Attack On Titan: Dreams

In the morning, he opens his eyes to his wall, resenting the feeling of disappointment that takes over.

He is not at all prepared.

When he sees her in the flesh for the first time, he is not at all prepared.

With just a brief glance at her side profile, visions of hanging laundry, a snug apron, a child with her demeanour and his eyes flood through his mind, rendering him motionless in the doorway.

The few others in the room are chatting amongst themselves, and Levi has his back turned to the door, and she is staring into a conversation she is not at all contributing to until she isn't.

With the slight turn of her head, wide emerald greens meet weary charcoal blues, and his skin prickles and he feels a strange mix of fear and panic and relief, and his stomach does a violent flip, eyebrows nearly shooting up to his hairline in flustered shock, as though he has been caught doing something wildly inappropriate.

As his heart rate picks up, he tries his damndest to stand his ground and fix his face to maintain the gaze as though nothing is wrong and all is well and normal and she blinks back curiously, probably wondering why he looks as though he is about to pass out.

At this point, the urge to back out of the room and hide is shamefully overwhelming, as he is already failing hard at his mission to restore normalcy between them.

Eventually, the entirely one-sided intensity of it all is too much, and he must tear away. He swallows hard and blinks a few times, feeling his ears begin to burn, and he coughs into his closed fist before sucking in a deep breath to regain his composure.

He then stalks over to the table towards a seat at the corner exactly opposite of her, feeling her eyes trail him until eventually, her gaze falls away.

'Yeah, totally normal. Get your shit together, Eren,' he curses inwardly.

He takes a seat next to Sasha and across from Armin, who throws him a knowing glance and sympathetic smile, at which he frowns dryly in response.

Already wanting the meeting to be over, he immediately turns to look up the table, wondering what was taking so long for it to commence. When he finds Connie nowhere in sight, he lets out a heavy sigh and settles back into his seat, leg beginning to restlessly bounce under the table.

And, as the seconds tick by, the strangely powerful desire to look up at her begins to take over.

He shifts in his seat, sighing heavily again, and the urge is like an itch that won't go away, and he doesn't comprehend it at all. The thoughts and physical reactions she incites in him by the mere fact of her presence should logically make him want to look anywhere else but her.

But, not even a minute passes before he gives in and finds his eyes wandering over in her direction once more. This time, she is sitting back in her chair, eyes closed, making it far easier to stare on.

However, what he sees as he observes her is worrying. Only now does he notice the extent of her pallor, and the sweat forming on her brow. She shifts slightly with a closed mouthed cough, and the sudden motion jostles him out of his trance and dissipates his embarrassment completely, concern taking over. He leans over to his right towards Sasha.

"Is she okay?" he asks as quietly and inconspicuously as possible.

The brunette turns towards him with a slight frown.

"Yeah... kind of. She's doing much better than yesterday."

Just a twinge of dread prods at his stomach.

"Yesterday? What happened yesterday?" he asks, making every effort to keep his tone even and cool.

"She had a fever."

Given her weakened state, her falling with a fever was not entirely out of the question. However, he cannot help the pang of guilt that arises at the fact that he wasn't around to

"... after she exercised," Sasha finishes her sentence with a grimace.

"What?!" he whispers sharply and Sasha shrugs away from him defensively, eyes wide and borderline fearful.

"I didn't know she even left her room!" she whispers back meekly. "I was just passing the training room, and there she was. I mean, her fever's gone down since last night, but she's obviously still not a hundred percent."

Eren's frown deepens. He is not surprised that she had attempted to work out in her condition but at least when she had been injured before, he was there to limit the strenuousness of the exercises she so stubbornly insisted on doing.

The swell of guilt worsens even further when it crosses his mind that had he been there, perhaps he could have talked her out of it.

"Yeah... her workout was pretty intense too. Kind of violent," Sasha adds as an afterthought, now also turning to look at Mikasa.

"Violent?"

Sasha nods, looking back at him.

"She broke a punching bag."

"Broke a punching bag?" he whispers in disbelief, trying to keep his shock at a relatively low volume.

"Busted a hole into it," Sasha says, continuing to nod in affirmation.

His mouth hangs open as he turns his gaze back to Mikasa, who now appears to be taking a nap. He wonders how someone in her condition could manage to inflict such damage, but then he remembers it is her, and that alone is enough of an explanation.

"So, she was combat training with a cold and a serious injury," he says, not even bothering to mask his annoyance with Sasha. "Why didn't you stop her?"

She blinks incredulously at him, and he feels as though the bewildered gaze is meant to shame him, and send the message that perhaps he should've been the one to stop her.

"Okay, I want you to think about the words you just said," the brunette says, whispering loudly while gesticulating, "and then actually picture me trying to do that. Better yet, picture me trying to come between the punching bag and Mikasa. Picture what I would look like, if "

"Yeah, okay, I get it. She would've punched a hole through you," Eren mutters, feeling very little relief at the fact that the shaming component of her gaze was only imagined, because the guilt that bites at him is still very much real.

Sasha sighs, reverting back from animated to concerned. She then gives pause, eyeing him pensively, and immediately, his defences fly up.

"It's weird, you know? I hadn't seen her like that before."

"... like what?"

"Ah... I dunno. I didn't stick around long because I felt like she wanted to be alone..." Sasha glances across the table, and they are both looking at the napping Ackerman. "She didn't look angry and scary like she usually does when she works out. She looked angry and... kind of sad."

And at that, his stomach sinks, because he already knows with some certainty that he is somehow connected with her irrational decision to maul apart a punching bag.

Perhaps she had even imagined him as the punching bag.

He stifles the urge to cringe as his mouth curves into a frown, guilt coursing through him. He stares on, taking in the sight of her hollowed cheeks, and the dark circles under her eyes, observing the gentle rise and fall of her shoulders and chest with each ragged breath drawn.

And after a while, he is suddenly aware of Sasha's sympathetic gaze boring into the side of his face, to which he has the urge to snap 'What?! SHUT UP!'

He looks back at Sasha, hoping his mild scowl is enough to get her to stop staring. But, she opens her mouth to speak, then pauses, clearly attempting to tread very lightly.

"You should talk to her," she says slowly, the caution in her tone evident.

He finds himself feeling even more defensive, and his jerk reaction is to tell her to mind her own damn business - until it occurs to him that she is not wrong.

"Yeah," he replies, voice low and quiet as he looks away and down at the table in shame, settling back in his seat.

He feels her continue to stare at him - until Connie busts in through the door, rousing Mikasa from her nap, the entire squad turning their attention to the room's entrance.

"Sorry! I thought it was at six-thirty!" Connie says through a nervous laugh, taking a seat next to Sasha by the head of the table, right next to Levi, who throws him a chilling glare before finally commencing the meeting.

Over the course of the next hour, Eren watches as Mikasa strains to keep her tired eyes open, and sit up straighter.

While he is, for the most part, attentive to their mission directives, he finds his gaze wandering back to her repeatedly, second hand anxiety building as he watches her stare on at the captain, brow furrowed in concentration, clearly attempting to mask whatever pain or discomfort she was feeling.

Finally, whatever she was feeling must have become too much, because she suddenly rises from her seat, cutting Levi mid-sentence.

The captain arches his eyebrow at her, strangely unfazed, and the entire squad's eyes are on her.

"Excuse me," she says politely, yet weakly, without looking up.

She pushes out from the table and heads towards the exit, and Eren's eyes trail after her as Levi resumes speaking - and before the door can fully shut closed behind her, he, too, is on his feet.

It takes a moment for him to register what he has just done, and he can feel the entire squad's inquisitive and probing gazes trained on him - but he decides he is too concerned for her to care at all about what could possibly be crossing their minds.

"Is there a problem, Eren?" Levi asks, now clearly irritated with the consecutive interruptions.

Eren blinks at him, eyes briefly flicking at the door, and before he can utter a word, Levi waves him off.

"Go," he says, shifting his eyes back to the group.