Attack On Titan: Dreams

"You alright there?"

'Fuck.'

Eren sits up instantly at the sound of Armin's voice, to find the blond taking a seat across from him, a book sandwiched beneath his armpit, tray of food in hand.

Leave it to Armin to figure out his irregular eating patterns and schedule instantly.

The blond begins to eat nonchalantly, and Eren blinks back, tensing considerably.

He'd have to be very careful with his words now.

"Yeah," he replies.

"You look pretty bad," Armin says around the porridge he has just shoved in his mouth.

"Thanks."

"No sleep?"

"I'm sleeping just fine."

"Right."

And he already sees that his intelligent friend isn't buying it one bit, and he wants to leave , because he knows he is about to get underhandedly interrogated. He was already no match for Armin's wit to begin with. In his exhausted state, he'd be even more prone to saying stupid and revealing things.

"What's keeping you up?" Armin asks.

It was the moment of truth.

He could either choose to run away, or deflect, or... be honest.

Armin was his best friend after all.

But he could not shake the feeling that recounting what had happened would be disrespectful towards Mikasa. What had occurred between them had been incredibly intimate and had rendered their relationship uncharacteristically fragile.

Revealing the details to a third party felt... wrong.

So, he deflects.

"Do you ever think about what's gonna happen after all this is over?" Eren asks, lifting a hand to absently trace at the wood grain on the table, eyes studying the jagged lines. "I mean, after the ocean, and traveling and all that."

There is a slight pause, and Eren can see Armin shovel more porridge from his bowl out of his periphery.

"Yeah," the blond replies thoughtfully. "Sometimes."

"What do you see yourself doing?"

He doesn't look at Armin, afraid he will accidentally give something away through an involuntarily telling expression. And he doesn't want to throw his momentum, as right now, he is doing incredibly well at deflecting.

"Hmm. Traveling a lot, still," Armin says. "Or maybe helping rebuild the government and acting as counsel for that. I don't know. But I guess I ultimately see myself settling down and having a family at the end of the day," he finishes, very matter of factly.

Eren nods.

The response calls to mind Mikasa's confession, but this time, he does not curse or slam his head against the table. He can only think of the fact that his two best friends could see past the ending. He, however, was too focused on the journey to seriously consider the finer details of life after the titans.

"Do you?" Armin's voice cuts into his thoughts, the words coming out skeptical.

The towheaded boy already knew him well enough to know the answer.

"Do I what?" Eren replies, halting his fingers' movements, finally turning his head to face Armin.

It's decidedly a mistake.

"Do you ever think about it. The... after," Armin clarifies, before shoving another spoonful of porridge into his mouth.

"No. Not really," Eren says, and Armin looks unsurprised. "Not until recently, anyway," he says, staring down at his empty tray.

Silence takes over, and he finds his mind wandering back to the night that did spur such thoughts - to tracing his thumb over her scar, and to the turn of her cheek into his palm, and her gentle smile, and to—

"Oh? What's got you thinking about it?"

Eren freezes.

HIs mind reels to quickly think up another way to deflect, but he is too slow.

"Did Mikasa finally propose?" Armin asks, before gulping down a glass of water.

Eren was not expecting that, and the question trips him up, and he is stuck staring wide-eyed at the tray, mouth flopping open and closed, and he takes far too long to respond, and he knows it is over when he hears Armin begin to choke on his water.

"She did," Armin finally sputters, coughing into his hand, and it's a cross between a statement and a question.

"She didn't propose!" Eren says in a harsh whisper, though there is no one else around.

He can feel his face start to warm again, because now that he thinks of it, she might as well have proposed.

Not used to this level of embarrassment, or facing issues of this kind at all, he covers his face with his hand, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, as Armin continues to cough and choke.

"And I thought you guys had a fight or something," Armin finally says, clearing his throat.

Eren shakes his head, palm pressed to his face.

"No. It wasn't a fight."

"Then, what?"

He remains silent, feeling Armin's gaze steady on his covered face.

"Alright, well, you're not sleeping," the blond begins. "You've briefly checked up on her, but you haven't actually talked to her since we got back. The last time she got hurt this badly, you couldn't be pulled from her bedside, but now you're clearly avoiding her, so... A fight would make sense... except for the fact that you're acting this way about a joke about a proposal. And you're thinking about life after the titans. So... she didn't propose, but she... confessed to you?"

'How the fuck...?'

At least he had valiantly tried to keep the matter between himself and Mikasa.

Defeated, Eren raises his head to look back at his friend slowly, and there is no smugness or amusement on Armin's face. There is only slight concern, face strangely serious, considering the topic at hand.

And when Eren continues to say nothing, and do nothing, it's confirmation enough.

Eventually, an amused smirk splits across Armin's mouth, filling Eren with unease.

"You really had no idea, did you?" Armin says, as he continues to eat.

"Of what?"

"That she... you know."

"No," Eren shakes his head, and then shrugs. "It's not like it was obvious."

Armin's smirk widens.

"It wasn't !" Eren insists, face burning warmer.

"Not to you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Eren asks, now genuinely confused and exasperated.

"It means exactly what it sounds like," Armin says nonchalantly, with a shrug.

Eren sinks down in his seat, crossing his arms on the table, pressing his chin into them, now at eye-level with the bowl on Armin's tray.

"Everyone else could see it," he hears Armin say with a mouth full of porridge.

And at that, his mind reels back through what should have been the obvious tells—all the touches, and grabs, and looks of desperation, the tears, the smiles and laughter reserved only for him.

Stupid.

He was so incredibly stupid.

"What did you say to her?" Armin asks, and Eren fights the urge to growl and curse and slam his head against the table once more.

He stares blankly at the bowl before him.

"Nothing," Eren says. "I said nothing."

He expects Armin to judge or chastise him for it, but he remains silent.

And in that silence, for the first time since that night, he lets himself think of her and that moment, and accepts the discomfort, resisting the reflex to shut down all thoughts of her immediately.

"What do you say to that?" Eren asks quietly.

"The truth—that is, if you even know what the truth is."

Eren stares at his warped reflection in the bowl, watching his blurred green eyes blink.

"Do you?" Armin pries further as Eren feared he would.

He sighs, and shakes his head, closing his eyes.

"I don't want to have to think about this kind of shit right now. It's distracting as hell," he spits gruffly, watching his brow knit in annoyance in the blurred reflection.

"It is," Armin nods, and Eren is slightly startled at the affirmation. "I'm surprised Mikasa even said anything, because she understands that more than anyone. I thought she would've held off until after everything was over. Or close to it, at least."

Now that he thinks of it, Armin is right.

Mikasa of all people only says what needs saying, when it needs saying.

And then his stomach drops, his eyes shooting wide open.

"I can't tell you."

"Sure you can."

"No, I can't."

"Hey... Don't be difficult. I'm trying to be nice."

"Fuck," he murmurs under his breath, burying his face in his crossed arms.

He had caused this mess.

He had pressed her to open up, despite her attempts to fend him off.

He now recalls her eyes trained on the ceiling, face contorting to mask any and all emotion, and he feels even worse.

"What?" he hears Armin ask.

"Nothing," comes his muffled reply, face still pressed into his arms. "Don't tell anyone about this."

"I won't, obviously."

"Not even Mikasa—especially not Mikasa."

"I won't, " Armin sighs. "But you should really do something about it, soon."

Eren enjoys the darkness for a beat longer before lifting his head.

"There's nothing to do. I don't know what to say to her."

"So, you don't know how you feel about her?"

And he reflexively shuts down again, because the more he tries to mull the question over and force himself to sort through his thoughts and feelings, the more he wants to run away and avoid the situation altogether.

He glares down at the table.

"I care about her, obviously, but..." he trails off, and the blockage comes up again, rendering him incapable of even fathoming an end to the sentence. "You know what? Whatever. I don't want to expend the energy trying figure this out right now. I'm not going to put humanity on hold for a few stupid personal matters," he says.

The words are bitter on his tongue, and he acknowledges that he sounds like a complete asshole. He chances a look at Armin, whose azures are blinking back at him in surprise.

"So... you just want to brush it all under the rug and hope things go back to normal magically?"

Hearing his "plan" summarized in such a way makes him realize how stupid and unproductive it sounds, but he nods in stubborn defiance anyway.

"Well... I'm sure she'll understand," Armin says with a nod, and for a second time, Eren is surprised at the affirmation.

"But, just know," he continues, "you might've broken her heart."

Of course there would be a catch to his dear friend, ever-rational Armin, agreeing with his boneheaded line of thinking.

Though he already knew full and well that he had hurt her, Armin's words capture the extent of the damage he has done, and it fills him to the brim with guilt—moreso than any lascivious thought or recollection of that night had managed to within the past few days.

"She'll always hide it and pretend everything's okay. If that's what you wanted, and if that's what you asked of her, she'd do that for you," Armin continues, and every word is a new blow to his heart, and he finds himself sinking down into his seat again, drowning in a new mix of shame and guilt that consumes him whole.

He looks up at Armin, with what must be the most pathetic expression his face has ever mustered, and it must be clear that he has violently struck a chord.

"Hey, listen, do what you gotta do," Armin says with a shrug, and Eren finds it even worse that there is no judgement in his face or voice, because he deserves it. "I'm not saying this to sway you in any certain way, or make you feel worse. First and foremost, we do have a job to do. But... just know how ignoring this all might affect her. She'd never actually admit any of this, but, you know it's all true."

Unfortunately, he does.

'Fuck.'

That night, he is too physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted to resist sleep any longer.

When he finally surrenders to a deep slumber, it is not a simple and dreamless pitch black that greets him.