Work Text:
Levi
It is so often night like this, when I am reminded, by the empty sheets I’m enveloped in and the blank walls surrounding me- haunting like the memories of so many before us- of a time much better- yet simultaneously worse- than now. It is when I close my eyes at night and stare at the vacant corners of my mind, that I am aware of what could have, but should not, and never will have been.
I think of Him.
I am reminded of nights of too-bright colors and muffled laughter, of dancing and exuberance and fun. I’m reminded of hushed whispers under duvets, sharing pillows and cold feet, promises we would forget in the morning but say nonetheless because in that moment we were forever. We were the then and the now and the past and the future all in one and nothing and no one ever mattered. We didn't care about the morning or any of the troubles it brought with it. We were free.
It is these nights, as I stare at the blue and green flourishes behind my eyelids- the only remaining bits of light I have left in this empty space- that I am reminded of blinding red. In particular, the blinding red that was only described as Eren and the entirety of light that comes with him. Like the sparklers he held so dangerously close on the fourth of July, or the flashlights he carried on our late night escapades- often times involving too much liquor and a lack of any sophisticated being to tell us when too much was too much. And I remember, as the lights flickered off of his face, how he brought a new definition to the word glowing. I remember thinking that the incandescent red Eren emitted was not only blinding, but extraordinarily beautiful.
He was like the sun.
If only that was all I could remember from that time, though. God did not wish to be so forgiving.
Instead I am also reminded of times much more unfortunate than now; of desperate cries in back alleys, waking up at five in the morning knowing something’s wrong, yet not knowing what. I am reminded of sitting in the back of that car thinking ‘please, don’t take him. Take me,’ only to find out later the misfortunate outcome of his fate; a reminder that even the brightest of glows have to burn out at one time or another to make room for new light.
In the end, it is moments like this that remind me that our mistakes are irreversible, for we are not as indestructible as we think ourselves to be. When other adults say, "We are humans, not armor," they are absolutely right about how despairingly wrong these kids are. I do not wish to sound bitter, as he did not wish to leave this earth. But it happens, and I have witnessed it happen over again, and all I can say is that they cannot stop it. It just, happens, and I don’t know exactly what it is, but I know it is something, and I am sure it will happen again. And it will be much more devastating than the last.