Work Text:
Eren paced the kitchen nervously, glancing at the clock on the stove every couple of seconds. He needed to calm down, but he couldn’t. Mom would be home in a few minutes and he had to do this, he had to. He couldn’t live like this anymore, but the thought of talking with Mom, of the way he knew her face would twist made him feel sick. He slumped back against the counter edge, fisting his hands in his hair as he tried to breathe. His heart was racing, his skin felt all chilled, tingles racing his arms, and he just really didn’t want to do this.
“This is important,” Eren whispered to himself. “This is really important. All you have to do is tell her. You can do this.”
There was a sound at the door, a key in the lock twisting, and Eren’s stomach hit the floor with a wet thwap only he could hear. He was going to be sick. His knees shook and he was going to be sick and his mother was going to put an end to his life and it was going to be-
“Eren, I’m home,” his mother called out. The sound of the front door closing felt like a coffin’s lid to his panicking heart. He slipped, knees shaking right out from under him, and landed on his ass on the kitchen floor, hands sliding limb from his hair until his knuckles knocked against the wooden floor with a dull sting he hardly registered. The click of his mother’s heels across the hardwood floor had him scrambling, shoulder knocking against the lip of the counter as he struggled to stand. His mom rounded the corner through the living room just as he wobbled to his feet, staggering forward against the stove’s edge to try and look normal.
“Uh,” he stuttered, voice thin. “Hi Mom.”
His mother didn’t even look up at his strange behavior, which was another knot in his stomach. He swallowed as he stumbled to get out of her way as she made to put the grocery bag on her hip on the stove top. He ended up backing into the fridge, head knocking against the freezer door as he watched his mother start to unpack the grocery bag, movements tight and face lined with exhaustion. He swallowed.
I can do this, he thought to himself. He felt his phone in his back pocket as it pressed against the fridge. He pictured that last text in his head, short and simple; good luck <3 . The memory of the text helped him straighten and push off from the fridge, crossing the room and hooking around the counter to face his mother.
“How was work,” he asked, leaning on his elbows on the counter. His mother made a rough noise in the back of her throat, anger flickering across her face before she sighed, shoulders sagging.
“Long,” she answered finally. She sounded so tired that Eren felt his throat close over, his confidence waver. She glanced up to smile at him, crooked and small, and he smiled back, feeling like a fraud. He didn’t want to put any more on her shoulders than was already there, but he didn’t want to put this off any longer.
“How was your day,” his mother asked, stacking cans on the counter top. He glanced at them and then away, slumping and shifting his weight so that he could reach back, tracing the edge of his phone in his pocket. He breathed, a shudder tracing his spine, and then swallowed.
“It was pretty good,” he said, voice wavering a little so that he sounded fourteen again. That got his mother’s attention and she glanced up at him, raising one eyebrow curiously as he flushed. He furrowed his eyebrows, trying to look serious, and she blinked, perplexed. He swallowed back a groan. “I, uh. I have a, um. Date. Friday?”
His mother paused her unpacking, blinking at him. It was an expression completely passed perplexed, straight into the territory of bafflement and disbelief. Normally Eren would have protested such a reaction (why did the idea of him having a date inspire such a fucked up reaction, honestly, he was very date-able) but his stomach was too tangled and his limbs felt heavy with nerves. God, he wanted to do anything but have this conversation.
“You have a date,” she echoed, eyelashes fluttering. And then, like a punch in the throat, she beamed. “Oh Eren,” she said, shoulders sagging even more, eyes crinkling at the corners from smiling so hard. “That’s wonderful! Where are you and Mikasa going?”
Eren smothered the flinch until it only showed in the way his fingers twitched against the edge of his phone. His mother didn’t notice since his hand behind his back and he tried to keep from choking as he shook his head, heart in his throat.
“I- my date’s not with Mikasa, Mom.”
His mother scrunched her nose, tucking her hair behind her ear as she hummed. “Who is it then,” she asked, propping her elbows up on the stove top, leaning toward him. Her fingers tapped idly against the stove top and the click-tap-click-tap noise was putting Eren on edge. He gritted his teeth and shook his head when she added, “is it Annie? It can’t be Sasha, you said she’s always with Connie-“
“Mom,” Eren cut in. His hands itched, heartbeat skittering like a shaky drummer’s roll in his ears. “No, it’s not- it’s not with Annie or Sasha.”
His mother rolled her eyes impatiently. “Out with it then, who is it?”
Eren closed his eyes, to keep himself from having to see her expression change, to watch her shoulders tense. “Levi,” he answered quietly.
Silence held, five seconds, ten seconds, until Eren had lost track of the thump of his heart, the tick of the one analog clock in the house, stuck to the living room wall. It felt like a tomb, the air was so still. And then, finally, when he thought he would die-
“Excuse me?”
(Eren didn’t remember too much of his dad, even though he’d only left when Eren was ten. He remembered the glint of glasses, the smell of medicine; the way his voice quaked when raised. Mostly Eren remembered feeling small and hollow around the man, the way a flinch always curled itself to every movement Eren made when he spoke.
He would never admit it to her, because he knew it would break her heart, but in that moment he felt ten. He felt ten and small and terrified at the whisper of her voice, a flinch in the very marrow of his bones all the way down his spine.
It would break his mother’s heart if she knew that and hadn’t he done enough of that already?)
“I said,” Eren repeated, without opening his eyes. “My date this Friday is with Levi.”
The room sat still for another handful of tense seconds before Eren couldn’t take it any longer. He peeked up at his mom, heart pounding, and froze at the sight before him. He’d expected it, but the fury on her face, flushing her cheeks with color, was still like a knife to the gut.
“Eren, this isn’t funny,” she started to snap. Eren could only blink at her as his hands started to shake.
“It’s not a joke, Mom,” he tried to say, but his voice could barely be heard. Eren watched his mother’s face shift, fury into something even darker, something that made him feel like he was going to be sick. He swallowed against the taste of fear, pungent like bile, in the back of his throat and straightened, trying to use the height he had on her to make himself feel strong.
“Mom,” he said, curling his fingers into fists. His heart was a thunder in his ears, there was a storm in his head, clouding his thoughts. He didn’t know what to tell her. “Please, isn’t it time you dropped this stupid thing already? I like Levi. I like Levi a lot, please, Mom-“
“No,” his mother cut in, like a slap, like a blow to his heart itself. When her lip curled like that she was less his mother and more the woman who had almost ruined the greatest friendship Eren had ever had and he wanted to hate her, but couldn’t. His chest was too tight, his heart hammered too hard. She shoved away from the stove, whirled on her heel, and started for the front door.
“Mom, please, no-“
She slammed the front door open and then closed as Eren scrambled to follow her, tripping over his own feet and ending up slumped against the edge of the couch in the otherwise empty apartment. He was shaking, his eyes burned, and he wasn’t sure he could keep down the little bit he’d had for lunch at Levi’s earlier that day. His mother was going to ruin this, he just knew it.
“Hey,” a voice said, soft and careful and slow. Eren closed his eyes at the sound of it and barely held back a flinch when a hand pressed against his shoulder, tugging him slowly up and around the couch. “Eren, look at me, it’s okay-“
Eren opened his eyes, peering through the blur of tears he wouldn’t let fall as Levi coaxed him around the arm of the couch and gently pushed him down to sit. Levi’s hair was messy, probably from running his hands through it, and his eyes were bright and clear, the same blue as the sky.
“It’s going to be okay,” Levi said, in a voice meant to reassure them both. “My mom said she could handle yours, so we just have to wait for her to call us. Remember?”
(Eren remembered a lot, peering up at Levi with his heart in his throat. He remembered being ten and moving in this grey-and-brick miserable looking apartment building, angry and depressed and uninterested in anything about his new home. He remembered his mother calling him out into the hall outside their new front door, to where a woman with dark hair stood at her side. Behind the woman had been a boy, equally dark hair but bright eyes.
Eren remembered looking at the boy and thinking, his eyes are like the sky.
He wondered sometimes if that was the moment when he’d fallen in love.)
“I love you,” Eren muttered, reaching up to drag Levi down into his lap. His bestfriend turned boyfriend (still bestfriend) rolled his eyes fondly as he let himself be dragged down, knees boxing Eren’s hips in as Eren snaked an arm around his waist.
“I love you too,” Levi muttered. He cupped Eren’s jaw carefully, thumb swiping along his cheek, and Eren leaned forward to kiss him, nuzzling their noses together as he did so. It was the same kind of position that had started this mess, but unlike earlier that morning no one came through the door unexpectantly and dragged their secret into the light.
Levi nuzzled him back with a small half-laugh half-sigh, kissing him softly, hands sliding up into Eren’s hair as he leaned forward, setting more of his weight on Eren’s lap. Eren dragged him as close as he could, hands fisting into the back of Levi’s shirt as they melted against one another, taking comfort in the way their hearts slowed to beat together as their chests pressed together.
-
The apartment door she banged her fist on, likely bruising her knuckles, was exactly like her own save the gold-metal numbers on the front, but the sight of it made her blood boil. There was a pause before the door swung open, one she was absolutely sure had been done on purpose, and she had a rant ready on the tip of her tongue, ready and waiting. She was shaking she was so furious, and the thought of her son, wide eyed back in their apartment, only made her shake more.
This was all her fault, Carla knew it. Her lip curled with distaste at the knowledge.
Finally, after making her wait almost a full minute, knuckles stinging, the door opened, revealing the woman who had started this whole mess. Carla clenched her hands into fists at the sight of Kuchel, who leveled dark eyes at her with a blank expression.
“You,” Carla snarled. All her carefully crafted words slipped away, tangled up with her tongue as her anger boiled like an unattended pot in her gut.
(This was the kind of anger that had lost her the first three jobs she’d gotten as a teenager, before she’d learned to cool down and deal with it internally. This was the anger that had lead her into the scuffle that had lead her to Grisha.
This was the kind of anger that she had seen in Eren as a child, too. Her son, her baby boy; Grisha had always said they looked the same when angered, furrowed eyebrows and fire eyes.
“Well,” she had always said, “he is my son.”
“Our son,” Grisha would say fondly. “And yes, he is.”)
“You’re here about the boys,” Kuchel said, cool and unruffled, hair neat, arms crossed. She stepped back from her front door and turned, walking away through her apartment, and that was a slap to the face if Carla had ever felt one. She snarled and stormed after the other woman, slamming the woman’s front door closed behind her. She half hoped to get a rise out of the other woman for that; she had learned from Grisha that fighting with unruffled people was in no way satisfying.
“I’m here about my son,” Carla snapped. Kuchel glided into the kitchen and settled behind her stove, pulling a kettle down from a shelf. She didn’t look at Carla once, a clear dismissal, and Carla gritted her teeth until she could hear them grind together.
“Your son,” Kuchel repeated slowly. There was a hum at the end of the sentence before she slowly rolled into the next one. “And how he’s very happy with my son, correct?”
Carla stilled. Her breath slipped from her lungs and her head rang with a white kind of noise that was pure fury. She couldn’t even speak at first, watching dully as the other woman fixed tea with motions made swift by familiarity.
“Your son is a bad influence,” she said finally, throat closing around the words until they came out hoarse. “He’s done nothing but get my son in trouble since the day they met. How could he possibly make Eren happy?”
Kuchel’s hands stilled. A cloud covered her expression, rolling in without warning until the whole apartment seemed darker than before. Carla had never feared the small receptionist, with her frail wrists and short stature, but then, with that storm cloud rolling through already darker eyes, Carla felt a chill creep down her spine.
“How could he make Eren happy,” Kuchel repeated, so calmly Carla bit her tongue in surprise. “How? Are you really so blind? Are you really so caught up in this- this stupid idea of yours that my son- my son who has done nothing but stand at Eren’s side and help him from day one- is a bad influence on yours? Take your head out of your ass, woman; it doesn’t make an attractive hat in the slightest.”
“Excuse me,” Carla wheezed, breath rattling in her throat as her fingers curled into claws. “That isn’t what I said at all-
“Oh,” Kuchel interrupted, “my apologies. Let me try again. What you’re saying is that your imagined slight, this- this faux reality you’ve concocted in your head is more important to you than what’s actually happening to your son? You’re saying that you care more about pretending he’s happy than seeing him actually happy?”
“No,” Carla snapped, because that wasn’t true, that wasn’t fucking true. Kuchel curled her lip, sneering at her and Carla hated her, more than she ever had before. “That’s not-“
“Yes, it is,” Kuchel interrupted. “Your petty grudge is more important to you than the fact you’ve missed every one of Eren’s baseball games since he joined the team in seventh grade. Your image of being this kind of picture perfect standalone woman who doesn’t need anyone’s help is more important to you than the fact that you’re making your son miserable. And why are you making your son so miserable? Because of a grudge you’ve made up against my seventeen year old son!”
Carla could only gape, feeling like she’d been slapped. She’d never heard the other woman raise her voice like that before and the sound, sharp and piercing like a battle cry, rang in her head. She was still as the other woman heaved a breath and spun in the kitchen, marching to the sink to shove the water on and then wash her hands, vicious and rough, shaking a little with the movements. She sunk into one of the high chairs pulled up against the counter bar in the apartment’s little kitchen, watching the dark haired woman shove the water off and stand there, hands dripping, head bent for a long, silent moment.
“Am I really making my son miserable,” she asked quietly.
Kuchel looked up at her, dark bangs crooked across her forehead, and said nothing. She was still in her work clothes, button up shirt and business shirt, the same way Carla herself was still wearing the black slacks, black button up that was her uniform at the restaurant. Carla had felt a connection with this woman once, the understanding that a single mother’s life was hard and that little sons were impossible wonders that could get into trouble wherever they went.
Carla realized with a jolt that there was grey in the other woman’s hair, streaking it faintly, and that the crow’s feet in the corner of her eyes were smudged with pale makeup. Kuchel tipped her head, breathing deeply so that her shoulders moved, and now that Carla was looking for it she could see the signs of stress on the other woman, like flashing lights and pointing arrows were being shoved in her face. It made sense, Carla thought distantly; Levi had always been a pale child with blooming purple bruises from poor sleep under his eyes even from an early age. Levi got that from his mother, the same way Eren had inherited her dark skin, her anger, her-
Her habit of leaping first, of getting into trouble, and of holding grudges.
“Fuck,” Carla swore, melting against the other woman’s spotless counter. Her own counter, somewhere upstairs in the building, was covered with mail she hadn’t opened. The difference made her want to cry, irrationally so, and so she swore again, growling, “fucking shit,” quietly against her arm. Kuchel’s quiet humorless laugh was strangely comforting.
“Here,” Kuchel said, a few minutes later as she placed a mug of tea next to Carla’s head. It was a warm, sweet smelling peace offering the other woman didn’t have to make, but it wasn’t something Carla was tempted to refuse in the least. Her pride might have pushed it away yesterday, but her pride had all run out.
“Thanks,” she said hoarsely, curling tired hands around the handle and settling upright once more. Kuchel leaned back against the opposite counter, a mug of her own in her hands, one painted bright green with crooked, sloppy handwritten letters hidden mostly under her hands. Carla had a mug like it in her kitchen, though hers was painted blue; Eren and Levi had made them in elementary school as Mother’s Day gifts. She glanced way uncomfortably at the sight, her gut tightening with sickly guilt.
“I really fucked up, didn’t I,” she asked quietly. Kuchel shrugged, something Carla watched from the corner of her eye.
“You didn’t do the best you probably could have,” the dark haired woman said diplomatically, “but your son has a big heart; I can’t imagine he’d refuse to forgive you if you worked to make things right.”
Carla couldn’t help but smile faintly at the praise to her son, throat tight with feeling. “He doesn’t get that from me, that’s for sure,” she muttered, the words bitter on her tongue like acid. Kuchel hummed, not kind enough to argue that pretense and Carla didn’t blame her in the least.
“Do you ever wish you could go back in time and not bake a pie,” Carla asked, glancing up from her cooling untouched tea to Kuchel. The smile she got in return was sad and small, but the other woman’s eyes were like the night sky, glinting with steely burning promise.
“No,” the other woman said simply. And Carla laughed, chest constricting around her heart, but the sound as it bounced along the hardwood floor was flat and miserable as the expression Eren had worn the day she told him he was no longer allowed to speak to Levi Ackerman ever again.
-
When the tea was gone and the stove was cold once more, Kuchel sighed, brushed her hands together, and straightened with a purpose. Carla watched, bemused, as the other woman started to dig through her cupboards and fridge, pulling out a large mixing bowl, a box of cake batter, eggs…
“Oh god,” Carla said, completely blanking on the date. “It’s not someone’s birthday, is it?”
Kuchel shot her a look, amusement shockingly evident in the ease of her smile. “No,” the other woman answered. “I bake when I’m stressed. Plus I figure the boys deserve some sweets; I scared the hell out of them when I came home early today and found them on the couch.”
“On the couch…” Carla turned, peering at the couch behind her in the living room before blinking, twisting back to gape at Kuchel. “Oh god, were they-“
Kuchel laughed. It was startling how bright the sound was as her face scrunched up, shoulders shaking as she shook her head. “Another hour and everyone involved might have been a little scarred,” she said, “but they were just cuddling and making out. It was sweet until they saw me and started panicking.”
Carla winced, fingers curling into her palms. “Panicking,” she echoed quietly. “Was it- Were they okay? Eren can get a little overwhelmed sometimes; I thought he had grown out of it but now-“
Now I don’t think I know him at all, she thought but couldn’t say. She ducked her head, shame turning her stomach, and Kuchel glanced her way, eyes dark but not accusing.
“Levi knows how to help him ease out of a bad place,” Kuchel said quietly, hands flat on her counter next to the ingredients needed for either a cake or cupcakes. Carla’s gut sank at the implications of that sentence. She went limp against the counter again, held up by only her elbows, shoulders bowing under the weight of what she had done.
(Six years. Six years and she’d let a pie at a bake sale, her battered pride, and her misdirected anger drive this spike between them all.
She wasn’t a very good mother, not the way she’d wanted to be after leaving Grisha.
God, she was going to be making it up to Eren for the rest of their lives.)
“Levi’s- he’s a good kid,” Carla said, carefully. Thin ice didn’t even begin to describe the way Kuchel’s hands stilled or her head jerked when Carla said the other woman’s son’s name and Carla understood that, even if it stung. Her record with blaming Levi for her own mistakes was not flattering or encouraging in the least.
“I did my best,” Kuchel said and Carla bit back another wince. “But most of it was all him. He always tried to make my job as mom easier and for that I will never be more thankful. Eren helped a little bit too, I’m sure. Though he got in a lot less fights before Eren was around.”
Old habits had accusations that were baseless and cruel crawling on her tongue, but Carla bit them back. “I’m sure everyone Eren befriends got in a lot less fights before they met him,” she said instead, stilled and awkward. Kuchel laughed, though, and that sound was warm again, the way Carla didn’t quite deserve it to be. She sighed, smiling wryly as she admitted, “he got that from me, I’m afraid.”
“Somehow I’m not surprised,” the other woman muttered wryly. Carla huffed for a second, torn between real offense and mock offense, but in the end it was water off a duck’s back.
“Do you really think this is a good idea,” she asked quietly as Kuchel turned to preheat the oven. Kuchel raised an eyebrow at her from over her slim shoulder and Carla sighed, knowing that she was poking a hornet’s nest but unable to stop. “They’re seventeen,” Carla whispered.
Kuchel made such a noise of disbelief that a pigeon on the windowsill panicked and fled. There was an eyeroll among that disgusted snort, her shoulders hunching and dropping again, and some color rose to Kuchel’s cheeks as she whirled to face Carla, crossing her arms over her chest and staring her down.
“They’re seventeen,” Kuchel said, with a much different inflection on her words. The look she gave Carla said everything her lips did not; it spoke we cannot make their decisions for them, it whispered we must trust them, it shouted seventeen isn’t seven, and in the silence that hung after that look Carla heard just because we failed in love doesn’t mean they are doomed as well.
“You’re right,” she sighed quietly, giving in. “I’ve done enough damage as is, haven’t I? It’s just. Hard to let go, I guess.”
“Of course I’m right,” Kuchel said, uncrossing her arms with a nod. She didn’t address Carla’s confession, but in a way it was easier that way; Carla had done all the confessing she could at the moment. The other woman began to tie up her long hair, pulling it together in a messy bun at odds with her pressed shirt and skirt combination, and Carla watched, reluctant to go back upstairs and face her son. What a coward she had grown to be.
“Come on, Carla,” Kuchel said, once her hair was tied up and her sleeves rolled up. “The sooner these cupcakes get in the oven, the sooner I can call the boys down here and we can get this all straightened out.”
Carla blinked. “You want me to help you make cupcakes?”
“No, I want you to help me vacuum carpet,” Kuchel drawled. Carla crinkled her nose and with a roll of her eyes slid from the high chair, going to roll up her sleeves as well.
“You better have another hair tie then,” the woman answered, tentatively teasing. Kuchel just nodded, serious and calm in the dusk light coming in from the kitchen window, and pulled open one of the kitchen drawers to reveal a nest of hair ties available for use. Carla took one movements more sure than she felt, and began to tie her hair up and out of her way.
(Baking with someone else was a strange experience, as was being around the woman she had fought against for so long. It all seemed so dramatic and stupid in the slowly darkening kitchen, her grudge, her self imposed feud. She could have been spending the last six years with a friend, with someone to sympathize and help her out on raising her son.
Hopefully this was something she could repair as well. It would be nice to have a friend in Kuchel again.)
By the time the cupcakes were in the oven and already half baked Carla had a vague idea of where to start when Kuchel called the boys down to see her. She’d explained while baking more about how she found the boys, about promising that she would talk to Carla after Eren did if she didn’t take the news well. It was actually a relief to her when she found out Levi had snuck up the fire escape to Eren’s bedroom window to be there to support him, though it was troublesome to realize grounding the boy was going to be more of a hassle now, with his boyfriend a few floors down with easy immediate access to Eren’s room. Kuchel had laughed when she had muttered darkly about that, rolling her eyes and shooting back that grounding Eren had always been a troublesome endeavor.
It was unsettling, a little, how well this woman seemed to know her son, but Carla was doing her best not to let it get to her. It was her fault that Eren didn’t talk to her anymore and the while knowledge that they had never hid their friendship from Kuchel stung, there was a reason they had lied to her. She was reminded of that when the knock at the door came, just before it swung open and Levi lead Eren in by his hand.
Carla took a minute to study her son, the way she hadn’t in a while. He was tall and broad shouldered, like his father, but the way his jaw clenched, fear hidden behind false anger, was all her genetics in him. His expression was one torn between that of a boxer about to go into a match, determined and dark, and that of a little boy, lost and scared. The conflicting emotions tore at her heart and the nail in her coffin was the way she could see Levi lean against Eren and how Eren leaned back, trying to hide the shaking in his limbs as he clutched his boyfriend’s hand for dear life.
“Mom,” Eren tried to say, but he choked on the words a little. His tight voice told her he had been crying.
Christ, she thought. Jesus fucking Christ, I fucked up.
“Boys,” she said, heart fluttering in her chest. Kuchel was in the kitchen, silent and watching, like a big hunting cat. A jaguar, probably, if Carla had to pick one for the slim woman.
Levi picked up his chin, shoulders straight, eyes like ice as he stared her down, proud and sure. She cleared her throat and tried again.
“Levi,” she said, a little more quietly this time. Eren still flinched. She felt that reaction like a blow to her gut. It was only when Levi nodded at her in response could she continue. “I owe you an apology for the way I’ve acted and for how I’ve treated you and your mother.”
Levi, probably despite every effort to hide his reaction from her, looked surprised. He swallowed, nodding again, a little more shakily, and Carla was reminded again that he was seventeen. Her heart hurt for him, so much that it choked her as she said, “I’m sorry.”
“Mom,” Eren said again, barely a whisper. It was more of a question this time, his face scrunching up as his eyes shown, teary but hopeful. She watched him, noted distantly the way Levi squeezed his hand and how Eren squeezed back.
Young love, she thought, proud without reason to be, as she certainly hadn’t been the source of such a fierce, loyal love. She wasn’t sure where those boys had picked that up, but it wasn’t her. Maybe they’ll get it right.
“I owe you an apology too, Eren,” she said quietly, eyes stinging with tears. Eren wheezed a little in his throat, cheeks going blotchy red with emotion, and Carla felt it again, that punch to her heart. She was such a terrible mother. “I’m so sorry, baby,” she whispered. “I never meant to- I’m so sorry.”
Eren swayed, squeezing Levi’s hand again visibly as he started to cry. Levi was pressed close against his shoulder, voice a hush as he whispered Eren’s name, steady and strong. Eren ducked his head, curling down against his shorter boyfriend, and a chasm opened up in Carla’s chest.
“Promise,” Eren said, voice cracking a little like he was fourteen again. “Mom, please; promise me you won’t- I can’t do that again, Mom, please-“
“I promise,” Carla said, voice thick. Her response was quick, out of guilt and misery, but Eren went boneless with relief anyway. He wiped furiously at his face with his sleeve, nodding jerkily, still shaking faintly as Kuchel nodded slightly from the kitchen. “Eren, I promise, I won’t ever put you through that again. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too,” her baby boy replied, glancing up at her with gleaming green eyes and a red nose. “For lying and stuff. I just- I knew you wouldn’t take it well.”
Carla floundered for words to reply to the apology she didn’t deserve, but before she could find much more than Eren’s name the oven beeped. It was the timer signally the cupcakes were ready and Kuchel bustled to get them, calling Levi’s name as she did so.
“Come help me ice cupcakes,” she called out to her son. Levi shot her a look, baffled and conflicted, and with a watery laugh Eren ducked his head and kissed Levi’s cheek before pushing him away very gently. Levi went, wandering the ten feet into the kitchen to engage in a hushed whispered argument with his mother, and when Carla turned back to her own son she found him within arm’s reach, tall and miserably doe eyed with guilt.
“Eren,” she whispered, heart clenching with stinging guilt, but Eren lunged and swept her into a hug, warm and tight as could be. He was still shaking faintly, his chest rising and falling too fast with uneven breaths, and Carla clung to him as tight as she could, fingers curling in the back of his shirt desperately.
“I love you,” she whispered quietly. “I am so proud of you and I’m so sorry and I love you.”
“I love you too, Mom,” Eren said weakly. And Carla wasn’t foolish enough to think the matter fixed; there were a lot of bridges to mend before she could cross them completely, but it was a step in the right direction.