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Of course I do...
[Then:]
Just because I've done what I've done...[And he includes what his older self has done - because it has been done - in this.] It doesn't mean...I don't care for my friends.
I do...[He grips her a little tighter.] All I want...is for my friends to know happiness...
[His friends. His kin. It always comes back to that.]
[Abruptly Aubrey tries to shove herself away—to push him back, too. Not with force, but enough to communicate this moment is done. She shouldn’t indulge herself like that too long, anyway.]
I know you keep saying that. [Whether that worked to separate them or not, she swipes at her eyes. It’s a tense gesture, still.] But from everything I know… that won’t make your friends happy. I-it can’t.
[She's right, too...He can't imagine how something like ending the world would bring his friends happiness. But he knows...that his goals are larger than that, too. He has the weight of all humanity on his shoulders, and at only fifteen.
[Is he fighting the impulse to break beneath that weight because he truly trusts that whatever decision he makes in the future has to be the right one? Or has he just resigned himself to the fact that there's nothing that can stop him now...?]
I'm not lying...[His voice is very quiet.] I love them...
[All of them...Aubrey too.]
Usually I start throwing punches.
[But he thinks Reiner probably cares more about hurting feelings than breaking noses. He's a softie, really.]
Your first answer sounded to genuine too be a lie. You really do that also?
Eren, I– [Neither of those statements were ever in doubt.] I know you do. [But that’s just the problem, isn’t it?
[It’s so frustratingly true—she has no idea what he’s faced, what he will face. A story and a single outburst is nothing next to it all. That’s not in doubt, either.]
[And yet.]
I just… I want things to be different. F-for you. [Hasty addition, there. Aubrey shakes her head, closes her eyes for a moment. Her hands have fallen limply at her sides; it doesn’t hurt any less, really.] Does it… have to be like this…?
[The killing? The world he lives in, the view on it he’ll come to take? His insistence, which he’ll inherit even more strongly than she’s already hearing, that he can’t go back from this? It’s… everything, really.]
I want things to be different too. That's exactly what I want.
[But...
["Does it...have to be like this...?"]
Aubrey...could we...talk about something else for a while...?
[His voice is very distant now.]
I...I don't know what else to say...
[A covert "yes". He begins grieving before she can even walk away. No way things can go on like this...]
[It’s just about a non-answer. But in a way, they both knew it would come to this, didn’t they?]
[Just once more, Aubrey reaches out. Wraps her palm around his face, and thumbs at the emotion that overflows. He’s still so young, it seems…]
Yeah. [An exhale of a word.] Okay.
[And she lets go.]
[ What with how rapidly he put on muscle. ]
It was the nice answer, not a lie. So, yeah, I do. It's earned me a few weird looks in not-quite-deserted parking lots.
[It started by accident. They were still young then. Eren's life, reaching boiling point after boiling point - and then, him, sleeping only to dream, to wake up here, in this place, with Him.
[Him. Always Him.
[A lot has changed since then. The term "boiling point" has lost all its meaning; now, the world is at the point of total annihilation - or, at least, it will be soon.
[There's a rot in Eren Jaeger; a loneliness that few can understand. He's turned away from everyone. He's created a path which no one can follow. His body aches for rest; his soul too. And no one knows.
[Seeing the other man is a complex emotion. It's what little Eren still feels at all. They should, by all logic, hate each other; they do, in some ways - or, at least, Eren does. How couldn't he? Reiner is, after all, his enemy. And there's no enemy more similar - no singular other person that could possibly come close to understanding the weight that Eren carries.
[Reiner aches too. Perhaps that's what makes all the difference.]
[He doesn't greet him when he sees him. Just presses his nose into blonde hair, one hand coming up to grip the back of the other man's head.
[That's what this place is for. God, but there has to be some escape. This is escape.]
You probably are a story someone tells at parties though, I won't lie to you.
Skov really lost. I guess he's a pretty simple guy, though. Didn't really seem to care.
😤 We can play again as soon as you're ready to lose.
(Like Tuesday maybe.)
There's no point if you don't win. Except to improve so you can win later, I guess.
Next time you crash, have him pull me a car out of thin air too.
Idk much about cars really.
Something fast, and big. Bonus points if it can take a hit.
Why? You buying me one?
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