, the one that jean had handed to you without any hesitation. Under the dimness of the kitchen, the artificial orange of the liquid looked like a darker void of itself. Connie’s arm slinked around jean’s shoulders, the two of them arguing about something you were sure was far more significant than you.
You spare a glance back up at jean’s eyes. In this light, he looked beautiful. The residual light of the living room that spread into the kitchen in singular, countable streams, seemed to light up the corners of his pupils, tinted them in a slightly purple hue. He looks at you for help, asking for silent escape from the back and forth he was having with his best friend.
You smile, half-there, and shake your head. “I dont think thats the point, con,”
“No, i think the point is that he’s a pussy-” “-oh shut UP springer, i once saw you run away from a cat.” “i dont want rabies!”
You take a conscious sip of the now-dark peach drink. In the circle of your close-knit friends, you were probably the weakest link. Everyone had the ability - the comfortable, safe choice - to pair off with someone else. Eren and mikasa, armin and annie, jean and marco, connie and sasha. Convenient pairs, peas in a pod. It was a little cruel on your part, excluding yourself on purpose to be in your own - however disastrous - comfort. Any feelings that bubbled up would simply simmer under the lid that you forced on the feelings that you begrudgingly admitted to, smashed between a fire you knew was too strong to be extinguished and an equally strong want to be left alone as you inevitably would find yourself.
The music hurls itself into your ears. Everything has become an act of hesitant unacceptance, and jean, as always, pulls you out of your tightening spiral.
“Its your favorite song.” he speaks. Connie is no longer against him, now laughing maniacally yet warmly with some of your other friends, bright vessels as they all were, and you dont even notice the shift in tune and the way the beats have become more familiar, far more comforting under your feet, strong enough to shake your ribs.
You smile at him in realisation. “Right,”
He clears his throat. “You wanna… you wanna dance?” he asks, his hand scratching the back of his neck.
You dont dance. You’ve got two left feet, unbothered to change, and your body slinks itself awkwardly and without purpose on the dancefloor. But you - hesitantly - accept his offer, because its his offer. Maybe in this light, the one he’s pulling you towards, you look less stubborn and more just put-together. Maybe you could have the ability to be graceful if you just pushed yourself hard enough for it to be true and maybe if you lied to yourself enough about these things, you’d become everything you’d hoped to become.
Brighter lights shine on you. Were you beautiful? You keep forgetting. There arent any reminders for it, but your feet move against the shake of the ground, jeans shoulders moving with yours. The beats are almost nonexistent to your ears, all that you can hear being the slow and rhythmic vibration of your heart. Your ribs - a prison of themselves - feel like theyre expanding to accommodate your now larger muscle as jean grabs your hand in his, light as a feather, almost non-existent, just enough to keep you anchored more than your feet.
Your cups are long forgotten on the kitchen’s island, and your feet do that uncomfortable shuffle, undecided with which one to go right and left on what beat.
And then, just as you start to get uncomfortable in your own skin again, wanting to crawl out, jean’s other hand finds itself on your waist.
Finds itself, really, because he’d forgotten what being in his own body felt like until he met you. Your clothes wrinkle under his touch as he guides you, unsure, to the song, the meaningless sound of these berating lyrics echoing against your skull, and you sway in symphony of his own sways. Creating your own kind of music, something softer, only heard by your unwilling ears, blood rushing through them, clearing your doubts for a brief, wonderful moment.
For a brief, wonderful moment, you were as beautiful as youd hoped. For a brief, wonderful moment, your passion is tangible and loud. For a brief, wonderful, divine moment, you were considerably loved.
Jeans hand rested there, a comfort without any disgust. Warmth made its way from his palm to your heart, burning a hole through it, making the perfect place for him to sit there, treat your organ like his throne. Or maybe, more humanely, his home, if he’d let you coax him into it.
Your own hand, the creature of itself, fingertips always purple and cold, rests on his all-too-there shoulder, mimicking his own touch, copying him as it was used to. His eyes seemed to reflect your own, and those pools of purple-tinted gold, you figured youd find yourself. If no-one, jean saw you. If no-one, then jean chose to look at you, at the hollowness under your own eyes, at the unwanted stray eyebrow hair that always seemed to grow in the middle of both your brows, at the dryness of your lips, at the blackheads on your nose, at the way dirt clung to your neck and collarbones, at the way your hair never seemed to lay the way you wanted it to.
He saw it. All of it, and kept choosing to see it despite there being a million, thrice more beautiful things in the world to choose to look at, his eyes found yours and the truths that swam under them.
The song ends. You blink, as does jean, and your hand feels heavier on his shoulder, making it easier to slip off of him, reluctance clinging to your stony bones. He licks his drying lips, clearing his throat again, going unheard against the sound of the next song, and his smile - even if it was barely there - crinkles the corners of his eyes, lips quirking up, cheeks pushing against his eyes. You smile back, lacking the detail on your face that you had noted on his, and your other hand still lingered next to his, fingers still tangled with his, knuckles against knuckles.
The car was warmer than the outside. Maybe it was because of his presence inside it, offsetting your own, the disgust you felt towards yourself slowly crawling onto your skin but out of your body. The leathery seat rubbed against your thigh, and if you were with anyone else, you wouldve tightened the coil that kept spiraling in your head, thinking and thinking and thinking.
Your vehicle was stationary in the lawn, the party still pulsing inside, though dying a little, people stumbling out just as you had. Every movement in your body also halts slowly, considering the careful importance of jean next to you, sitting in the seat next to yours, the backseat of his old, worn car felt more like the comfort of your own couch. Your shoulders are against jean’s, and the discomfort that so easily clings to you without permission finds itself against him, pressed in the gap between your side and his.
You wonder, now more than ever, if youre beautiful.
Its pressing. The question is evident and bright - does he think youre beautiful? Every prickly tear you had stuffed down through your life for a time that would be better than the one you were living, every hair that you couldnt reach to smooth over, every passing but suffocating thought that you couldnt find yourself living without, every stray eyelash that fell on your cheeks, every gasp you took with a shudder that was left unseen, every uneven nail.
Did he find you beautiful? More importantly, even if he did, did he find you beautiful despite or because of your numerous flaws? Or did he not see them at all? Which would be worse?
You sigh without reason. The sound floats in the air before jean picks it up. His head turns to yours, softly, the back of his hair being ruffled by the leather of the seat. “What’re you thinking about?” he asks, as if he wants to know.
The discomfort; the one you knew shouldnt be there, the one you were trying so hard not to notice, comes out of its hiding.
Falling in love with jean kirstein was so easy. Having anyone fall in love with you, however, was impossible. Not with all your lack-of-beauty, not with your endless doubt, not with your persistent discomfort.
Not with you.
“Nothing,” you say, shrugging, not meeting his patient eyes.
Theres a pause before he speaks again, and you can feel tears burn up at the back of your throat, prickly and demanding.
“Liar.” he says, deciding your fate.
You laugh despite yourself. A puff of air makes its way out of your nose with a small smile. “Okay.”
“Whats on your mind?” he persists.
Hesitance sits on the shoulder that rests against his. You close your eyes, as if not seeing the ceiling of jean’s old, worn, loved car would make your existence a little easier, a little less of a liability. “Nothing important.”
“Then why are you thinking it?” persists.
You shrug. Hesitance rises with it. “I like to indulge in unimportant things sometimes,” you say, shooting your shot at being poetic for once, of saying something a little meaningful.
This time, though, unlike all your previous attempts and failures, it doesnt go unheard.
Jean hums, considering.
“Indulge me, then.” persisting.
You let his words soak into you, pores opening without difficulty to breathe him in. “would it be… narcissistic if i said i was thinking about myself?” your honesty is repulsive.
He still sits beside you. “How is that unimportant?”
Fuck. falling in love with jean kirstein was so easy, because saying smaller, meaningful things came easy to him. Because he didnt consider that you werent meant to feel considered or felt or heard, that you were meant to be stagnant and far away. Falling in love with jean kirstein was so easy because you knew there would never be an inverse.
Your finger scratches the tip of your nose, unable to provide him with an answer that could help.
He continues, taking your silence as a cue. “What exactly were you thinking about yourself?”
His voice had its way around you, cornering you for an answer that you knew youd never give to anyone but him. It makes you angry; how easily he could reach himself around you, how easily he could find himself in your mind. It frustrated you beyond comprehension, how hed do all of these things unknowingly and then have the nerve to ask you what was on your mind.
You know he’s going to persist. You know that the ugly thing thats taken its shape as your heart will keep pounding, unable to come up with an answer good enough for your lips and his ears. Your shoulders slump with inert exhaustion, discomfort morphing into its tired self.
Everything has its slow way of coming to a halt. Your body does just that, against your will, and your head bumps against jean’s waiting shoulder. Youre unsure of any tears that escape your eyes, or if he wipes them out of obligation or concern or maybe - and you say this to soothe yourself - indifference. Maybe to him, this is who you are.
In his car, maybe he decides to see you as the creature you’ve deemed yourself to become. Maybe he decides to stay next to you nonetheless. Maybe he wraps his arm around your shoulder because youre showing parts of yourself he knew were there all along. Maybe - and you say this to soothe yourself - he wraps his arm around your shaking and shuddering and prickly and disgusting shoulders because he cares.
Falling in love with jean kirstein was easy, you say to soothe yourself, because he cradles you to almost-sleep in the leather backseat of his car, trading his warmth for yours.
Maybe - and jean thinks this to soothe himself - maybe now you’d let him in.