well.

he supposed this was how it felt.

eren's muscles felt like they were on fire, or, what he assumed being on fire felt like, because he'd never actually been on fire, not that he could recall, though he had been dunked in really, really ice-cold water before, which, seemed to be the situation currently, that being, eren being in a tub of ice-cold water.

eren hated cold water.

he surfaced, hair sticking flat against his head and neck, taking deep, shuddering breaths and coughing a little before sliding the mop of short brown hair back with his palm. 

ah, fuck. there was blood on his palm. 

he'd forgotten about that.

he sat up in the tub full of ice-cold water, eyes dropping to his left forearm, covered in thin welts. all the blood had dissipated into the bathwater. the very cold bathwater. was cold water alright in terms of taking care of cuts? eren couldn't remember.  he raised his eyebrows a fraction of an inch and examined the injuries at hand, or, on arm, with a nonchalant sort of interest. 

yeah, was the only coherent thought that came to mind. he took a try at regaining his bearings and backtraces.

he was in the tub because he knew his friends would kill him if they found out he'd done it again, and not taken care of himself properly, on top of that. geez, guilt wasn't the greatest deterrent, and it did make him feel worse, but he cared about them. he was in the tub, because he needed to clear his head, and, uh, all the blood. that got there because... he had a boxcutter at hand. and had happened to be...? frustrated? that wasn't it. sad, maybe. upset, possibly. angry, probably. that was it. he'd been really fucking angry.

he tilted his head back to look at the ceiling, absentmindedly counting the spots of mildew. he'd been angry. because he felt powerless. that was usually it. and... he didn't want to hurt anyone he cared about, take it out on them, especially when not being able to help them was the reason he'd felt powerless. 

because they were fucking dead. a lot of them, anyway. because of him. 

eren knew he was powerful. he could feel it in the burning of his muscles during training, and the way people looked him straight in the eye because he tried to channel all the thoughts he had through eye contact because he always seemed to trip over his words, which, didn't make him feel so powerful, but also made people think he was a person of few words, the strong and silent type so it worked out. kinda. he wasn't the strong and silent type. he was a fucking dork. he loved people so much it hurt, so much passion it hurt, so much hope it hurt, it hurt really fucking badly, sort of like his arm at that moment which felt more like it was burning that it was numb at this point.

it was a good kind of burn. it made him feel good. calm. like he'd spent his rage and nobody'd gotten hurt and now he wasn't a danger to anyone. 

with that thought he raised his left arm towards the ceiling, where there was a grimy lantern with a few fruit-flies lazing around it, and spots of that disgusting mildew. index finger curling forward lazily, he watched the tendons in his arm and hand tense as he tightened his bicep, let it loosen, tightened, loosened.

enough lazing.

he lifted himself out of the bathtub, which was, frankly, too small for him, which was saying something, since he really wasn't that tall. average, mostly. shorter than jean, taller than sasha. definitely taller than levi, that fucking shitstain of a human being. the side of his mouth curled upward out of sheer spite and satisfaction. eren dried himself off. he grabbed some gauze off of the sink where he'd somehow managed to plop it before dunking himself in a tub slowly filling with cold water and nearly passing out from emotional exhaustion-- maybe blood loss, too, but it wasn't that bad. honestly.

in a few minutes eren's left arm was wrapped in a thin layer of gauze, and he wrapped his right arm too so people wouldn't ask questions, maybe they'd think he was prepped for a fight or something. he didn't really care, but some quiet semblance of wise conscience in the corner of the void that was his brain prodded him to, and he wasn't feeling particularly rebellious at the moment, or particularly anything for that matter, so he pulled on some clothes and made sure there wasn't any blood left on the tub. 

he arched an eyebrow at his reflection in the mirror. looking good for a psychological wreck, he thought.

✧

later, somehow, he'd managed to drag himself to the mess hall, and somehow, ended up sitting on a table with his buds with a plate sitting in front of him. fucking fantastic. he just wanted to sleep. eren wasn't exactly well-rested after that whole mess at four in the morning. but he was there, at the table, and mikasa was warm and familiar at his left, and armin in front, and connie to his right, who was next to sasha, who was sitting across from jean, and christa was there, between armin and jean, and eren knew it wasn't all of them because some of them were off being human monsters or some shit and others were fucking dead and gone and dead, but he was there and they were there and they were eating breakfast.

eren wrinkled his nose at the fork that sat untouched next to his plate. he didn't feel like picking it up but he didn't want sasha wolfing down his share, either.

eren picked up the fork.

he put down the fork.

he looked up and scanned the table, smiling slightly when historia met his eye with a grin. 

they were alive.

he kinda, uh, mostly, didn't want to be, but he was. 

gotta make the most of it, you fucking asshole, he could almost hear what jean would say to him, hypothetically. or not so hypothetically. eren was pretty sure jean had said that to him at least once in the years they'd all known each other. jean wasn't the best at comforting people, but both of them knew that marco wouldn't have wanted eren to feel so guilty about existing, or for jean to be such a wreck about having to take a life, or for any one of them to feel responsible for his demise, because marco was marco and all the others who'd died were themselves and they, eren, and jean, and mikasa and armin and sasha and connie and historia, and, fuck, bertholdt and reiner and ymir, had to keep going to accomplish what their dear and deceased would not be around to witness. 

eren wanted to be dead and he wanted for his body to go up in sparks and smoke and for the ashes to be stamped out of existence, he should have never existed in the first place, but if he let the others know that they'd kick his ass a hundred times so he kept his mouth shut.

they were all really good at communicating with shut mouths, though, and it's not like the atmosphere had been happy and joyous considering the general circumstances, but it was definitely tense and he definitely pretended not to notice armin and mikasa's eyes burning through his silence.

mikasa picked up eren's fork and cleaved away a generous amount of mashed potato, or whatever the fuck the higher-ups fed them, and proceeded to lean behind him and connie to feed it to sasha. eren could feel a potato joke radiating from jean but it wasn't delivered. thank god. sasha thanked mikasa by blowing a kiss and jean turned to historia to ask her more about that god-titan bullshit and the potato joke went unsaid.

mikasa proceeded to commandeer his fork to use it for her own consumption purposes, so armin handed him a spoon and when he reached out to take that spoon armin didn't let go. and eren eventually looked armin in the eye and was not taken back nor surprised at the burning, burning blue that commanded answers. eren slackened his grip and laced his brown fingers with armin's lighter ones and armin seemed satisfied. still concerned, but satisfied. armin placed the spoon in front of eren. connie'd finished his mashed-whatever and looked like he was about to nick some of eren's, but stopped.

of course it was connie who'd break the nonverbal sort of dance eren was choreographing with the remnants of the 104th. connie, loud and clear and compassionate.

"eren, dude. eat. you've gotten kidnapped so many times i'm sure you're not really hungry, but levi's not gonna give a shit. eat."

eren ate.

✧

hanji was a lot more straightforward. 

they walked right up to eren jaeger and grabbed his hand, his left hand. he expected them to slide up his sleeve but they didn't, and instead silently lead him into a side room.

he closed the door behind him and leaned against the wall. hanji paced back and forth a few feet in front of him, hand resting on their chin.  

"eren."

eren tried for a small smile and gripped his wrist. "yes, hanji-san?"

they looked at him from across the empty room and seemed to search for the right words. "you need to stop that. i'm aware your regeneration abilities make you overconfident. and i understand how you feel. i don't blame you. but there are other ways to cope."

hanji's furrowed brow relaxed. "eren. i'm an adult. i've seen the things you have, just tack on an additional decade or two. i've been there," and that last sentence gripped eren's lungs and squeezed.

squad leader hanji zoe? a grunt of strangled assent rose from the back of his throat somewhere and he nodded at them to continue.

they tapped their fingers against their thigh. "i understand completely. and if you require a listening ear, i am here, and you have many friends who care about you, and," they offered a quick grin, "i promise i won't run any experiments on you regarding your, um, predicament."

eren let out a long breath and sunk to the creaky floorboards, hanging his hands out on top of his folded legs. "thank you," he said. "i'm not sure. but thank you."

with a nod and a satisfied expression, hanji outstretched their arms, gesturing for a hug. 

he shivered. physical contact wasn't something he'd sought in a while. eren rose off the floor and almost collapsed into hanji, who bounced a little back on their heels and held him up. eren felt hanji's chin resting on his shoulder, their hand patting the small of his back, he could feel them breathing and alive and somehow not scared of him and eren felt like a kid again.

"thank you."

hanji put their hands on his two shoulders and had him stand tall. they turned him about and eren found himself outside the room feeling a little more alive, and a little bit more ready to face whatever the fuck came next. he pulled back the gauze bandages around his forearms, and traced the fresh scars with his fingertips.

his skin was warm.

ah, what the fuck. 

"i'm a disaster, aren't i?" he said to the empty hallway.

eren sighed a little and started walking towards where his friends were being updated on the recent political upheaval. 

i'll be fine.