Notes: I really meant to write for other ships but this accidentally happened so…
Before gay marriage was legalized in this state, before I stopped getting into fights that sent people to emergency rooms, before I knew I had a heart capable of loving, before I knew I was extremely gay for this asshole in my world history class back in high school, before I even knew how to say I love you in a romantic way, there was this kid.
Me.
Eren. Eren Jaeger.
This kid who didn't believe in romance; who gave black eyes when he first met a person, the same guy who was the physical embodiment of anger, learned just how wrong he was.
I mean don't get me wrong, I still give people black eyes, just not at every chance encounter.
And I still don't really believe in romance, not in the way others would at least.
And no one can forget the fact that I am still kinda angry. But only when certain conditions are met.
I have changed, but if you were to only see me for a flash of a second in high school and another flash of a second after I graduated college, you may still have thought I was no different than my 15 year old self. But when I say change, I mean the more deep, in the bones and muscles of my entire being change. I have changed the inner workings of my mind just a bit to appear totally new to those close to me. But to any old person on the street or in a cafe, I was the same angry dude through and through.
How have I changed?
It's not through some miracle medical situation that changed me forever. Nor was it a beautifully spoken oration or anything. No it was more of an intertwining event that caused my world to spin on a different axis. Sort of like when you bump into someone and are thrown off balance for a while and stay in that state of falling but never getting the chance to reach the ground. And when you finally think you've fallen all the way and go about your day, you meet that person again in the same fashion only in another location and you fall further and longer than the last time.
Try it, and do it again multiple times, each time with the same person coming at you from different directions, somewhere else, while you are unprepared to fall. That's exactly how I felt for over years on end up until now. When I finally reached the end of this feeling of eternal, unprepared falling, I found myself in a new domain of extreme frustrated happiness. Sort of like when you know what happens to your favorite character in a work of fiction and are just waiting for your friend to catch up so you could talk all day about it.
I was like that, I felt so frustrated yet happy because I wasn't sure where to output my emotions. How do I expel all of these warm and fluttery feelings all in one go? Because I know for a fact that the tank is overflowing so I need to keep emptying these butterflies somewhere.
The answer was simpler than I had imagined.
If you told me a year or two ago, maybe even just a little less than that, that I would be living in an apartment somewhere in the city miles away from where I met the guy who was the poison of my life, and coming home every day to find my one and only asshole on our bed napping before his next shift, I would never believe you. I would have laughed bitterly in your face because such happiness's were not for me.
I lived in tragedy for most of my life. How could I believe anyone if they told me I would one day be happy?
And here I am, after all those hardships to get to this point, I can now gladly say I have reached the end of the time of falling and entered a phase of happiness. I've found a way to keep staying this way because I no longer need to beat people up out of anger. I now love for the sake of loving and am happy to do so every minute of every day and happily embrace our seconds together.
Who would've imagined this life for me?
Fate has only ever the opposite of kind toward me, that is, until this moment.
Did some crisis happen somewhere else in the world to someone so that I may taste happiness just this once?
Just look at me, with this dork.
With this person who I once thought I hated.
Who I would fight with over the shittiest things.
Who I beat up for not realizing his true worth or beauty.
Who I beat up for being a bitch to his mom when the last thing I was to my mother was exactly that, before she was gone from my life.
The same person who I got beat up for loving behind a mask of anger.
Who in the spur of the moment told me his true feelings and let me see who he really was under the hood.
Who I got hit by a car for when he ran out after hearing only lies and I chased after him to tell him the truth.
The person who I confessed my first true feelings of love to.
The man who beat me to proposing first.
The idiot who made everything we went through together, before our happiness together now, mean nothing in comparison.
Jean. Jean mother-fucking Kirschstein.
He thought he was as straight as an arrow.
He thought he was going to settle down after college with a cute, yet fucking sexy and unique wife with some kids somewhere down the line.
He thought he would always go through life without the need of maternal support.
He thought he would never come to love the idiot who ran across the street and got hit by a tiny Mini Cooper just to tell him he heard wrong.
That I didn't actually spread the rumors about him to get at him. And that I didn't tell anyone his secrets and that I was the one who tried to stop it (along with some help from friends). That he heard wrong and that none of his friends betrayed him, or that they all thought ill of him for being simply interested in guys.
He thought so many things and all of them were proven wrong by me at some point.
And in return he proved me wrong as well. Jean showed me there was so much more and I of course must have done the same to him.
We're here now because of each other.
Right now, just as we are, cuddling, and caressing each section of covered and uncovered skin. Kissing in the most intense of ways under the covers, listening to the soundtrack we put together that reminded us of everything we loved about each other.
In this moment in time I was using my hands to pull at his hair that had gotten a tad bit longer than he usually had. I was pulling at his shirt so that he would strip it off so I had more access to more of his skin. I was leaving quick, but loving kisses all over his face and down his jaw and to the other side. Licking and sucking a few times in between when I finally made it to his neck. My hand that was not entangled in hair was rubbing his toned back in a thoughtless manner, just to get the feel of his skin and nothing more. To know he existed on top of me and in my arms and sharing this moment.
At the same time in this very same moment after finally prying me off his neck he began to lick the shell of my ear and breathe into it between words of fucking nothing but sweet nonsense.
Things like, "you are, and always will be mine, my perfect little idiot."
"My fucking everything. You're so beautiful, your eyes, and skin, and your hair… So soft."
"I love you so much, your voice when you become all flustered, and your expression when you know I'm right and can't deny it. I can't fucking get over it, you are so cute and sexy and fucking hot, damn…"
He was pressing his fingers into my skin and rubbing at every muscle that reacted to his touch. I had wrapped my arms around him and just held him close while he felt every centimeter of my chest while drawing lines with gently pressed nails over my stomach. He chuckled into my hair when he felt my stomach flip from the sensations and all I would reply with was a 'shut up,' while biting my lips.
He hadn't said anything but I knew that his expression said everything even if I wasn't looking at it since I was involuntarily shutting my eyes.
Since he wasn't letting up in our upper half of our bodies, I had started rubbing my sockless feet up against his legs just to create more contact between us.
He growled into the curve of my neck where it met my shoulder and left more wet kisses than I ever had that day.
It could've gone anywhere from there, we could have gotten freaky that night in bed but all we did was feel for each other's' existence and share all of our love for each other as we had done many times before.
Jean slowly came to a stop and so did I. He pulled away, just enough to get a good view of my face. My eyes had opened up finally and immediately looked away from him. He was looking at me. Right at me, examining me and it made me feel as if I was in a sauna, I thought it was already hot to begin with but this was just unbearable.
"What?" I murmured through barely parted lips. I could feel all the blood in my body flow into my face and fill it with heat.
Jean just bit his lip and smiled at me. "Nothing." I tried to look at him fiercely and with some annoyance but with no success. "You just look, so, handsome… So beautiful. Like, extremely so."
"You say that all the time," I grumbled, trying to turn my face into the pillows. He grabbed my chin gently, yet firmly to keep my eyes on him while he spoke.
"No, Eren, you really are. Always have been, but every day you get more and more gorgeous than the last time I saw you. After I blink, I have to stop and reevaluate my life and how the fuck I got someone like you."
I could feel my face shift at his words and after a few seconds of my mind going blank I threw myself up and grabbed him. I rolled us over and just sat there on his stomach, face buried in his chest.
"Eren?"
"You fucking suck, you know that?"
Jean didn't respond to that and just wrapped his arms around me again and rubbed circles into my back.
"You suck with words."
"Yeah, I know."
"I fucking hate you…"
"I love you too."
"Stop smiling at me, I know you're doing it. You know I'm going to get back at you later right?"
Yeah, here we are. Two dorks, idiots, whatever you wanna call us, in love and finally happy.
After all we've been through to get here, we're finally here.
Together.