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Armin’s shoulders slumped in relief as he finally dismounted his horse, boots hitting the ground with a dull thump. For the first time since the start of their expedition, Armin felt his breath come easy.
The mission was supposed to be simple, just scouting a lookout the Survey Corps had lost after the fall of Wall Maria. Commander Erwin had sent them off with a sound plan and mostly competent soldiers.
The weather had been pleasant, a clear sky with a favorable wind. Even Captain Levi had been in a good mood. Though Armin suspected his unusual disposition may have had something to do with the way he’d snuck out of the Commander’s quarters that morning.
The horses had been surprisingly calm, patient under the hands of the clumsy recruits they usually nipped at. It truly seemed like the odds weren’t stacked against them for once, and Armin had had high hopes for the reconnaissance. He should have known everything would go to shit.
They had been interrupted by a small group of titans, which on their own wouldn’t have caused a major issue. The problem came when two abnormals charged their formation, forcing them to split up.
Armin had panicked, caught off guard by the sudden attack and had nearly gotten himself trampled by one of the titans. Captain Levi had shouted out an order to break formation, to use whatever means necessary to stay alive.
Armin caught the Captain’s gaze as the horses scattered. He nodded to Armin, trusting him to do something, though Armin wasn’t quite sure what. Regardless, the acknowledgement from his superior was enough to spur him forward.
Armin followed Eren, Mikasa, and Jean, urging his horse into a sprint to catch up. One of the abnormals had followed them, standing at a proud 15 meters and stumbling forward faster than the four of them could gallop. A nine meter trailed behind it, barreling toward them with its arms outstretched. They didn’t have a lot of time before the abnormal caught up with them, and as good as Mikasa was, she couldn’t handle that titan alone.
Armin tried desperately to think of a logical plan, adrenaline coursing through his veins and fogging up his thoughts. His comrades’ lives were at stake and he could do nothing but grit his teeth and hope the pressure would be enough to clear his head.
Dread settled heavily in his stomach, weighing him down against the hard leather of his saddle. Years of training had not prepared him to fight, they had prepared him to die. He was going to die, and his inability to simply think would take his friends down alongside him.
He’d been startled out of his head by Jean shouting. He was pointing ahead, where two more titans had begun to run at them. The situation was getting worse by the second. Armin felt tears prickling at the corners of his eyes, heat rising to his ears in humiliation.
He’d forced his dream on Eren and Mikasa. He had been the one to convince them that the world outside the Walls held anything other than death and fear. It was his fault that they ended up joining the Scouts, and that they would have to die forgotten in an unnamed field. They should have left him where they found him, bruised and crying on the cobblestones of Shiganshina.
At the sound of his name, Armin’s head shot up. Eren was looking at him, determination and trust in his eyes. Those eyes held an entire world, reflected and refracted in his green irises. Armin wanted so badly to fall into them, to be distorted in the grooves of color and molded into the comfort of familiarity.
They had never discussed the nature of their relationship, and they’d never felt the need to. Over the years their handholding had turned to kisses, those kisses to heated words and wandering hands. It just felt like the natural order of things, graceless and timid as they were. They loved each other, and that much was enough for them.
When they first joined the military, the other cadets immediately noticed how close they were, far too close to simply be friends. In the refugee camps, everyone was too exhausted and starved to bat an eye at two boys who had found comfort in each other. Now however, surrounded by boys their age who didn’t know the pain of hunger or the bone deep ache of labor, their every interaction was scrutinized.
Armin had never truly cared about the opinions of his peers. Their whispered judgement and half-hidden laughs couldn’t break through the carefully constructed refuge hidden under the blankets of Eren’s cot.
Even if they gathered the courage to confront Armin, he knew Eren wouldn’t be far behind, ready to defend him. Though after news spread about Eren’s titan abilities, the confrontations stopped altogether.
Armin blinked away the hazy memories and nodded at Eren, understanding the silent assurance he was being offered. The heaviness in his stomach twisted, warm and fluttering as it rose to his ribcage. He chose to ignore the burning in his cheeks and instead forced himself to think about the situation at hand. The plan that came to him was half-assed and flimsy, but it was better than nothing.
He yelled at Eren to transform and take on the abnormal. He had been worried about Eren’s ability to actually win in a one-on-one fight with a titan his size, but he had to trust that he would, there was no other option. He told Mikasa to take the titan behind them, while he and Jean would go ahead to the approaching group. It was incredibly risky, stupid even, but between his own panic and the fear of losing his friends it was all he could come up with.
Mikasa nodded at him, quickly turning her horse to charge the titans chasing them. Armin trusted her, but he couldn’t help the protective clench of his chest as she sped off. He looked over to Eren just as he sank his teeth into his palm, transforming with a bright flash and a burst of heat.
His titan roared as its flesh materialized, sinews intertwining and pulsing with life. The titan spared a glance at Armin before following Mikasa, its giant steps shaking the ground. Armin watched as his two best friends, his only family, ran away from him to face what could very well be their deaths. The thought made bile rise to the back of his throat.
Jean came up beside him, thumping his fist against Armin’s shoulder. Armin turned to send him a small smile, nervous and hesitant. The silent reassurance was enough to gather a small bit of courage. Armin reached out to grab the bridle of Eren’s abandoned horse, following Jean as he galloped away.
They approached the first titan. At only three meters it would be easy enough for Jean to kill, but the titan behind it would pose a threat. If it attacked Jean while he was in the air he wouldn’t be able to defend himself, and Armin knew he was useless in combat.
In a moment of rash thinking, Armin dropped his hold on Eren’s horse to charge at the larger titan. If he could distract it long enough for Jean to dispatch the first titan, he could at least give them a better shot. He just hoped Jean would understand what to do without Armin telling him. The titan was roughly five meters in height, with one of its yellow eyes drooping shut. Armin led his horse in winding loops around it, hoping that the extra movement would draw the titan toward him and away from Jean.
On a particularly sharp turn, he saw Jean deal a killing blow to the three meter. Hips jutting ahead of his shoulders as his blades sliced cleanly through the nape. Its body crumpled to the ground and steam began to rise from the fresh wound. Jean landed with a heaviness that betrayed his exhaustion, hands shaking as he swapped his blades.
Armin came back to himself and narrowly avoided the fat-fingered hand reaching for him, ducking against the muscled back of his mare. He pulled her reins to the right, hoping to direct the titan closer to Jean. As expected, it followed his movement and began to stumble forward.
Jean ejected the hooks of his ODM gear, the snares piercing the bicep of the titan. Its half-open eye lazily tracked him as the momentum swung him up, before gravity pulled him toward the titan’s neck. Again, Jean sliced through the muscle with ease, the chunk of flesh falling to the ground with a wet thump.
Panting, Armin looked back to where they had left Mikasa and Eren. As expected, Mikasa was holding her own, spinning through the air with a speed he hadn’t previously known to be possible. Steam emanated from the wounds Mikasa had carved into the titan. He watched as she twisted rapidly, forcing her blades through the fat and muscle bulging at the titan’s nape. It collapsed gracelessly, one arm bent awkwardly behind its back.
Eren wasn’t doing too poorly either. He had the abnormal’s head locked against his chest, his arm wrapped tightly around its fat neck. Eren dug his heels into the ground, trying to steady his footing despite the titan’s aggressive flailing.
Armin’s heart dropped with every minute stumble of Eren’s titan, afraid that any slip could be his last. He forced himself to look at Jean, who stumbled as he landed. His ankle rolled out, body following the painful movement.
Armin jumped from his horse, rushing over to check on him. He grunted out that he was fine, though Armin palpated his ankle just to be sure. Armin breathed out a sigh of relief when it seemed that he was, in fact, fine. He brought Jean’s arm over his shoulders and dragged him over to his horse. It was grazing nearby, unaffected by the rapidly disintegrating titan just a few meters away.
Jean’s weight pressed heavily against Armin’s side, nearly too much for him to support. He let Jean shift his weight to balance against the horse as he knelt, lacing his finger together to create a foothold. Jean gingerly stepped onto Armin’s hands with his good foot, pushing off to swing his leg over the horse. As he settled, Armin rubbed at his arms, which would definitely be sore tomorrow.
Armin grunted as he climbed onto his own horse, smoothing a hand down her coarse mane and catching his breath. He guided her to Eren’s gelding, reaching for his loose reins. The horse nosed at Armin’s hand, having come to expect stolen treats from him. Armin huffed before firmly grasping the worn leather of his tack.
The familiar roar of Eren’s titan made his head turn. Expecting the worst, Armin prepared the horses to run, only to see Eren holding the decapitated head of the abnormal. He swung it by the hair, howling in victory.
Armin deflated, air rushing from his lungs and anxiety seeping out of his shoulders. He felt an incessant itch to go to his friends, to touch and look at them and be certain that they were truly unharmed. He forced himself to wait until Jean came up beside him, before galloping back toward them.
Relief flooded his system. His plan had worked, by some miracle, and everyone was still alive. A laugh bubbled out of his throat and Armin could hardly suppress it, euphoric with the knowledge that he hadn’t gotten them killed. Jean was grinning beside him, cheeks flushed with exertion and triumph.
As they approached, Armin slid off his horse to wrap his arms around Mikasa. He squeezed her shoulders, feeling her rapid heartbeat against his own chest. She murmured a reassurance in his ear, gently stroking his hair. She appeared unharmed, though Armin knew her penchant for hiding injuries. He made a mental note to force her into whatever makeshift infirmary the Corps would set up.
One of Eren’s large fingers came down to carefully pet his head. Armin smiled at him, lifting a hand to drag his fingers along his nail. Seemingly satisfied, though Armin didn’t quite know with what, Eren rose to his full height. He grunted, pointing to a line of green signal flares in the distance.
They hadn’t drifted too far from the group, but it would still take them close to an hour to catch up. Armin called up, telling Eren to remain in his titan form in case they encountered any more trouble. The titan had nodded firmly, squaring his shoulders. Armin couldn’t hold back a small chuckle, pleased with how receptive Eren was in this form. The three of them took off in the direction of the flares, Eren’s footsteps thundering behind them all the way.
As they approached the camp the Survey Corps had begun to erect, they were greeted with wary glances. They passed through the broken gate of a crumbling hamlet, old blood staining the stone buildings a murky brown. The dirt path was uneven where giant footsteps had formed craters. It must have been quite a lovely place at one point, Armin thought.
The soldiers around them stopped their preparations to tense, shoulders coming up to their ears at the sight of Eren’s titan in their midst. Sasha and Connie ran to them, overjoyed to see their group in one piece. Armin fidgeted with his uniform as Jean began to recount their expedition to them. He was greatly exaggerating Armin’s own contribution to their success, but he couldn’t help giggling when Sasha pinched his cheeks and Connie ruffled his hair.
Mikasa squeezed the back of his neck as she walked by to stable the horses, her silent way of saying she was proud. Armin flushed what he was sure was a deep crimson. The other new recruits seemed to calm slightly after hearing Jean’s words, and they too began to approach Armin.
One of them stuck out his hand, which Armin gingerly shook. Like a broken dam, chatter erupted from the people around him. Compliments and admiration surrounded him, the flattery flustering him further. The overlapping voices bounced off each other, becoming increasingly difficult to make out as the group compressed around him.
A loud high pitched whine was quick to silence them. Armin turned around to see Eren, still in titan from, with his large hands clasped and head hung low. If he had lips, Armin was sure he would certainly be pouting.
For as long as Armin could remember, Eren had loved attention. It had been more obvious when he was a child, still unapologetic about his wants. Armin could never read without Eren’s head appearing on his shoulder, sighing until Armin started to read out loud for the both of them. Whenever they walked, Eren’s left hand would reach for his, grasping Armin’s fingers tightly as though the breeze would blow him away.
As they grew older, Eren had started to hide those habits in public, if only to appear tougher. Armin never took it personally, but seeing Eren in his titan form, free from the hesitation he’d adopted, made warmth bloom in Armin’s chest.
Armin excused himself from the scouts around him, walking over to where Eren was sulking. As he approached, the titan immediately brightened. His wide eyes tracked Armin, unblinking as he came to a stop a few meters away.
Armin rested his hands on his hips, tilting his head to look up at his best friend. He couldn’t help the grin that split his face, pleased with how much his presence affected the titan.
“Care to bring me up?” he shouted, delighted at how quickly Eren responded. He knelt, extending one large palm flat against the ground. Armin held onto his forefinger to steady himself, gently stepping onto the warm flesh. Eren’s other hand came up behind him, making sure Armin wouldn’t fall as he brought his hands to his face. Armin rocked slightly as the motion rippled the muscles in Eren’s hands. He pressed himself against the fingers at his back, bracing his body against the solid heat.
Eren’s bright green eyes appeared before him, shining in the late afternoon sun. Armin couldn’t help but stare. While Eren’s eyes were normally captivating, his titan form allowed Armin to look even deeper. The furrows of color were so much more pronounced at this scale, rippling as his pupils dilated. Thin red veins branched across the whites of his eyes, faintly pulsing with blood.
A warm puff of air ruffled Armin’s hair, startling a laugh out of him. If Armin had learned one thing in his life, it was that Eren was impatient. It was funny to see just how human Eren’s titan was, how well he retained the traits that Armin had come to love.
His large sharp nose nudged at Armin’s chest, demanding his attention. Armin laughed, stumbling forward to press his hands against the cartilage. He smoothed his palms along the length of skin, before looking back to the titan’s eyes.
“Thank you, Eren. You did a very good job today” he said. In lieu of a response, Eren pressed his nose further into Armin’s hands, closing his eyes as a warm purr rumbled out of his throat. Armin continued to pet him, fingers tracing the web of capillaries woven under his skin.
The adrenaline of a nearly failed mission had long left him, sapping the energy from his limbs. The warmth surrounding him caused his eyes to droop, loosening his aching muscles. He wouldn’t mind falling asleep like this, safe where Eren had him cupped against his face. Armin could trust Eren to watch over him, as he had for years.
Just as he started to slump against Eren’s cheek, a loud shout caught his attention. Armin turned to pry apart Eren’s fingers, looking down to see where the noise had come from. The titan tilted his head to the side, keeping his hands steady while peering at the ground.
Captain Levi glared up at them, his scowl visible even from Eren’s height. Armin’s heart dropped to his stomach. The Captain had most certainly heard about the mess they’d gotten themselves into. Eren wasn’t supposed to transform without the Captain’s orders, and Armin had told him to do it.
The sudden fear of being discharged struck him. He’d been insubordinate, defying orders and rules that were strictly enforced. What would he even do when he was sent back? He only had Eren and Mikasa, everyone else had left or died. He wouldn’t be able to find work that wasn’t manual labor, something he’d vowed to never endure again. He would die, alone and hungry, and his body would rot in a forgotten alley, far from anything he could call home.
Captain Levi yelled up again, demanding that Eren put him down. The titan grunted, bringing his hands close to his chest and curling his fingers tighter over Armin. The sudden movement brought him to his knees, fully hidden in the warm cocoon of Eren’s hold. Thin slivers of light filtered through the small gaps between Eren’s fingers, obscuring the outside world from Armin’s view.
“You might have grown some, but you’re still a brat. Put him down, Jaeger. That’s an order!” Levi shouted. Armin tried to swallow around the anxiety swelling in his throat, mouth dry and tacky. The steady thud of Eren’s heart permeated through his chest, the vibration traveling along his hands and into Armin’s limbs. He focused on the persistent rhythm, anything to calm his own racing heartbeat.
Eren roared, presumably at Levi. The muscles of his chest contracted, shrinking the already limited space Armin had to breathe. The heat radiating from Eren’s flesh became suffocating, weighing down Armin’s lungs when he tried to inhale.
He thumped his fist against the thick flesh behind him, trying to get Eren’s attention. A small gap opened above him, light and fresh air flooding the overheated space. Those shimmering green eyes appeared, narrowing beneath his furrowed brows.
“I need to breathe, Eren,” he explained, pressing a hand to his own chest. The titan promptly whimpered, opening his hands further so Armin could get all the air he wanted. Armin thanked him, leaning heavily against Eren’s chest as he caught his breath. Eren tilted his head from side to side, searching for any sign that something was wrong. His long hair brushed over Armin’s shoulders as he moved, tickling the sensitive skin of his neck.
“Don’t make me repeat myself, Jaeger! Put him down before I come up there to cut you out and watch him drop 15 meters!” This certainly prompted Eren to move. He knelt again, pressing the backs of his hands against the ground and sending Armin a particularly apologetic look.
Armin was sure he looked a mess as he stepped off of Eren’s hands, cheeks red and hair mussed. He straightened himself before his superior, saluting firmly. The Captain looked him up and down before bringing a hand to Armin’s shoulder. Armin braced himself, expecting the worst.
“Good work, kid. You saved your comrades, you should be proud,” he said, voice low. Armin crumpled under his words, gaze dropping to his feet. He nearly fell to his knees as his previous panic fled him. He had been expecting a prompt dismissal, only to be met with praise from the one person who never spoke a kind word to anyone.
Armin’s jaw hung open, mouth moving around silent words as he tried to form a coherent thought. He looked up at his Captain, almost offended to see amusement in his eyes. Armin felt like the butt of some grand joke that he was too stupid to understand. Surely there had to be some repercussion for his actions? There was no way the Captain would let him off the hook that easily.
“Go eat, then come find me to give a mission report,” he stated, gently shoving Armin by the shoulder. He stumbled slightly, dazed by the overwhelming mix of emotions flowing through him. Armin managed to mumble out some gratitude he hoped was intelligible, before staggering toward the center of camp.
He looked back to see Eren sitting on the ground, arms crossed and petulant, with his head turned away from the Captain. From the way steam plumed out of his nose, Armin assumed he’d huffed. He was so terribly stubborn, but by the Walls was it endearing.
“Get out of that damn titan, Jaeger!” Levi shouted. A laugh escaped Armin’s chest, startling him and the scouts nearby. He ducked his head and hurried off to find the supply of rations, embarrassment painting his face red yet again.
Eren would come find him later, likely after receiving a scolding from the Captain. He would come to Armin grumpy, pouting like the child he never got to be. Armin would take him in his arms and pet along his back until Eren melted into him. It was a routine that Armin knew well, movements he had practiced and perfected in the time they’d known each other.
Eren would press a kiss to his neck, then two, then three. Armin would devolve into giggles at the featherlight touch, pushing at Eren’s chest halfheartedly. Eren would pick him up and carry him to an overgrown pasture, and he’d kiss Armin stupid. They’d lay beneath the stars in the warm summer air and Armin would turn to look at him, filled with enough love to last him an eternity. He’d linger in that moment, content to think of nothing but Eren and the trail of drool steadily trickling down his cheek.