[Open Log] Faith alone can't get me where I need to go

[rustyhonesty]

WHO: Jean Kirstein & you
WHAT: Jean's training arc continues, with new skills, old skills and slightly overworking
WHEN: December
WHERE: Specified in the prompts
WARNINGS: will add as needed


A. New Skill Unlocked
[Dayrise, Grand Coliseum] [Warning for Elastic/Extending Limbs]

At first, Jean had only been able to make his fingers longer. It had felt really weird, so he hadn't tried it again for the moment. But with time he got used to the feeling and kept practicing.

So now someone may walk into the coliseum and see Jean with a three times longer right arm, grabbing onto something in the distance. He was still testing how well he could use his fingers when they were so far away from him. Not very well, especially when it was hard to see what he was grabbing.

Another problem was when the arm returned to its regular size, it... kinda came back with a force and ended up slapping Jean in the face. All part of the learning curve. But also very frustrating.

"GAH!"



B. Fire Control
[Dayrise, Grand Coliseum]


Practicing fire was something Jean was more accustomed to, but he was still struggling a little bit with a certain fire skill. So instead of going around throwing fire punches or kicks in the air or forming fire weapons, he's focusing on his breathing.

A tiny ember formed with a short breath. Then a deeper breath and a longer trail of fire, going through the air where he wanted it to go, not catching anything else on fire. Everything was going like he hoped. He could do controlled fire.

Then he took a deep, deep breath and put all his strength into blowing out fire. The goal was that it would just travel through the air, harmless. Just like the other two had.

It went straight to the ground and started burning sand all over instead. It definitely didn't go where Jean intended it to go, so that was still a work in process.

"Fuck."


C. Training, training
[Dayrise, Grand Coliseum]


Does it ever feel like anytime you run into Jean, he has a different weapon? It probably does feel like it, since he has so many different weapons he was trying to master the use of. A sword that he was already pretty good at, a polearm that he was still studying but getting better all the time, and most recently a chain whip that he was really new at.

If he doesn't have a weapon in hand, he's practicing hand-to-hand combat in different kind of forms he's learned from various people or doing simple parkour around some obstacles in Dayrise.

Yeah, it's more common to see him training than not. Recently, he's even gotten more fuel to his training fire, thanks to new arrivals that he very much wanted to keep safe and sound.


D. Exhaustion catching up
[Solarpeak, Dayrise, Blossomcrown]

Of course, when you train too much, eventually you run out of energy, which means Jean is often taking a nap in a little unexpected places. He may be napping at the Solarpeak beach, or maybe he's crashed in the middle of the Grand Coliseum in Dayrise. It's also entirely possible to see him almost falling asleep at some bench in the Blossomcrown Park when he's supposed to be watching one of his and Mikasa's three dogs (a white husky named Snow, a German Shepherd named Hazel and a Pegasus Puppy Akita Inu named Maru).

Yeah, he might be overdoing it, just a little bit.

Comments

[dreamsofwings]

"Do flowers symbolise things?" Eren asks, head tilted a little. Of course he's never paid attention to anything of the sort, so it hasn't occurred to him. He figured the charm he has is just because of flowers he sees in his dreams or some shit like that.

"This is like going to a cemetery to think," he remarks. "What kind of things would you even think about in a place like this?"

He says, as if he's not morbid enough to go think in a literal cemetery.

[rustyhonesty]

"Apparently there's a whole flower language", Jean replies with a shrug. He's run into the term quite a bit, occasionally even asking some flower shop clerks for recommendations for certain messages for flowers, just for fun.

It's not wrong thinking that this was kind of like a cemetery, even if it was more hopeful than that. A place where you get resurrected. Still, it was a reminder that death has happened, which lead to the initial thought.

"... I've been acting stupid. So I'm trying to figure out a way to... apologize. To myself."

He's a little embarrassed to admit these things to Eren of all people, but whatever.

[dreamsofwings]

"A whole language? I had no idea," Eren answers. What the hell. People use flowers to communicate? He can't imagine how or why. Maybe he'll ask someone else about that sometime, but for now he's more focused on Jean.

His eyebrows go up at the admission.

"Acting stupid how? You mean reckless?" He figures it's that, the way Jean had wanted to hide from them that he'd gone into the winter segment again.

He looks back at the flower. Apologise to yourself, he thinks. Eren's not sure he's ever bothered to do that. He barely apologises to anyone. It's never been his strong suit and he's worse at it now than he was as a kid.

"The same way you apologise to anyone, I guess," he answers, though what does he know about it? Eren doesn't have the first idea of how to apologise to or forgive himself for anything he's done or will do. This is much smaller scale, but…it's an emotional sort of exercise he can't get his head around.

[rustyhonesty]

Jean shakes his head at what Eren suggests as the reasons. Sure he should probably apology about some of those, too.

"I've been ... training too much. I haven't really taken breaks or looked after myself." He hesitates, but adds: "Because I don't feel like I'm enough. That if I don't improve I'll fail to protect people important to me."

Jean was good on apologizing to others, if he had a reason to. In some cases even when he didn't. He sighs.

"The problem is more in being able to forgive myself, if I do."

[dreamsofwings]

Eren stands there with his hands in his pockets, frowning a little down at the ground there at the base of the flowers. He's not good at this kind of thing, he knows. Jean probably knows, too. He wants to be a close enough friend that they can talk about things, but he's also Eren, distant and weird and closed off. He's trying.

"If you don't take care of yourself, you can't save anyone from anything," he says, sounding more condescending than he means. That scold isn't really about Jean, it's just in general, directed as much at himself as anyone.

He catches that tone and corrects a little.

"I don't know about forgiving yourself. I don't know how to do that any more than I know how to forgive other people."

It's no secret that Eren has never been forgiving.

"I guess…you have to start with being gentler on yourself. Physically and mentally."

[rustyhonesty]

Jean is almost ready to go on the defensive, but calms himself down, especially since he's pretty sure Eren didn't mean to sound like he's giving a lecture. Besides, he was right. All too right.

He can't help but huff a little, though. Eren definitely wasn't someone you turned to about advice of forgiveness. In a way, it made this situation silly. At the same time, maybe it was better he wasn't an expert on what was troubling Jean.

"... gentler, huh", Jean says after a moment. "But do I really deserve that?"

Maybe he didn't mean to say that out loud, or maybe he did. Either way, it's said.

[dreamsofwings]

Eren tilts his head and regards Jean. He wonders why Jean of all people feels so unsure of something like that. But they all have their own insecurities; Eren isn't privy to everything Jean has been through in the years they spent apart.

"Of course you do," he says, though Eren's not all that good at being convincing with his largely monotone delivery. But he means it, or he wouldn't bother saying it.

He reaches out, haltingly, and puts an arm on Jean's shoulder.

"Everyone fucks things up sometimes. It doesn't mean you have to hate yourself about it."

[rustyhonesty]

The funny thing is, most of his self-esteem issues come from this particular world. It's the first one ever died in, after all.

Jean is just a bit embarrassed that he has to get reassurance from Eren, but at the same time it feels nice?

"I know", he finally says, after being quiet for a while. "It's just harder to come to term with when you fucked up so bad you died, I guess."

[dreamsofwings]

"A lot of people have died for me," Eren says, slowly. "Because of me. To save or protect me." That's all true; Jean doesn't need to know the rest of it, obviously. People will keep dying for Eren until almost no one is left. People will die for Eren as long as Eren is still alive. The reprieve from that here is welcome, but…he always feels it can't be forever.

It doesn't matter, though. He'll take here as long as he can.

"So…I don't know exactly how you feel. But I've been fucking up since we were kids, with more at stake than we could even begin to understand." Also true, also not the whole truth.

"I know how it feels to not be able to forgive yourself. I guess that's what I'm saying."

[rustyhonesty]

Jean remembers the mission to save Eren from Reiner and Bertholdt. A lot of people died. A lot of people died when they rescued him from Reiss too, but it wasn't from 'their people'. A lot of people also died in Shiganshina, even if Jean hadn't seen it for himself.

Compared to the weight Eren must be feeling, just screwing himself over seemed pathetic to mourn about.

Not that it made any sense to compare.

"I can never understand the weight you're feeling. But I already feel bad enough for breaking my promise to Mikasa. That I'd never leave her or go where she can't follow... so I would probably break down with even a small part of your pain."

[dreamsofwings]

Eren shakes his head.

"You're stronger than that," he says. "But it doesn't matter what I feel or how it compares. You can't just compare your own shit to someone else's so you can feel worse."

Eren knows that loop of thought, too, how things aren't as bad for him as someone else so he should feel better. It's an easy trap to fall into.

"Feel your damn feelings," he continues. "If you're that worried about breaking promises to Mikasa, just…all you can do is not do it again. She can forgive a lot."

Even without Jean knowing the future, that must be obvious, right? Eren has needed forgiveness for a lot of stupid shit in his life, though he's aware Mikasa gave him more of a pass than she gave anyone else back then.

[rustyhonesty]

Don't call him out like that.

Jean could argue he wasn't comparing, but it was exactly the kind of spiral he had been going towards. It's actually pretty annoying that Eren or all people caught up on that. It feels refreshing to feel annoyed, honestly.

At least it gives his response a little energy.

"I know that already. And that's also one of the reasons I've been training. To make sure she never has to find me here again. To make sure she never has to cry sad tears because of me again."

But he went overboard with it, which is also a way to worry her, so basically he screwed up trying to improve himself too, which is why he's struggling now.

"I don't want my friends and family to ever go through that again. We all have... lost enough. I don't want to be yet another reason to grieve."

But talking about feeling his feelings, he adds one final thing.

"Honestly, I'm still scared. Of dying... but even more than that, I'm scared of letting everyone down."

[dreamsofwings]

Jean is more thoughtful than Eren, of course. He has no idea how many tears Mikasa has cried for him, or how many she will.

A lot, he thinks. But not here. There's no reason to worry about him here. Well…that's not true. Eren has always been a storm about to break, even before he knew the horrible truth of the world and their future. There's probably something to worry about.

He's quiet for a long time, thinking about Jean's words.

"I'm not afraid to die," he says after a minute. "But I don't want to die. I've never wanted to die, no matter what anyone says about me."

He's put himself in danger time and time again, and he had resolved to die more than once. But he doesn't have to do that here, and neither does Jean.

He reaches out, awkward and tentative, and puts a hand on Jean's shoulder.

"You've never let anyone down," he says. "I'm sure you're more careful now, so…that's what you can do."

[rustyhonesty]

It feels conflicting, to be comforted by Eren. In a way, it makes him feel smaller, weaker. Eren is his rival, after all. Always has been. Rival and a friend. Which is why it also feels empowering. It lets Jean feel stronger, too, to have a friend by his side who cares about him.

Their friendship was always like this. Eren made him feel annoyed quite a lot, but at the end of the day, Eren managed to also make him feel comfortable and like he was cared about. While he never wanted to lose to Eren, he always knew he could count on him for help.

In truth, Jean loved Eren, just like he loved all of his friends and found family. It was the kind of platonic love that carried him through hardships. Different with the one he had with Mikasa, but still an important one that he wanted to cherish.

Jean settles into feeling good about the comfort and the hand on his shoulder. More grounded and calm from the raging feelings he had that tried to pull him down.

"I refuse to remove myself from the battle, but I will do what it takes to always return home alive", Jean finally says, voice less shaky than before. "Thanks, Eren."