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The blond with brown eyes leans over to give a passionate kiss to Eren’s lips; he’s quite masterful with his tongue, his hands, anything he uses to give Eren pleasure. It's not just the skill, though. It’s obvious he also wants his partner to enjoy it.
They had been seeing each other for a week, and it felt like a day or a minute. And sometimes, it felt like a lifetime Eren hadn’t asked for.
“Are you coming tomorrow?” the blond asks, and Eren shrugs, “I don’t know. They say we must move soon.”
The boy seems really upset with it, but he laughs anyway. “Maybe they can take me as a chef, so we could be together in the trenches.”
Eren smiles too. “Maybe.”
Neither of them believes it, of course, but it’s a lie they give in to for now.
Later, in the soft haze afterward, Eren’s thoughts drift to the moment they met and to the reason why he let this happen.
It was one of these restless nights when they took a city. Wasn’t much of a victory, to be fair, because the place offered little to no resistance―a wiser choice by far, although not the kind history books are eager to glorify.
He intended to spend the night by staying in that big house, temporarily turned into barracks for the Eldian soldiers. There was just one Marleyan officer assigned to their place, the rest chose to settle in smaller houses offered to them by the city residents.
It was really amazing how little they were controlled by Marleyans now, with everyone sensing the war’s end was close. Eren thought they could have easily staged a mutiny―and won, if he had ten soldiers trained in ODM gear to take down the shifters, should they come to crush the uprising. Two soldiers―if one of them was Levi.
But of course, none of that would ever happen. Every Eldian here didn’t think of ever raising their voice, let alone a rebellion. The Marleyans still held their relatives hostage—though no one would put it that way—and Liberio was a quite comfortable place for a prison.
This was a fleeting thought, though. He haven’t done any serious thinking for a while; since he decided. It was futile anyway. But the thing is, this night was restless for him too, and he needed liquor to help him forget.
It was a small bar, almost forlorn, which was for the better. For a moment he thought of taking down the bandage, but then decided it wasn’t worth it. Everyone would see he was a soldier anyway. He sat at the corner of a counter and the girl stopped rubbing the counter with a cloth, and called loudly, “Master! We have clients!”
And when the “master” came out somewhere from the inside, Eren almost let out a gasp, because all his efforts of evading the thinking and blocking the memories were crushed by the bartender’s face.
“You know,” Eren says. “The first time we met, I was struck by your look.”
The boy blushes visibly, asking, “Why? It’s not like I’m ugly, but it’s also not like I’m the prettiest thing ever. And you, on the contrary, is Mister Handsome,” he adds with a teasing in his voice.
Eren doesn’t pick up his flirting tone. “It was the colour of your hair and your eyes. I’ve seen only one person in my life who was blond and hazel-eyed.”
The blond smiles. “Trying to make me jealous? Was he your former lover?”
Eren shakes his head. “He is… He was my best friend.”
“I’m sorry,” the blond says, embarrassed. “What happened? You don’t speak to each other anymore?”
“Couldn’t have gone any other way, not with a friend like me,” Eren tries to stay calm, but this is something he can’t control, his voice turns husky, uneven, and he has to pause to get the words out. “He needed medicine… serum. And I… I wasn’t strong enough… to take it from the one who had it.”
Now the blond looks far more embarrassed, almost stricken. “I’m so stupid,” he says quietly. “I’m really, really sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Eren murmurs. “You’re the only one I’ve told this to.”
“It's not putting you off?” Eren asked, nodding at his bandage.
“You mean by the fact you’re Eldian?” the bartender replied, leaning in a little. “It doesn't make you another species, does it? Although...” he added with a glint of mischief in his eyes. “You are, without doubt, the most handsome person I’ve ever seen. Makes me wonder if you might actually be from another planet.”
Eren vaguely sensed it, the bartender flirting with him from the moment he asked for the strongest liquor they had and tossed ovet the billet. When the bartender said they were short on change, and Eren just shrugged. “Keep me company then,” he said. “It's awkward to drink alone.”
He resembled Armin—not in only and hair and eyes colour but also in that slight, almost delicate build, in being kind of cute. And when the boy asked to go home together, Eren agreed, wondering why he was doing it.
When he and the blond bartender held each other, making love, Eren thought of cradling Armin’s burned body. Even when it was clear he was gone for good, Eren couldn’t accept that those charred remains had been his friend.
Would they have become lovers, had Armin lived? Eren wasn’t sure of that. He wasn’t even sure he wanted men that way. But one thing became painstakingly clear to him that night: until then, he hadn’t realised how brutally he missed Armin. And the need to be close to someone who felt like Armin’s shadow blinded him.
“I’ll be waiting anyway,” the blond says when Eren is already at the doors, saying his goodbyes.
Eren just nods and leaves, and when he’s outside, he looks at the starry sky. What’s the probability his one-time lover survives the Rumbling? 0.001% or less? He has never been good with this subject taught to them as the cadets, it was Armin who liked probability theory.
He walks into the darkness, the sound of his own footsteps pounding in his throbbing head.