Chapter Text
Chapter I
"Do you really think this was a good idea, Carla?" Zeke asked the woman standing next to him, who smiled slightly at his question. "You should trust Eren a little more. He won't burn down the house, I'm sure", she insisted. The blonde man scratched his beard not yet looking very convinced: "I truly can't believe you are allowing Eren and his friends to stay in this house alone for two weeks. You know them-it's a wonder if this house still stands when we come back.” Carla only laughed at this, completely disregarding her stepsons concerns.
But truly the idea of leaving Eren and his friend group alone for two weeks sounded very unsettling. They had two weeks off from college and Eren had decided to ask his parents for permission to use the house with his friends. Even though his parents were hesitant at first they agreed if only because Eren's grades had gotten slightly better this semester.
Eren's friends had just arrived and were now hanging out in the kitchen all clearly excited for the next two weeks. "Hey, Eren, you're cleaning your mess up right now.", a female voice commanded harshly. "What are you? My mom? It's cool.", was the laidback response by the boy mentioned above. “I'm not your mom, but she's the one who cleaned that counter which you just spilled your drink on. So, you better clean your shit before I beat you up." At this a horrified shriek could be heard from Eren. "Yeah, shit sorry. No need to get all worked up, Ylvie"
Carla and Zeke looked at each other with their eyebrows raised. Maybe this vacation wouldn't go as Zeke was fearing and more like Carla had predicted. Without saying another thing they quietly retreated from the scene taking their bags and closing the front door behind them.
"Let the vacation commence!" Eren declared pridefully. "Yeah, let's party for two weeks straight, just forget about everything and get as drunk as we can!" Connie shouted at the top of his lungs. Even though they had only been left alone for a minute now Armin was holding his ears closed wide-eyed. He had expected this already, but he would never get used to the ruckus his friends cause 24/7.
"Ayo, Springer, tune it down a little will you? You're scaring my little Historia!" Ymir shouted back at him, while affectionately petting Historias head, who was already sitting on her lap.
The Situation started getting out of control so Jean decided to intervene and be the diplomatic one. "Hey guys, why don't we just discuss the rooms for now?" To be honest that idea was quite sound but it became clear that most of the boys just wanted to share a room with Lilith. "I've never seen Ylvie sleep, so it should be me!" the kid with anger issues whined. At this Lilith had a disgusted look on her face: "Ew, that's disgusting Yeager… Are you a somnophiliac or something?" Eren looked genuinely confused at her insult: "A what?" "Just forget it, dumbass. Me and the girls are going upstairs, don't really care what you are going to choose." Ylvie said in a bored voice and headed out of the kitchen. "That's why Ylly is my best friend!" Ymir shouted. "Aw, love you too, Ymir", Ylvie shouted back laughing. "I didn't mean it like that. I swear Historia you are the only one I love." Ymir tried to reassure Historia, even though the girl didn't even seem to have noticed anything happened in the first place.
Now that the boys had been left alone in the kitchen they stood around for a minute wondering what they could do.
"Do y'all know something we could do?", Jean asked. Luckily Connie knew exactly what he wanted to do. "Guys, let's get extremely drunk to celebrate the fact that we are still alive!" At that nearly all the boys cheered. Only Armin stood there trying to convince his friends that this wasn't a good idea. Suddenly there was a glint in Reiners eyes. "Yeager, you still got those drugs of yours here?" he asked. Everyone realised what Reiner meant, Eren did not only have weed and stuff but he also had very strong edibles."
“Yeah, sure, but if we get caught we'll be in so much trouble." Eren answered but seemed to enjoy the idea as well. "Then let's just not get caught!" Jean said as though that would be the best idea ever. Surprisingly everyone agreed with him and they decided to ask the girls if they wanted to get high as well.
In the meantime the girls upstairs had finished their discussion on the rooms and had started drinking as well. "I don't get it, why is Ylvie the only one who has a room all for herself!?", Sasha whined. At that Lilith arched an eyebrow acting surprised: "Well that is quite easy, you see..." She held up her hand to emphasise her points. “First of all because I wanted it like that." She said looking way too smug for everyone's liking. "Second of all because I don't think any of you want to hear me in bed with the boys.”, she continued, completely sarcastic. “And third of all because I hate it when my room is messy. There you have it, did that answer your questions, Sasha?" "I don't think so but I guess that's alright. Is anyone hungry as well?" Sasha answered. "You're always hungry", groaned Ymir while lazily looping an arm around Historia.
At this point Ylvie stopped paying attention and wondered about the real reasons why she needed a singular room. When would she finally be able to stop lying to everyone? Was this secret worth losing her friends? She had asked herself these questions a thousand times already. Yet she was still scared that when she’d finally find her answers it would be too late. She really hated this and yet she could only thank herself for being in this situation. Why hadn't she been smarter? Why wasn’t she able to even do one thing right?
Ylvie quickly shook herself out of her trance, hoping no one had noticed her thoughtful behaviour. Thoughts like these made her weak. It was one of her greater flaws: Always doubting herself and living way too much in the past. Over the years she had carefully developed an impenetrable facade that nobody could look through, it would be downright stupid if she slipped now.
Luckily for her right in that moment Connie came sprinting up the stairs, throwing open the door of the room they were in. "Do you want to get high?", he shouted at them. It took all of them a few beats to understand what he meant.
"Ugh, no need to shout, Springer. I'm down, what about you girls?" Ylvie said looking annoyed even though in truth she was thankful for this distraction from her thoughts.
The other girls settled for only drinking a few beers at most. They had no desire to get wasted on their first free day. The exact opposite of Ylvie. Inside she wished that she could be more like them. She had been drowning in her own thoughts lately, so she was happy to finally just forget everything.
Well, maybe not everything. But the important things.
She had been like this for way too long. Even though she wasn’t as addicted as Eren and would never consider herself an addict her behaviour said the opposite. She didn’t like always being the first to grab the bottle when the opportunity rose. Or always being up to roll a joint. It hadn’t been like this a year or two ago. Back then dulling her senses with substances was a choice. It was something she would do for fun. But now he didn’t really feel like she had a choice. Which was ridiculous if you consider that in a sense she actively chose to consume them. No one was forcing her to do it other than her stupid mind. Quite the self destruction. What a funny thing. Of all the things that could destroy a human who would have thought that in the end she was her own greatest enemy.
A few hours and many many drinks later, while Ylvie was still on a quest to soothe her troubles Armin and Mikasa were sitting in a room far away from the party not really wanting to see what was going on in the basement where the others were partying. At this point it was really only Ylvie, Eren, Connie, Jean and Reiner in there. The rest of the group either went to sleep or were chatting somewhere more silent. Still, Eren could be heard shouting random profanities, but he was clearly slurring in his speech.
"Aren't you scared that Eren will be caught doing drugs someday?", Armin asked his childhood friend, clearly worried. It wasn’t like it had never happened before. He’d already been caught once with a very small amount of weed which luckily didn’t have many consequences. So, his friend's worries were justified, even though he himself would never admit it.
"Of course I do, but there's nothing we can do about it, is there?"Mikasa answered, not completely unperturbed. She had tried countless times to convince him to just stop and continue his life without his excessive drug consumption, but her efforts seemed to be fruitless. Armin and her had nothing against doing it once in a while but Eren seemed high all of the time nowadays.
The two sat in silence after that, both reminiscing.
The three kids were sitting under a tree. Under their special tree.
"I solemnly swear that we will be friends until death and even after!", all three kids said at the same time while laying each of their hands on top of the others.
"We won't let anyone get between us, ever, will we?", Eren asked his friends eagerly awaiting their response.
"Of course not!", both Mikasa and Armin declared, smiling.
The memory seemed both very recent and decades away. Physically they were all still together, but the years had caused them all to grow apart to a certain degree. And Eren was drifting further away from that child he once was every day.
Meanwhile the problem child seemed to be holding another speech in the basement.
"Shit, guys I've been wanting to do this for so long." Eren exclaimed, his cheeks already flushed from all the alcohol and other substances he took in. "Isn't this exactly what you've been doing every weekend for the past year?", was Ylvie's snide comment.
"Ylvie could you please just once not make one of your smart comments?", Eren whined because his statement had been insulted.
"Just stating the facts, Yeager. If you were a little smarter you would've realised that." All the boys but one broke out in laughter at that.
"You know what I meant though, don't you?", he explained himself. "I was talking about the fact that we have two weeks in this house all for ourselves!"
"Yeah, right, that's crazy. How did you even get grades good enough for this?", Connie joked, wounding Eren in the process.
"Man why are y'all always so mean to me. I just studied a lot, isn't that obvious?" to the disbelieving looks from everyone he added mumbling: "Well, maybe Armin helped a little bit as well, but I did the most."
"Sure, anything that helps you sleep at night.", was Reiners concluding remark to that which made everyone laugh.
Ylvie was still thinking about what Eren had said, even though she had joked about it she also liked the idea of spending these two weeks alone with her friends. She more than anyone could understand the appeal of living alone without authoritative people who’d decide what you could do.
But no one could promise that the house would still be standing and everyone would still be alive.
An obvious exaggeration, but you never know.