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“It’s just a needle, Eren.”
Mikasa’s voice came stifled through the door to the dungeon, where Eren was pressing it shut. Eren knew that his friend could definitely break it down if she wanted to, but she went about getting Eren diplomatically. “Open the door. You don’t want to get a disease, do you?”
“No!” Eren shouted through the door. “But I don’t want that either. Just let it be, Mikasa!”
“Eren, it’s for your health! You have to take it seriously!”
Eren squeezed his eyes shut as he pressed his back to the wooden door. “I know,” he said, trying to search for a way to not get awful diseases, while also not having to get injected by anything. “I know…”
On the other side of the door, a tired Mikasa turned to an exasperated Hange, who stood holding the immunization kit with a half-reluctant, half-guilty look on their face.
They lowered their voice so only Mikasa could hear. “Can you try again?”
Mikasa huffed, and stared at the dungeon door. “Eren.”
Eren sat beneath the wooden plank that locked the door, with his hands wrapped around his knees. It seemed to help to stop the constant shaking. Why was he shaking so much?
He tried to take a deep breath. His esophagus burned.
It was just a needle. But at the thought of the tip of a syringe entering his skin, putting something inside him, bile crept up his throat. Right now, he was ready to do anything that meant not having a needle injected. He didn’t even know why the idea of it was so panic inducing. He had gotten needles before, from his dad. Both he and Mikasa had, and it was never a problem then. But now, the adrenaline rush he was experiencing from the fight or flight in his body was astronomical.
“Everybody has to get them, Eren,” Mikasa continued. “I got mine. I can stay with you while you get yours. You don’t have to do it alone.”
“No!” Eren’s head was getting fuzzy with anger, or trepidation, or something else entirely.
“Come on, Eren!” Hange tried. “Listen to Mikasa. You can do it together, or else I’ll come and get you in your sleep!”
Eren was ready to scratch his eyes out. “You’re crazy!”
“I know!” Hange replied. “But it’s my job to keep you safe!”
A third voice came from behind the door. “Technically, four-eyes, it’s my job.”
Eren could taste the bile now. Levi was behind the door.
“What is it? Eren, are you fucking hiding from Hange?”
“I-”
“What are you, six? You placed top ten in your cadet corps and can’t handle a needle? You have a regenerative healing factor and can’t handle a needle?”
Eren pressed his hands against his mouth to keep from screaming. It wasn’t his fault. His body simply would not allow himself to get close to a needle.
“Maybe,” Eren began, “maybe I can heal from diseases. I might not need immunized anyway.”
For a moment, it was silent. Then, Levi. “How are you going to find out if that’s true, brat? What if it doesn’t work? Then you’ve doomed humanity.”
“Just stop,” Eren pleaded. “Leave me alone.”
There was a break in speaking between the door that Eren took to catch his breath (again), and take in his surroundings. His spine pressed uncomfortably against the splintered wood of the door, and even if Mikasa was no longer trying to open it, Eren still welcomed the pressure it provided. Voices were muffled behind the door, talking over what to do with him, likely. The stone floor was cool to the touch, and his fingers brushed against a layer of dust. His eyes were wet with tears that must have fallen before, from how petrified he was from just a needle. It was pathetic and he knew it.
“Eren,” Levi’s voice rang through, “move away from the door.”
Eren’s eyes widened as he processed his captain’s orders, and he scrambled down the dungeon stairs as a loud crack sounded throughout the corridor. He didn’t need to look back to know it was his captain’s boot against the door, splitting the plank lock and swinging it against the wall.
Down was the only way Eren could go, and in retrospect, the dungeons were a bad idea. There was no second exit down the hall- just his room. But that was the only place Eren had relatively any comfort in, so he sprinted through the barred door to the sounds of steps coming down the stairs after him. He searched the room quick for something to bar the cell door with, but there was no wood, no steel, no possessions Eren had that could fashion a lock.
Looking up, he was met with Levi giving him a somewhat-disappointed, somewhat-drained face typical of the captain. Usually it was caused by mayhem of the entire squadron, but Eren had the ability to summon it by himself.
Levi swung the door open, and Eren took a step back, but ran out of floor and landed on his bed. He pushed himself back to the head of the bed, on top of a bundle of blanket that he gripped with his hands until his knuckles turned white.
Walls, this was so stupid and Eren just couldn’t explain it. His breathing hitched as Levi came closer, and he ducked his head down, so his fringe covered his face as more tears formed. Eren heard the door squeak open again, which must have meant that Hange and Mikasa had brought the immunization kit.
“Eren.”
Eren’s body jolted as Levi put both hands on his shoulders as he spoke. “Look up, brat. Look at me.”
“I’m sorry,” Eren gasped. “I’m weak, this is stupid, I’m sorry Captain, I don’t know why- just please don’t- I don’t want-”
“First of all, you’re not weak,” his captain said. “You’ve fought titans, Eren. You can’t do that and be weak. Have some common sense.”
Eren looked up at his superior, blinded by his somewhat-kind words. “What?”
“Brains are strange,” his captain continued. “Sometimes they mistake normal things as red flares. You don’t have anything to be afraid of from a stupid needle. You’re under my command, which means you report to me. Right?”
“Right,” Eren said unsurely, mind fazed with where his captain was taking this.
“So I want you to listen to me instead of your brain,” Levi said.
“I can’t! I want to, but I can’t- I feel like I can’t breathe.”
“Obviously it’s hard,” Levi said. “I had to destroy a perfectly good door for this. But forget your brain and listen to me. Breathe in. One. Two. Three. Out. One. Two. Three.”
Breath still came to Eren in gasps, but after enough inhaling and exhaling, there was less of a burning sensation in his throat. The dizziness had, somewhat, departed from behind his eyes.
“Done!” Hange said, taking a step back from Eren. “That’s it!”
Eren’s eyebrows shot up. “What? What did you do?”
“It was a small needle, Eren! You just needed a distraction. Now you don’t need it again for years.”
Eren was left dumbstruck in his bed at what had just happened. Levi stood up from the bed, and Mikasa ran to take his place, gripping Eren in a bear hug.
“See? I told you. It was easy.”
Levi nodded. “We don’t need you dying on us, brat.”
Eren melted into Mikasa's grasp. “I didn’t even feel it.”
There was only a single thread of steam that came from the spot on Eren’s arm Hange had pierced his skin with. Now, if he focused, there was something akin to a dull throb in his arm, but it was mild. Levi was right. It wasn’t quite worth breaking a whole door over.