Work Text:
Who knew freedom could taste so bitterly… And yet as sweet as honey.
Eren wouldn’t undo his actions in the slightest. Even if he’d known the chaos and madness he’d unleash upon the world would bring an end to millions of lives beneath the soles of the colossal titans’ feet, he would still have done it.
He would still have made contact with Zeke, deceived him, manipulated their old man, and eventually sit idly in a realm lying outside of space and time but with heaps of sand to entertain his lonely days.
And he would still have done it all, had he the freedom to do so…
In truth, Ymir had overseen every action in the future, and had carefully laid out the steps various titan shifters would take 2000 years in advance.
Her favourite pawn was Eren, whose natural desire for freedom and revenge played perfectly into her plan. He’d move forward decisively and determinedly until he’d begin the rumbling at last.
Freeing the angered enslaved girl finally, he did not know that he and Zeke would eventually end up taking over her place in paths.
“What does it matter in the end, anyway…” He hears Zeke mutter to himself. His older brother, once so fearful and intimidating when he’d met him as a teen, was now filling his bucket with sand as building material for his sandcastle.
What else is there to do when you’re stuck forever in this hellish playground?
“Life is ultimately meaningless”, Zeke mutters on intelligibly. “You’ve ended all their suffering, Eren.”
Eren catches a glance at Zeke’s half-built sand castle. It looks quite grand and promising and perhaps it’s the type of castle he’d wished to live in if his royal blood was acknowledged and honoured. Now, however, all Eren sees is a shabby man hunched over his plaything.
A man who looks defeated and purposeless. Eyes cast downward, no life in them.
Eren looks away.
Many times he’d wondered how his life could’ve been with his brother by his side, growing up amicably in a loving household.
At a time like this too, he wonders what’s become of them. Who they could’ve been and who they ended up becoming.
Men who unleashed horror upon their world, now lost in a heap of sand.
“I’ll be by your side, Eren”, Zeke says after he’s finished with another tower. He slowly glances up until his eyes lock with Eren’s. “Not as your big brother, but as someone who shares your fate.”
Eren nods slowly. The realisation has already sunk in.
They hold the powers of the founding titan together, and together they have to endure this realm until Ymir ends her reign and puts a stop to it.
“If you don’t mind sharing it with me.”
Eren turns himself around fully until he’s directly facing the castle Zeke’s been working on so far. He crosses his legs and reaches out an arm for another bucket, filling it with sand.
"I don't."
Freedom, Eren thinks. He can’t help but smile.
It’s just so bittersweet.