Chapter Text
The young actor outstretched his arms as the camera swung around him, picking up every last detail - his clothes dragging behind him, his eyes flying open, his smile growing, punctuated by the thick fog rushing all around him.
“This… is freedom!” He exclaimed as gleefully as possible. The next camera shot came minutes later, focusing on his face. His expression held a smile for a second, before dropping down into a serious stare. “We’ve finally arrived at this view.”
Just as the director intended, he turned his head and met the glare of another actor standing behind him. He could barely see them, though. The artificial smoke around him, billowing out of the fog machine and flying in through the fans, made it hard for him to tell where he was. It felt like he really was in the clouds, alone.
As the camera started to roll, he belted out, “haven’t we, Armin?”
He heard the quiet voice of an older co-star, whispering, “Eren…”
“Cut!”
The voice of the director cut through the fog, making his head snap over in his direction. Or at least the direction he thought the voice was coming from. He could barely make it out.
“Turn off that machine and turn the fans all the way up. We’ll move on to filming Armin and Zeke’s scene while the fog clears.”
The continuous humming from the machine stopped then and there, and Eren could hear people clearing away, but he couldn’t see a thing. The fog was thick, but the hot lights made it harder to see through it.
He knew he couldn’t stay in place for long, though, so he took a cautious step forward. One step after another as he held his hand up to his face. He thought he made it through when the fog started thinning, but just when it started to look up-
“Ow!”
He stumbled right into someone. Another kid - someone his own size. Eren crashed to the floor, landing on his butt. “Agh- who was that? I can’t see a thing!”
“I can’t see you either!”
Just as they said that, the air really began to clear. He squinted and could quickly make out a set of long blonde hair. “Armin?”
The boy blinked back, rubbing at his eyes, as he too seemed to pick up on the person sitting across from him. “Eren?”
The fog disappeared only a few minutes later. They looked into each other's eyes as they sat on the ground, looking bruised. Around them, the cast and crew were clearing away, hurrying into a completely different scene. The set up for ‘the paths’ was like a neatly maintained sand pit, with a huge green screen around it.
Sitting in the centre of it now was the man playing adult Armin and a blonde guy with a beard they called ‘uncle Zeke’. Eren still wasn’t completely sure what his role in the plot was. He wanted to watch the first three seasons so that he’d be able to play his role better, but his mum didn’t let him. Apparently it got really dark. He didn’t really remember what happened during the first episodes he filmed. He was only seven years old at the time.
“Come on,” the blonde interrupted his thoughts.
He looked back at Armin and saw him reaching out his hand, hoping to lift him back onto his feet. Eren took his palm immediately, of course.
As he settled himself on his feet, he looked at his co-star with a cautious expression. “You know when they’re filming our scene? …You know, our last scene?”
Armin shrugged with a half-hearted smile. “Not sure. It’ll probably be a couple of hours. Do you want to hang out until then?”
“Two hours?”
“Yeah, why not?”
His grandfather’s voice called out from a metre away, “we’re not staying for another two hours!”
He pouted, “why not? Please? We’re only going to be filming for another week!”
“You know I have places to be.”
“Yes, grandpa.” He quickly returned his attention to Eren, whispering, “you’re lucky your dad’s in the crew. At least he doesn’t bother you.”
Eren let out a small snicker at his frustrations. He’s never really seen Armin angry before. It’s a pretty funny sight.
Although, something about his tone makes him realise something. This really might be the last week they’ll ever have together. They never had a lot of scenes, but whenever they were on set, they spent the time hanging out. Laughing. Taking photos on their parents’ phones, playing with the make-up, and eating everything on the craft services table.
When this week is done, it’s like his summer camp best friend will be gone for good. That thought makes him ill with sadness.
“Let’s just hang out until you have to go,” Eren suggested. “You want to check out the prop room?”
Armin looked at him with excitement in his eyes. “Yeah!”
Just as the next scene began to film, the two of them snuck away into the wide-open prop room, full to the brim with all kinds of amazing trinkets. On every spot of the wall, there was a different artefact from the storyline - bottles of wine, scarves, cloaks, syringes, baseballs, guns of every shape and size. Armin’s eyes were drawn to the towering bookshelf, packed with novels. Each of them were designed to look old and worn out. Some even had sprawls of ink in an alien language. As he picked through the books, Eren gawked at the many, many different types of weaponry.
Armin flinched when he found one particular novel, sitting up on the shelf. “Woah…!”
“I know, right?” the brunette gawked. “Check out how many guns there are in here! Rifles and pistols and- oh- are these those thunder spears the director was talking about?! Cool!”
He glanced up at him for half a second. “Ah- yeah, cool. But check this out.”
Eren turned to face him. The boy was flicking through the pages of a black and white book. He landed on a page and turned it to him, showing off a recognisable page about the ocean.
“Remember this? According to this book, the majority of the world is covered in a body of water called the ocean! That was the first time we ever filmed together!”
“Oh, yeah. I remember that. We had to do twenty takes ‘cause we kept forgetting our lines.” He smiled at the memory. “Hey, was that scene important to the show? The head writer guy really wanted us to get it right.”
“What? They reference it all the time. Haven’t you seen the show?”
He pouted, “my mum said it’s too gorey.”
“Oh. It was pretty dark. I sorta like it though. It reminds me of when we were kids.”
Eren paused, looking into his eyes. He grew up pretty fast since the last time he saw him. At thirteen years old, his voice had already started to crack, and he was taller than he was before.
“We still kind of are,” he reasoned. “We’re not even in high school yet.”
“I will be next year.” Armin slightly smiled. “I think it’s time I let my kid years go.”
The brunette boy stared back at him. At his co-star - his friend - that he’s known for half of his life. It hurts a bit, being left in the dust like this.
Without thinking for even one more second, Eren grasped one of the prop swords and passed it to him. He caught it mid-air, just as the brunette went to grab a second. “Eren? What the heck are you-?”
“We’re not gonna be kids for much longer,” he grinned mischievously. “Let’s have a little sword fight like the good old days!”
He laughed and went to debate that, but the boy was already swinging at him with the sword. Armin dodged, holding out his plastic piece and slamming it against Eren’s.
“You mean the ‘sword fights’ that got us in heaps of trouble?” Armin chuckled. Despite his apprehension, he went on the attack, swinging out at the brunette this time. “Is that really the best idea?”
“I think so!”
“Pfft!” he narrowly missed Eren, hitting the air as the boy skips back a few paces. Toying with him. “You’re so going down!”
Three minutes later, a prop manager came in through the door, and caught the two tweens on the floor, laughing like little kids. They got a slap on the wrist from the director that time, though. Maybe just because he thought it was a little funny.