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Everything is dead silent all around him, yet the screams of terror and agonizing calls for help still echo in his mind as smoke and ashes permeate the air. As far as he can see, there is only destruction and ruins, and not a single soul alive. The smell is terrible too. It is a mixture of gunpowder, smoke, and death. It makes Armin’s gut twist inside his stomach in a way that has him bending forward and gagging as acid burns its way up his throat and then down his tongue and onto the ground.
His eyes start to water at the grotesque scene before him, and the heavy and crushing weight of failure falls over his shoulders. Yet despite the evidence right before him, he still refuses to believe that they had been too late to stop it all.
To stop Eren.
All those lives… all those people.
Gone.
Tears run down his eyes, and Armin does nothing to stop them. Shock and guilt have him rooted to his place as he stares ahead feeling helpless and soulless.
Part of him knows he should go in search of the others, retreat, and regroup, and think of a plan B. Yet there is no plan B, and even if there was, his mind cannot take a decision. He can’t think. He can’t compartmentalize his feelings from his rational thoughts.
“Armin"
His eyes widen when he hears his name. When he hears him call his name.
Tears only fall quicker as he frowns. He feels angry, sad, betrayed, and brokenhearted, yet he does not move.
“Armin,” Eren repeats.
His tone is gentle and soft, laced with a tint of sadness, but no remorse or regret after everything he had done. After everything he had made Armin and the others go through. It is cruel, and something Armin had never expected from him. Then again, Eren had done things he had never imagined he would be capable of.
“Armin, look at me,” Eren says again, and this time he complies. Not because he wants to, but because he has to. It is an order, and Armin is painfully reminded of Eren’s coordinate ability as his body moves on its own accord.
When Armin’s teary blue eyes find Eren’s teal green, he wakes up.
Armin wakes up in a dimly lit room and to the sight of worried teal green eyes staring right down at him.
His breathing is labored and there is a sweat running down the back of his head, yet Armin can’t remember what had him so uneasy, as he is unable to recollect the images of his own dream.
“Armin,” he hears Eren call his name in a concerned tone that suggests he had been repeating it over and over again already. Yet for some unexplainable reason, it makes the hairs of his neck stand up as a cold sweat runs down his spine.
His breath must have hitched in his throat because the next thing he notices is Eren running his fingers through the short blond locks of his hair and then down his right cheek in a soothing motion as he looks at him in concern.
“Minnie, are you okay?” the brunet asks.
Disoriented, Armin blinks at his lover a couple of times before the strange feeling dissipates and he comes down to reality. They are in their bedroom. The sun rays slip through the half-open curtains, and he can see Eren sitting on the bed and partially hovering over him.
“I-I am fine, it was just a dream…” he says more to himself rather than to Eren, “It was just a dream” he repeats in a raspy voice.
Eren gives him a look as he dries one of the tears on Armin’s cheeks. He hadn’t even realized he had been crying. The dream must have been bad to have him this upset, yet he just can’t remember.
“What was it about, Min?” Eren asks.
“I-I… can’t remember,” Armin admits quietly in wonder before he shakes his head dismissively, but Eren simply stares at him with a worried look.
Armin sighs deeply and then smiles at his lover.
“It’s okay, it was only a dream, it won’t ruin the day for us, love,” the blond says a bit more cheerfully as he leans in to kiss Eren’s nose, making him blink and smile back at him.
It is their anniversary, and they have a whole day planned ahead of doing pretty much nothing.
“You can go back to bed for a bit while I make us breakfast,” the brunet offers and despite how tentative that is, Armin shakes his head once more. They have the whole day planned and there is no way Armin is wasting it away in bed.
Surely, he could use some extra sleep, but something tells him that if he falls back asleep, the dream will just pick up where it was left. It is not something that happens often, but it is something that happens from time to time, and Armin simply does not want a recollection of this particular dream. Whatever it was… whatever it had been about, it had been bad enough to spook him, and a spooky dream is surely not a good way to start the day of their anniversary.
Eren nods and he leans in to kiss Armin on the forehead before he pulls away.
“Toast and eggs?” the brunet asks knowingly.
“Yes please,”
Armin watches the other leave the room dressed only in his sleeping pants. Once Eren is out of sight, the blond rubs his eyes with the back of his hands and blinks a couple of times.
He stares at the ceiling of their bedroom for a moment or two and as soon as he feels the strange sensation at the back of his neck, he ignores it in favor of putting Eren’s discarded shirt and walk out of the bedroom and to the washroom.
After relieving his bladder, he washes his face with abundant cold water in hopes that it will be enough to fully wake him up and calm him down. It is not the first time that a nightmare wakes him up, yet this one, in particular, had been especially bad. Armin usually never dreams, and when he does, he almost never remembers his dreams, yet from time to time and as of late, he had started to be haunted by night terrors.
At first, he thought it was just because their sleeping schedule was a bit messy, then he thought it had to be due to an unbalanced diet, yet now, after the past two or so months of more recurring nightmares, Armin wonders if he should start to feel concerned. The nightmares themselves do not worry him, how could they if he can never recall them the morning after? What bothers him is the uneasy feeling that clings to his skin for a while, making him distracted, at times clumsy, and restless. Yet the lingering unexplainable sadness after those is perhaps the worst feeling. It is an unexplainable kind of grief that Armin can’t shake off as he does not know what triggered it in the first place.
After the walls had been destroyed, and the Titans had finally been eradicated, the long imprisonment of humanity had finally come to an end. Eren, Armin, and their colleagues had been received as heroes, and despite all the losses, Eren and he had finally been able to build the life they used to dream of when they were little. A small cozy house by the beach and as many adventures as they could think of.
A life that he never thought he would have. A life that sometimes felt like a dream come true… almost like a fabrication.
The blond dries his face with a clean towel and takes a long look at himself in the mirror. His short blond hair is a mess and there are slightly dark circles under his eyes. Furthermore, there are faint purple, and red love marks and bites littering his neck, and chest. Some of them are fresher than others, yet all of them are caused by Eren. It didn’t matter that they have been married for almost three years now and living together longer than that, the mere thought of Eren in bed, looking at him with hunger in his teal-green eyes still makes his legs weak and his blood rush in his veins.
Armin proceeds to wet his hair to tame the rebel strands of blond out of place when a sudden throb of his head stops him. The pain is short-lived, but it is intense, and it comes accompanied by a set of images that flash through his head.
“Armin…, this was the only way,” Eren says in a deep tone.
Armin does not say a thing. Instead, his blue eyes remain glued to the ground. He doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want to hear any of what Eren has to say.
If Eren finally got what he wanted, then why does he bother with being there at all? Better yet, why is Armin still there and alive? All his life has been about survival and fighting. First against the Titans, then Paradis’ enemies, and then Eren himself. Yet all those times, he had always had people by his side, people to fight for: friends that were more like family and people he could trust. Now that he didn’t have any of those, what was the point of him being there? Especially when it was more than clear by now that his and Eren’s views and ideals simply didn’t align anymore and that as long as he was alive, Armin would always be a threat to his plans.
Neither says anything for a while, but Eren is still there. He can feel his eyes on him, but Armin refuses to look up. He does not look up either when he hears Eren taking a step forward and closer to him.
“Armin please…” Eren begs softly, and Armin feels his heart break all over again. He has no more tears left to shed, but the anger, grief, and pain are still there.
“I don’t want to hear it,” the blond retorts. His throat feels hoarse after all the fight that took place just moments ago. A fight that they had lost, despite all their best efforts.
“This was the only way for freedom, real freedom,” Eren keeps going, and Armin sees red for a second.
His blood boils in his veins, and he breaks the same way he did all those months ago in that restaurant.
“Freedom? What freedom!? Almost everything and everyone beyond the walls has been burnt down to ashes! This is not freedom; this is mass genocide!” he says as he finally looks up to meet teal-green eyes.
Eren does not say a thing for a bit.
“It had to be done, Armin” he insists with not a single trace of doubt in his tone.
As soon as it came, anger vanishes, and he blinks at Eren.
“We are free to do as we please, to go wherever we want to go,"
There are not many places they can go. Not when any major city and town beyond Paradis has crumbled down to the ground. Even if there were. There is nowhere he wants to go. Not with Eren. Not anymore. Because the man standing before him is not Eren anymore. It is not his dear friend. He’s a stranger. A stranger that has killed millions and sacrificed countless others for a vain, pointless goal.
A stranger that simply does not want to understand –or refuses to understand.
Well then, if such is the case, Armin has got nothing else to lose, and it would not be the first time he had to spell it out of him.
“I don’t want to go anywhere with you,” Armin says slowly and clearly as he stares at Eren.
“I can’t recognize you anymore, because you are no longer the Eren I once knew and loved,”
He knows he had made his point clear when Eren visibly flinches and hurt crosses his facial features.
Armin has never been cruel, but he has always been a good strategist, he knows what to say to hurt others or get a reaction from them. What he wants is for Eren to leave him alone.
“You don’t mean that,” Eren says in a deep and slightly angry tone.
Armin blinks once more at him.
He has never intentionally hurt Eren. Not even that one time in the restaurant.
“I don’t?” Armin asks in fake incredulity as he keeps his gaze on Eren’s green gaze.
He had never been as good as Mikasa or Eren when it came to physical strength, but he is good with words.
“Pray tell then, what I meant then?” the blond asks, and when he receives no answer, he keeps going.
“What did you think would happen? I would forgive and forget as I always do and live happily ever after by your side?” he asks.
Eren frowns at him and Armin can’t help the cruel smile on his lips.
“A life by the beach?” he laughs bitterly, “Pretending everything was worth it and that everything will be all right?”
He makes a pause.
"Think again, Eren, that’s even more delusional than your freedom ideals,”
He knows he has gone too far the moment Eren’s hand closes around the collar of his shirt, and he drags him up his feet and closer to his face. And even when he knows that a hit is coming, Armin keeps his eyes on him.
Yet the punch never comes, and Armin blinks slightly taken aback.
“Go on, do it,” the blond challenges, “Wouldn’t be the first time,” he snarles.
His heartbeat accelerates and his breath quickens, yet Eren does not move.
"This is not fair,” the brunet snarls back at him, “All the things I did, I did them for you! I did them for us, I never wanted to hurt you, I could never hurt you.”
The words sound so desperate and honest that makes Armin realize that their owner actually believes them to be true.
Armin frowns.
“Then why didn’t you stop?” he asks right back, “Why didn’t you stop when you had the chance? You say now that you’ve never wanted to hurt me, but you did, you irrevocably did,” Armin says as he breaks free from Eren’s hold and jumps to his feet to put some distance between them.
“Enjoy your freedom, Eren, because I don’t want to be part of it, have me killed or let me be, but I don’t want you near me,” he turns around and takes a step away.
Before he can hear Eren’s answer, the soft knock on the door of the bathroom takes Armin back to reality.
“Minnie, you’ve been there for a while, are you okay?” he hears Eren ask through the closed door.
Caught by surprise, Armin blinks at his reflection and then turns to open the door to meet Eren standing there. His hair is back up in his usual messy bun and he is now wearing an apron as he stares at Armin with a concerned look.
“Y-yeah, I’m okay,” he says, as Eren’s eyes travel to the still-running water faucet.
Armin follows his glance, and he quickly turns around to turn it off while Eren looks at him with a worried frown.
“Are you okay?” he repeats and Armin nods.
“Yeah, sorry, just out of it,” the blond says as he rubs his eye trying to chase the weird vision away, “did you need something?” he asks.
He has to distract Eren with something. He doesn’t want him worrying about him. Not today. They have plans.
“Breakfast is getting cold, Min” he says and Armin smiles at him.
They walk side by side to the kitchen bar, where Eren has laid two sets of plates with fried eggs, toast, and potatoes along with silverware and orange juice.
“Am I being spoiled?” Armin asks as he takes a seat on one of the high stools across from Eren’s.
“Yeah,” the brunet smirks as he pours hot water in a cup and adds the tea leaves that Armin likes along with a splash of cream and a teaspoon of honey.
The tea is prepared just the way Armin likes it, and he cannot help but smile at the taller when he places the mug in front of him.
“Thank you, love,” he smiles as he reaches across the table to place a kiss on the other’s cheek.
Eren smiles right back.
“Anytime, baby,”
After breakfast, Armin washes the dishes while Eren packs the snacks and drinks for their planned picnic at the beach.
Their plan was simple and the same one they have religiously done over the past three years. A day spent on the beach and then a night at the festival thrown in Historia’s name in the small town near their home to enjoy the snack stands and the fireworks.
No strange visions appear again for most of the morning and early afternoon and a couple of hours later, Armin finds himself lying on the towel Eren had spread over the sand with his head pillowed over their discarded shirts while Eren takes a nap with his cheek resting on the blond’s bare stomach. Abstinently, he runs a hand through Eren’s wet brown locks while he uses the other to hold the book he is reading.
“Min, time for the lotion,” Eren says against his skin and the blond stops his ministrations momentarily, however, he doesn’t look away from his book when he answers.
“I put the thing when we got here,” he says. More like Eren spread the whole thing across his face, neck, back, and chest, but the point still stood.
Shamelessly, the brunet smirks at him before brazenly licking the soft skin near Armin’s belly button. A simple action that does make the other look down at him.
“Nope, it’s gone,” he says as if somehow, he could tell he needed to reapply the sun protector lotion by taste alone.
“And Mikasa said it needs to be reapplied every couple of hours,” Eren informs him.
With a smile of his own, the blond closes the book and puts it down on the sand. Despite being together for a while now, Eren still likes to make the most random and ridiculous excuses to touch him.
Not that he needs to.
“You just want to grope me,” Armin smirks in fake accusation and Eren’s smile grows wider.
“That too, but you do tend to get sunburnt,” the taller says as he reaches to touch Armin’s slightly red nose in a teasing manner.
“I don’t,”
“You do too,”
Minutes later Eren is spreading the unguent on his back as he rests on his stomach.
“It’s not fair, I wanna get a tan too,” the blond laments as Eren laughs somewhere above him.
“Sorry, Min,” the brunet says as he leans down to kiss him on the cheek before lying next to the blond once more.
“Your skin is so pretty,” Armin says as he looks at him.
“So is yours,”
“Not like yours,”
“It is,” Eren says as he runs a hand up his back before stopping at his neck.
Armin gives him a look. The type of look that suggests he does not really agree with Eren.
“It is,” Eren insists with a smile, “It’s softer than mine and pale, and I like it bruises easily,” he says shamelessly as he runs a finger through a faint purple mark courtesy of their most recent lovemaking.
Armin’s cheeks turn red in embarrassment as he buries his face in the towel beneath them.
“You’re shameless,” he groans.
“Only for you, Min,” Eren smirks.
They lay there for a bit of a while until Eren speaks.
“Wanna go for a swim again?” he offers, and Armin nods his head in excitement.
Eren jumps to his feet in a swift quick motion before offering a hand to help Armin up. The blond takes it simply and soon they are making their way hand in hand toward the ocean.
The sand feels dry and a little bit hot underneath their feet. The crystal-clear water looks inviting and despite there being a couple of clouds littering the blue clear sky, the weather is nice, and the fresh breeze feels good against his skin.
However, as soon as Armin steps into the water, the whole scenery changes completely as if he had been transported to another time and place.
Everything is red now.
Dark clouds fill the sky and there is fire and smoke everywhere. The air smells like gunpowder and dead and the water underneath his feet is no longer clear as it had been a couple of seconds ago.
It is dark red.
The worst shade of red there is as if all the water had been converted into blood.
He can hear the sounds of firearms and screams in the distance, yet everything around him is destroyed as if a large explosion had been detonated leaving chaos and destruction in its wake.
Suddenly, his chest feels constrained, and his breathing quickens as a feeling of guilt, grief and helplessness washes through him. Unthinkingly, Armin takes a step back in horror and he falls back as he throws a hand on top of his mouth at the grotesque sight before him. It is a massacre he knows he caused after the transformation and one which had not only annihilated the Marleyan navy floats but also the coastal city. Home to men, women, and children alike.
“Minnie?”
“Min?!”
“Armin!”
Eren’s voice brings him back to the present, and the blond has to blink a couple of times until he is able to focus on Eren looking down at him with a worried look. With wide-open eyes, he stares at Eren for a moment. He can see his lips moving, but he cannot process what he is saying. Instead, he looks away from him and then at their surroundings.
Everything looks back to normal. The sky is blue, the water is crystal clear, and there is no rotten smell permeating the air. The next thing he notices is that the moans and screaming of terror have vanished too and instead, all he can hear are the white sound of the waves along with Eren’s calling his name with a worried look.
Disoriented, he realizes he is sitting on the sand now with his hands supporting his weight on each side of his body and his knees are bent as if he had fallen down to the ground in an urgent attempt to escape the destruction.
Eren’s hold on his shoulder tightens and he shakes him firmly, making him look at him.
“Armin are you okay?” he asks, and all Armin can manage is a short nod before he runs a hand through his blond hair.
It is as if nothing had happened yet the way his heart beats erratically against his ribcage, the goosebumps on his skin, and the constriction in his throat suggests otherwise. It may not have been real, but it had felt strangely vivid. Vivid enough to cause such a visceral reaction and not too different from that morning’s vision.
Eren must have not believed him because the next thing he feels is Eren pressing two fingers under his chin to gently lift his head to make him look back at him. He is impossibly close, but what catches Armin’s full attention are his eyes.
Suddenly, teal-green eyes are the only thing Armin can focus on.
“Talk to me, Min,” Eren says in the same concerned deep tone after a while as his eyes shine with a curious glint behind them.
Armin’s quick mind comes up with a dismissive answer, anything to make Eren less worried because it is their anniversary, and these weird unexplainable visions will not ruin their day. Yet when he opens his mouth to tell Eren that it was nothing and that he is fine, the truth spills down his tongue without his permission.
It’s almost as if a spell had been cast.
“T-the water was r-red,” Armin says brokenly, yet he is still too affected to realize what he is saying.
“There was fire and screams everywhere, and the water was red, Eren,” he sobs, “Red like blood,”
Eren blinks at him once before looking away from the blond with a frown on his face. Despite knowing he is not upset at him but rather worried, Armin feels guilty for a very different reason now.
He forces himself to take a deep breath and get a grip of himself.
“I’m okay,” Armin says after a while, “I’m okay it was just… weird, like a weird vision, almost like a dream,” he says thoughtfully and more to himself rather than to Eren, “maybe I should stop reading so many thrillers,” he insists as he reaches to caress Eren’s cheek as if to smooth away the stress from the brunet’s features.
Yet Armin’s vain attempt to dismiss the strange vision does not seem to calm Eren down in the sightless. The brunet leans into his touch and then looks at him once more. The strange curious glint is gone, and his eyes look back to normal now.
“That strange vision… did you have one of those too this morning in the bathroom too?” Eren asks, and Armin’s eyes widen at the memory.
Armin nods simply.
“It’s okay, I think it was just a follow-up of the bad dream last night,” Armin says, “I don’t think I got enough sleep,” he says dismissively yet Eren does not allow them to drop the topic. He has never been one to drop down anything.
“Do you remember the dream?”
“No,” Armin says honestly and this time Eren does not press for more information.
They fall silent for a while,
“Do you get those too?” Armin breaks the silence first, “You know before we got rid of the Titans and the walls? Do you dream about our days at the survey corps?”
Eren looks at him.
“Yeah… sometimes,”
“Mhmm,” Armin muses,
They sit on the sand for a while until the blond’s breathing and heartbeat had calmed down.
“It was tough, but I am glad we got to save humanity in the end,” he wondered.
Eren blinks at him before looking away.
“So am I,” he agrees after a while with a strange tone. As if he is forcing the words out and in the same tone he uses whenever the topic is brought into the conversation.
The blond reaches to take one of Eren’s hands in his and gives it a comforting squeeze.
“Let’s go, love, strange dreams are not ruining our day,” Armin cheers before standing up to go for a swim.
Eren follows him easily and after getting a couple of steps into the ocean, he pulls the shorter man into an unexpected hungry kiss.
He has lived with Eren long enough to the point he has gotten used to those kisses. Desperate and unexpected shows of affection almost as if he couldn’t believe that everything was real that Armin was there with him, and that somehow made Armin feel like his lover was afraid he would vanish at any moment. The same type of kisses Armin always responded in kind and with the same enthusiasm despite being caught of guard.
“You know I am the happiest when I am with you, right?” Eren says.
“I am the happiest when I am with you too,” Armin agrees, and the brunet shakes his head repeatedly.
“No, no, there is nothing I wouldn’t do for us, Armin, nothing I’d have done differently as it all has led us to be here,” he insists.
It is a strange thing to say, but the desperation and honesty lacing his words are reassuring and Armin finds it in himself unable to contradict him.
“I know, love, I’d have not done anything differently either,”
Several hours later, when the sun starts to set, the tips of their fingers are wrinkled and there is a pink blush dusting the blond’s nose, cheeks, neck, and chest, Eren tangles his finger with his.
“Come on, Min, let’s get going,” Eren says and Armin nods simply.
After a quick stop at their home to change clothes, they both find themselves walking side by side on the streets of the city center of the small village. Families and couples enjoy the warm weather and the happy environment surrounding them as they talk, laugh, and play with those they hold dear. Children are running all around the food and games stands lining both sides of the main street offering a variety of dishes and prices for them to enjoy, some of them wearing fake cardboard crowns imitating Historia’s.
“Is that an ice cream trickster?” Eren asks looking at one stand in particular and the blond follows his gaze until he spots a man behind a stand with a long thin pole in hand pulling the cone of ice cream away from his young client before she can reach it.
“Yes!” Armin says right away, taking one of the brunet’s hands and pulling Eren with him.
Armin watches as Eren orders two cones of ice cream and then proceeds to spend five minutes or so trying to grab the first cone from the seller as Armin laughs next to him. Despite his several attempts to reach for the cone, the trickster is faster, and Armin’s smile spreads even wider when his lover’s frustration grows.
“Just grab the cone, Eren,” Armin says amusedly and Eren frowns at him in fake annoyance that makes Armin laugh.
It is not until the seller finally pities him enough that he finally is allowed to get his dessert.
“Oh yeah, think it’s easy? Your turn, Min,” he says as he pushes Armin with his hip toward the seller as he licks at his cone.
Unsurprisingly, Armin’s strategy is much more effective than Eren’s, because even though he does get tricked a couple of times, the blond bites on every empty cone he is given, making both the seller and Eren laugh in the process. It is not until Armin has three half-bitten cones in his hands, that the seller lets him have his ice cream.
“What a showoff,” Eren laughs with a smirk as he pays for both their desserts and a bit of an extra for Armin’s empty shell cones.
They walk through the lantern-lit street stopping occasionally to browse at different stands and try their luck at different snacks and games. At one of them, Eren wins at an aiming game and then proceeds to place the decorated cardboard crown he won on top of Armin’s head while a particular stand displaying books catches his attention.
“Is that a book stand?” Armin asks excitedly and Eren follows the blond’s gaze.
“It seems so,”
“Come on,”
“Yes, my king,”
Ever the curious, Armin browses through book after book as Eren stands happily next to him content with staring at the blond as he reaches to grab one in particular.
“This one looks interesting,” Armin comments as he picks it up to skim through the short description at the back.
Without another word needed or further prompt, the brunet asks the seller for the prize and then reaches forward to pay for the book as Armin gently places it in the cloth beige bag along with the other decorative pieces and utensils they earned during the previous games.
“Come on, Min, the fireworks are going to start soon,” Eren says as he tugs at Armin’s hand to get him going.
Minutes later, they find themselves sitting comfortably by the port watching the night sky above them. Sitting side by side, with their legs and arms touching, they enjoy the fireworks.
“They are so pretty,” Armin comments mesmerized by the lights above them. Yet it takes him a while to notice that Eren’s attention is not on the glittery lights illuminating the sky but rather on him. With a shy expression, he smiles.
“You’re prettier,” he mutters, and Armin blushes.
Even after all this time, Eren’s shameless nature always manages to throw him off, guard. They look at each other and Armin shivers as Eren looks at him with beautiful green eyes that he knows and loves dearly.
“Wanna get out of here?” the brunet asks and the blond nods dumbly.
Without missing a beat, Eren jumps to his feet before reaching for the blond’s hand to pull him behind him and towards their home.
Before Armin knows it, Eren is closing the door of their small house behind him with his foot as his calloused hands roam all over him reaching for the skin underneath his clothes. Eren’s touch is warm and passionate, and no matter how used he is to it, it always manages to ignite something within him.
Eren’s lips on him are hungry and desperate leaving no doubt about what his intentions are, making Armin weak on the knees and reciprocate with the same enthusiasm. Eren pushes him against the closest wall to the front door, as the shorter man sneaks a leg around his tight and his hands travel to the soft strands of soft brown hair.
Armin cannot tell exactly when the time Eren got a like for his current long hairstyle, but Armin loves it, and he lets him know by digging his blunt nails into Eren’s scalp to pull at the roots of it in a playful and urgent manner.
It is hot and passionate, and Armin is so lost in sensation that he does not notice he is half naked until the moment he is pressed down on the mattress of their bed with Eren hovering over him showering him in kisses, adding to the bites, and marks to the collection at his collar, as he runs his hands up and down the sides of the skin of his chest.
Moans and sighs fill the room, and just when he is at the border of ecstasy, Eren’s tempo slows down making Armin groan in frustration.
His moves are slower, but not any less hot and languid, and he can tell Eren rejoices at the way Armin tries to make him speed up again. However, pinning his wrists down and at each side of his head.
“Say you’re mine,” Eren says,
Armin’s head is clouded with pleasure and he doesn’t understand why Eren wants him to say something that they both already know, yet he is so out of it to care.
“I’m yours,”
Eren gives a particular languid thrust that makes the blond’s sight whiten.
"Again,"
“I’m yours,”
Armin reaches the stars first with Eren following quickly after him and with each other’s names on their lips.
A couple of hours later, Eren is soundly asleep with an arm thrown over the blond’s waist yet despite being tired, Armin just simply can’t fall asleep.
After a while of minutes just lying there, the blond disentangles himself from the other’s grip. Eren groans unhappily, tightening his grip, but Armin still pushes him away.
“I just need a glass of water, go back to sleep, love,” he says lovingly before he presses a kiss on Eren’s heated cheek.
The brunet sighs contently and lets him slip away from the bed.
Once in the kitchen, Armin helps himself to a large glass of water. It feels good against his raspy throat and the glass feels cool when he presses it against his heated forehead.
It makes him feel better, but it is not enough to alleviate the strange feeling that started clinging to his skin once more right after their coupling.
So instead of walking back to their bedroom, Armin picks up the cloth bag laying close to the front door, where Eren had carelessly dropped it before dragging the blond to their room, to put the book Eren had bought during the festival on the bookshelf of the living room.
It is not easy to find a spot for the book. Their bookshelf is full of them to the point that he had started to stack them horizontally on top of the rows and rows of books on each shelf. He had read most of them already but there is a handful of them he has not even started, yet that never stops him –or Eren– from getting more.
After finding a spot for the new book, another catches his eye.
It is a brown hardcover worn-out book that he knows very well to the point that he could almost recite it by heart, and the only book he has re-read over and over again. Sometimes by himself and some other times with Eren. The same book he showed to Eren all those years ago back when they were little, and they still lived in Shinganshina. It was not exactly the same one, but rather a different edition, but it was still the same author and it had the same content. An edition that Eren had found during a trip to the capital city to visit Jean and Mikasa and that he had gifted to Armin on their first anniversary all those years ago.
Carefully, he pulls the book out and takes a seat on one of the couches of the living room. Gently, he runs a palm through the worn-out hardcover and opens the book. He shuffles through its pages and stops at one or two landscapes displayed on its yellowish pages. Sometimes it is hard to believe he had been able to live long enough to see all those lands by himself and with his own eyes.
He changes the page, and his eyes widen slightly when he notices the scribbles right on top of the picture of a beach. The handwriting looks messy, but he recognizes it as his own.
It is strange and almost appalling, as Armin cannot picture himself writing in a book. Even more so in such a terrible way that almost feels desperate.
Liberio really happened.
The walls disappeared and the rumbling started.
Eren knows…
He thinks I don’t know.
Founder Titain’s ability to control and alter memories.
The dreams and the visions are real. It’s all fake. Remember this reality is all a lie. A well-constructed one.
Despite the unfinished sentences and the senseless words, suddenly, as if a trigger has been pulled, memories of past events flash through his head like a silent film. Recollections and scenes go through his mind in unorganized events that even though, Armin cannot tell which one came first, he knows they are not simple visions of nightmares.
“I will make it right, I promise,” Eren says in a soft deep tone that suggests he actually believes that can be done. Like he believes everything he had done can be undone.
A heavy hand rests on his shoulder, and Armin moves away as if burned.
“Don’t touch me,” Armin spits.
“Look at me,”
The blond’s eyes shut tightly closed as a couple of tears run down his cheeks. No matter how many he has shed before, it just seems that he will never run out of them.
“Leave me alone,” Armin repeats.
“Look at me, Armin,” Eren insists.
This time his body moves on its own accord, complying with Eren’s coordinate powers. And despite he knows he is forced to do so; he hates himself for it. For being weak, because he simply has never been strong enough to fight. The titans, Marley, and even more so, Eren himself.
When he does so, he finds Eren’s eyes shining a brilliant green, not unlike his Titan’s form, and in a way he has never seen on him before.
“Wha-” he tries to ask, but the words die in his throat.
“I promise you it will be all right,” Eren says in a deep and soft alluring tone that makes Armin freeze on his spot. Somehow his tone feels sad and faintly… guilty even, but his brain and his will are too clouded to even notice.
The anger and pain vanish as if they had never been there, and it feels like time and space had stopped altogether. He feels lighter too, almost weightless as if the weight of the war and the loss of his friends has been lifted from his shoulders.
Part of him screams at himself to get a grip while it also reasons that this is not quite the coordinate powers. Armin knew what the coordinate feels like. They had tested it before, after that encounter with the smiling Titan all those months ago. The coordinate was different because despite not being able to control his own body, he had always been conscious and well aware of the situation. Yet this was different because, unlike those other times, this was mind-numbing.
However, such logic makes no sense to him, and all he can do is keep staring. Mesmerized by those green eyes.
“I promise you; it will be as if none of it had ever happened,”
When Eren’s eyes return back to normal, they are at the beach. Connie, and Jean laugh a couple of steps away from them with big smiles on their faces as they splash water at each other faces, yet all he sees is Eren smiling at him.
“Is the sea everything you imagined before?” Eren asks and Armin notices that his hair is longer than it used to be during their cadet days, reaching almost his chin. The sleeves of his green shirt are rolled up to his elbows and so are the trousers of his uniform. Armin also realizes that they are on the shore by the beach with the clear blue water reaching to his ankles and licking at his bare skin like a soft caress.
The colors are so vibrant, the breeze feels cool against his hair, and it is not quite what he had imagined it would be. It’s even better.
Better than any picture or book description.
“It is,” Armin smiles widely.
This is real.
“Armin,” he hears Eren’s deep tone call him, and Armin freezes in place as he comes back to the present. Yet he doesn’t look in his direction, and instead, he keeps his gaze on the open book resting almost innocently on his lap.
None of them say a thing, and although part of him tells him to act normal, he simply knows that Eren knows.
“Is this all a lie?” he asks instead, but he does not do anything else as he sits there helplessly as his heart breaks all over again.
He knows it is. No matter how much he wants it not to be, he knows it is all a lie.
This life is a lie.
Eren does not say a thing for a moment.
“Look at me, Armin,” Eren asks softly but firmly.
There is no power lacing his tone, but Armin does anyway. There are unshed tears in the corner of his eyes as his gaze locks with Eren’s green eyes.
To his surprise, Eren’s look is as broken and helpless as his, and any desire for confrontation or demand for the truth dies at the sad look on those green eyes. The same green eyes to which Armin wakes up every day and the same ones that follow him no matter where he goes and that he simply cannot escape.
When Armin does not say anything, Eren takes a step forward and closer to him, and while Armin knows he should run and that he knows what is about to come, just like the other two times he had been able to realize the truth, he does not move a single inch. Not because he can’t, but because he doesn’t want to. Instead, he closes his eyes, allowing a single tear to roll down one of his cheeks.
“It’s not a lie,” Eren says once he is close enough, and kneels before Armin as is he is the deity to which he had chosen to devote.
“None of this is a lie,” Eren repeats, and Armin feels him press his palms against his cheeks, drying the tear with one of his thumbs.
Armin knows what is coming. He knows it all too well, and although part of him knows he should fight it, most of him doesn’t want to. Not now that he knows what Eren’s promised life is like.
A reality that was turned into a dream.
“Look at me, Armin,” Eren says lovingly, and out of his own free will, Armin does.
Eren’s eyes shine a brilliant green, and all the tension leaves his body as he falls unconscious against his savor, his executioner, his childhood friend, and his lover.
The next morning, after a dreamless night, he wakes up to the pair of green eyes he knows and loves so much along with a soft smile on Eren’s expression.
“Welcome back, Min, did you sleep well?”
Armin smiles.
It is real.
Stacked between the rows of books, on the third shelf of the bookshelf in their living room, is a new hardcopy of the same book they used to read together back when they were children. The cover is unscratched with no signs of wear or tear and the pages are smooth and unblemished.