Blooming Hearts. ✿ a jean kirstein x reader story ✿

Chapter Two - Germination

The universe had taken a special liking to your case – something akin to a cruel author or a puppet master that decided strings to your fate despite your opinion or permission. You had to play the role that was fitting to the narration given to you, and the story started like this – two starstruck lovers, carved out of the same stone, shaped from the same dust, shaped into something that could be called beautiful.

The universe – you'd given it the power to, in all fairness – had twisted and turned your strings, playing them until they were frayed and fragile. And your'e reminded about how much everything hurts after a particularly hard dream. You woke up in a sweaty panic, feeling the remnants of pain blooming over the side of your stomach and taking root till your chest and the end of your thighs. And then the tears rolled in with an even stronger tremor as the voice – its always his voice that makes you cry like this, hunched over and clutching yourself to provide comfort that will never come until the morning does - whispering in your ear, telling you something, giving you an answer which disguises itself as a plea, telling you to hold on. His voice is the only thing you hear which you consider a good thing because youd do anything but sit with your own thoughts. His voice is more welcome to you than your own, even if it's usually honeyed tones are filled with despair and tears.

"no, no, no, no, no, no," he repeats. Your eyes are blurry and even if you could remember his face, you think, you wouldn't want to because you know it'll only bring you more pain. You try to get your fingers to reach out and hold his cheek like it's done countless times, but theyre numb to the point where you cant even tell if theyre there or not.

His voice ceases as he sniffles, and you feel a tear rest on your cheek. "no, we're – I was going to take you to my mom's house, you're- you're here, yeah? Im here, youre here, we're okay." He says, and you want to nod to tell him that you are and that he is and that you will accompany him to the ends of the earth if he so much as asks you to. But you don't realise that the end of the earth is here and now, and this dizzying vision of the person infront of you thinks that despite the world ending superficially with the ground rumbling and fiery titans charging towards it, his world has already ended. Your eyes are closed and youre bleeding so much and the world is ending in both regards.

You slept. The world ended.

There are people calling out for him. Connie's voice is panicked and hoarse, calling out his name. it falls deafly on jean's ears as he catches your eyebrows furrowed in pain and he wishes he could take it away from you, and your skin is so pale now and he feels himself shaking and hears you take in shallow breaths, trying to hold on. You've been brave, he thinks, and asking you to hold on is the most selfish act he's committed.

he kisses the tip of your nose, tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. He cant bring himself to smile but he wants your last sight to be of him smiling – of how you'd always made him be. So he does, a little, and then he sees you smile too and the world is ending and he cannot do anything but tell it – tell you – "I love you. Goodnight, poppy."

The strings of his being were frayed and fragile. Jean wondered if it would stay as such in whatever other life there would be. If sasha's theories on birth and rebirth were true, then jean prayed and hoped and held on to his strings till his dying breath. Held on to the hope that you'd meet in another time, another universe, another world and would mend his strings just like you had done in this one.

And this was how it was going in the other one – two star struck lovers, their names etched on the same paper with the same ink, bled into something that could be called beautiful. It could. It would.