Re : The World.

re : the world.

jean kirstein x reader, modern au.

summary ; sasha introduced the two of you as complete opposites, two different worlds. but you'd disagree, especially since it feels like jean creates a new world just for you. warnings ; a little too self indulgent? aka reader likes peach flavoured stuff. also mentions of drinking, nothing graphic. a/n ; erm! haha. sorry for my absence again. i promise im still writing d2d and blooming hearts. pls be patient with me you guys r saints. thank you. enjoy this as i run away. hc reqs are still open hmu babes i lowkey want d2d to blow up a little. like okbambi. throwaway thought. continue reading. thx taglist ; @holding-infinity-and-a-book , @mrsnobodynobody , @hopeless-anti-romantic-again , @jeanscremebrulee , @berrijam , @happxme , @cherrypieyourface , @imgayandshesanime , @moonmalice , @kivernova , @potaho3frog , @xakilicious , @katestrophes , @gojo-ana , @ppushable, @candleohappiness , @zombiefiedskeivy , @1ovede1uxe , @sevriizy

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Jean has this habit.

Its not well concealed - hell, you're sure he doesnt even realise it himself, a muscle memory that seems to replay against his tendons, condensing him down to his action. You dont realise it at first either, but patterns have a tendency of making themselves apparent, especially since its about him.

The scene plays out something like this - kitchen lights are warm and shining, clinging onto the apples of your downtrodden cheeks, unheard and tired problems that weigh down your organs now find themselves boring down on your skin, a more physical proof of your labour. The week - scratch that, the month - had been rough. There's a cup of coffee against the palms of your hands, the tips of your nails a little blue from the cold you had just endured outside. Inside, its warm, your friends sit huddled around the coffee table that holds an unnecessarily important game of monopoly. The community chest cards were more than half gone, and Sasha sat with her back resting against the foot of the couch, tongue poking out of her lips thoughtfully, subconsciously. Your eyes blink blearily, steam from your coffee doing the exact opposite of it’s entirety, and Jean mixes just a splash of creamer into his own cup - just how he liked it. 

His eyes have been passing glances across your body, slumped with your back against the marble of the kitchen counter, picking up on something you refuse to be seen putting down. He clears his throat - an opening for a potential conversation, a test to see if you’ll take the bait and turn to him - and when you do, because of course you will, there's a victory that lifts his shoulders and puffs up his chest, muscle memory, tendons tightening. 

But youre so tired. He can see it in your eyes and under them, so when he asks his question, he doest so in the least gentle way possible. So he’ll get you to talk, because he knows that cornering you might be the only way he can get a real answer that lays unfiltered, beating still as it slips out of your mouth. 

“What is it this time?” he asks. His voice covers any unhindered iciness that his statement might hold, making it warm and curious instead of cold and blunt. Or maybe that's just how you see it. Maybe he’s a well meaning asshole who you’re accustomed to, whose language you’ve come to know well. Alphabets memorized.

You sigh. You wonder if your sigh itself could be an alphabet, if he understands all the frustrations underneath it. Your tongue can't conjure up anything else for a brief while, and for the same brief while, jean looks at you. Wholly, fully, more than you’ll ever be, though his eyes scatter themselves across your body. Your nose, your lips, your hair, your clothes, a slight sense of disarray but comfort nonetheless because the disarray meant that you had lived in it long enough and that you trusted your clothes and your hair and your nose and your lips more than enough to be here right now.

“Yknow.” you say, unsure of whether or not its a start of a statement or the end of an unsaid one. You decide to let it linger, staring into your cup until you find the words to say something important, clambering to find meaning that your voice somehow always inherently lacks. Theres a lump in your throat that’s small enough for you to ignore it, and then you begin speaking again, “i don't feel like im… enough for this.” you say. You're aware that it's unimportant, words lacking meaning. They always have, especially now.

“For what?” his voice asks, and you wish his reflection could share the same space as yours in the cup, make his space yours, but he doesn't. Instead, his shoulder presses against yours, which you suppose is better. An anchor, you think to yourself, even though he doesn't realize it. 

“All of it. Like, somehow… i keep trying, right? To be a good student, to be friendly and kind and just… try - like being good at work and at talking and all of it. But i’m not, even though sometimes i think im finally, finally making some progress, it all just comes crashing down on me and i feel so…dumb about it. Like im incompetent. Like all roles are too important for me to get them.”

It doesn't feel like the world is off your shoulders. You wonder why everyone always told you to talk about your feelings; claiming it’ll make the burden lighter. But the process of doing that would include giving it to someone else who’s less likely to have had a bad day and making their day worse by association. It felt like a math formula, another thing you were inherently struggling with.

No, the world feels all too real, all too on-your-shoulders, all too present and pressing against your shoulders, the hurt seeping to the ends of your collarbones.   

“Incompetent.” he says. Its not a reply, neither is it a question. Like he knows exactly what you mean and is contemplating on it. Consider it. Then he shrugs. Sighs through his next statement to make it sound less like a confession of admiration, “you're not incompetent.” 

A pause. You don't believe him, and he knows it. And before he begins his strategy of building you up; he does it. 

Turns his back to everything else. Stands in front of you so he can be the only thing in your eyesight, his back to your friends, to the rest of the world as he makes his attempts to lessen the weight of yours. And surely - and you know he knows it, realises it just as you do - you lift your head up, eyes directed to his, your face pointing to your world, directly to him. In that action, you match each other perfectly well, even if Sasha introduced the two of you to each other as complete opposites. You wouldn't necessarily agree with her, especially not now, when both of you create your own world so easily, with the least amount of the hesitation that easily comes to the two of you.

He speaks quietly. Almost under his breath, as if they are truths that are heavier than his words, “you're not. When you talk, its clear that you're passionate, knowledgeable. Even if you don't realise it. Somehow you convince people to believe in you everytime you speak. It's one of the things i like about you. You-” he weaves his hand into his hair halfway through; an action he only commits to when he’s passionate about the topic he's speaking about, “you could make an atheist believe in god. Maybe because you have bits of truth hidden in there, whatever it is, but you're fully lying if you think you're incompetent. Or dumb. You’re not. You're good. Fucking brilliant.” he says, scoffing as if its a universal fact that youre unknowing of. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, the earth is round, and jean believes youre ‘fucking brilliant’. 

You blink. Before the gears in your heavy machinery of a brain can move, he says, “i know you wont believe it, so let me do the believing for you. Depend on me a little, yeah?” he asks, like it's a plea. And honestly, you give in, without hesitation. 

His back faces the world and there’s a resolution in your eyes as you face your own world, smiling gently.

The next time is one you can particularly take note of. 

You're at some party that eren was throwing - pre halloween, everyone in costume, the song from the speaker so loud that the ground beneath your shoes was shaking, etching a reminder of tonight on it - a typical college-like event. Everyone was having a bubbling and tipsy conversation amongst themselves, connie and eren arguing over the music that they put on, sasha fawning over mikasa who could be seen blushing lightly even under the flashing lights, reiner with his arm around someone you knew from class - and admittedly set him up with - as you try not to let a proud smile set over your lips at the fact. You had a bet with Marco, another inside conversation that had been had all the way to the party; you bet on reiner finally “getting some” tonight, and marco betted on him not. Which he clarified, was not because he didn't believe in the guy, but because reiner had a way of… being awkward when he was tipsy. Fifty solid dollars over this. You weren't going to lose.

Your head bopped to the argued-over music, scanning the crowd for jean, who claimed he was going to find you a drink you’d actually enjoy sipping on through the night. He knew you well enough, so you’d allowed him to, posing it to him as a challenge that he took with a cocky smile and a self-assured confidence that you were tempted to break.

You weren't going to break it. Of course not. Not unless he won. 

Bert asks you about your plans after the party. You tell him that you’d probably go home with the girls - unless they find their own plans for the night, which, you hope they do - and ask him the same, and he tells you he’ll go home with reiner, unless the obvious were to happen. You shout at him about your bet with Marco because you know your voice wouldn't be carried to his ears otherwise, and he smiles and says, rather wisely despite his slightly slurred speech, that you’d probably win. You tell him that if Marco were listening you’d flex about it. He laughs a little before someone from his class waves him over and you're left to your own devices again, scanning the crowd for a familiar head of soft hair that you imagine far too much running your fingers through.

And you find it. Shoulder the crowd, holding two glasses of his concoction, heading straight towards you, making sure not to spill even a single drop. You applaud his persistence, and he reaches you with the same smile he left you with, eyes sparkling and soft around the edges, looking at you like the world’s been tuned out, handing you your cup.

“Peach sparkling…spirit.” he says, not having had a single thought about naming the drink, but nodding once in satisfaction after it slips out of his mouth. You nod back, impressed, and look down at the ice floating in it. “Ice so your iron deficiency has something to chew on.” he completes with a laugh, one that you playfully punch him for as if your insides dont melt at the fact that the drink is more of a symbol, really, of how much he really knows you. peach , your favourite flavour, to dilute the wretched taste of alcohol. The coolness to keep you awake, and the ice floating at the top just as he said, because you liked chewing on it.

And as if just that much wasnt enough, he does it again.

Back to the world, he faces you completely, now closer than ever. Chest to chest, not because there were people unknowingly pressing your back from both sides, but because you'd be that close by choice either way. He traps you, but youre a willing accomplice, guilty of the same crime, and you create your own worlds with none of the hesitance that you both so frequently carry with everyone else as if this is the easiest thing youd ever do. As if its always been easy.

You tip your glass to his, and he clinks the rim of his cup to yours, lifting it to his lips with the same smile, now softer, gentler, because he knows only you're looking, because he knows he’d let you. 

The drink tastes divine. The completeness of knowing you, fully, wholly, without hesitation, the peach mixing with whatever cheap vodka he could find, knowing just how strong to make it so you wouldn't scrunch your nose at it’s burn but rather enjoy it, knowing you'd nurse the same drink for the rest of the night, close to your chest as it would vibrate not to the sound of the music but to the sound of your quietly beating heart because out of everyone, jean made it. 

Despite the drink's coolness, enough to freeze your fingertips, your insides felt. They felt, every organ - your lungs, your heart, your liver, your kidneys - felt, conscious and whole, flipped inside out and alive. 

Your back to the world, you and jean creating your own. 

Habits have a funny way of catching on, jean noticed, as you made a knowing decision to turn your own back to the world that you knew to be so large and unknown, opting for the warm one that jean hoped to preserve for you.

He notices, too. The first time you do it, its september. Your boots scruff up against the harsh of the pavemented sidewalk, orange and red leaves under your feet, with a cup of coffee in your hand, the one that he happily paid for like it was muscle memory. There could be silence between you, sure, because he knows that even that would be pleasant. But there isnt, and hes glad nonetheless, bringing his cup close to his lips, knowing that yours have touched the same rim to get a taste, hoping it would cover up the small smile that creeped onto his face, threatening to stay against his cheeks for you to notice, because of course you would. 

You finish the end of your sentence. Something about autumn, he knows, and your shoulders are brushing his as they perpetually are, coat against his, and he swears a world is created because of it, the lint of your fabric almost like magic when it presses against his, even if brief, because it cant be anything short of it with the way he’s feeling. Comfortable, whole, significant. He licks his lips, cleaning off the residue of the coffee and tasting the lingering of your lips indirectly on his like a revered devotee, a saint waiting for sacrifice, and says something probably insignificant. About the rain? He’s not sure. And then it turns into, “one time, connie - i think in middle school? Like back when i first met the guy - had his mouth wide open under the sky so he could get a full gulp of direct fucking rainwater in his mouth because we’d just learnt about… the water cycle. I think.” he says, and you laugh.

And then it happens. You do it, and he takes notice, because of course he does, of course, because its you. Turning on your heel, your back facing the world, as you fall into step, still beside him, walking backwards just so you could face him. For a moment he’s concerned - youre not the most synchronised person in the world, he once watched you stub your toe fully on purpose while trying to prove a point of how you’re not that navigationally challenged - but he shakes the thought out of his head as a slew of others fill it instead. You trust him. Enough to be a slight nuisance, enough to know if there was anything blocking your path that your back was facing so you wouldnt stumble, enough to know that he’d find this enjoyable rather than annoying. And then another larger, overwhelming thought.

You noticed. You noticed him doing that to you - turning his back to everything else, willingly, wholly, so you knew his attention was pinned on you and you only - and wanted to repay the insignificant favour.

And then he continues. As if nothing had occurred, as if a world just hadnt opened up and swallowed him up, organs flipping inside out. “And then when i made fun of him, the fucker went out there again, waited for the rainwater to fill his mouth up fully, and spit all of it on me.” he said, your laughter continuing to bubble and pour out of your lips and onto his, infectious as he thought it was, your shoulders shaking, no longer pressed against his, but he felt it anyway. Straight to his heart, his hand aching to cover it because his hesitance was carved onto his bones, but his choice to let it beat for you overwhelmed his tendons. 

He wondered if you knew. If you somehow, in your own way, knew that he’d always hold out for you as a knowing choice. That he’d went out to buy that peach drink for you to mix into the cheap vodka that eren had on his kitchen counter. If you knew that he’d never known what the right words to say were until you taught him a whole new dictionary, a vocabulary he’d somehow been blind to. Hes fluent now, he thinks, because he knows you fully, wholly. A world created and burnt into places, because both your backwere against the world you both knew.

Because jean saw you as his. And he knew - a new vocabulary - that you saw him as yours.

Back to the world, chest to a new one, your steps sync together, smiles the same on your lips as they were on his.