Work Text:
when you went away it was morning
(that is,big horses;light feeling up
streets;heels taking derbies (where?) a pup
hurriedly hunched over swill
- when you went away it was morning, e. e. cummings
They’re in a memory. Eren knows it’s a memory because it’s filtered through the weird haze of past, and the air smells different, like salt or forgetting. “Why are we here?”
“I’m showing you everything, brother. Grisha was a terrible parent. He’s the one who made us this way.”
“What way?” Eren asks, but no answer comes. “I’m super normal and chill. If you ignore the Rumbling. But like, come on.”
But the memory doesn’t feature their father. It instead features Eren, fifteen years old and awkward, with too-long limbs, sitting uncomfortably at a movie theater. He holds a bucket of popcorn for Mikasa, and he’s not watching the movie, but instead he’s watching Mikasa’s pretty made-up face, the projector light illuminating her heavy eyeliner just so. Teenage Eren’s arm teeters, uncertain, around Mikasa’s seat. He grasps the back of it with his finger and thumb.
“Ew,” said Zeke. “You wanted to kiss her?”
“Please,” said Eren. “Just show me what’s important, please.”
“No, wait, let’s talk about this,” Zeke says.
“Let’s not,” Present Eren whispers, as Teenage Gangly Eren goes for a kiss on the mouth and instead eats a kernel of popcorn out of her hand. She doesn’t seem to notice, aside from—wait, is it there? A small smile? Oh my Walls, did Mikasa like him back all this time?
“You wanted to kiss a girl. You know what that leads to?” Zeke, the only corporeal thing here, is agitated, gesticulating. “It leads to REPRODUCTION. THE EVIL OF ALL EVILS, for an ELDIAN. Also, VENEREAL DISEASE.”
“What’s venereal,” says Eren, absentminded, because sexual education is basically non-existent in Paradis and certainly neither Shadis nor Levi nor Erwin taught him anything. (Hange did try to do one lesson, but it was mostly Titan-related, now that Eren thinks about it.)
“Do you not know ANYTHING?! You could have jeopardized my beautiful plan! To make no more of us! We are monsters!”
“Wait,” says Eren, not listening. “I gotta stop the Rumbling. I gotta call Mikasa. Fuck, the last thing I texted her was ‘u up’. No wonder she didn’t respond.”
“Wait, the Rumbling? What? But what about our beautiful plan?”
The memory switches. Now they’re seventeen and Eren’s lying on a beach with Armin, sunbathing. Well, he is sunbathing, but Armin is describing the peculiarities of seashells and categorizing them. Teenage Eren listens wide-eyed to Armin’s voice like it’s a siren song.
“I could also call Armin,” Eren says, blushing. “He’ll pick up.”
“I simply don’t understand why people want to share spit.” Zeke sighs, knowing he’s lost the battle. “You could still get VENEREAL DISEASE, but at least that will prevent reproduction.”
“Wait, it will?” Eren says.
Zeke stares at him. “You truly don’t know anything, do you?”
The memory switches again. Now they’re watching the Liberio Beasts’ baseball game. We know this because that’s what their tees say: Liberio Beasts.
“Now here, here is something truly interesting, truly pleasurable,” says Zeke, and strokes his furry little beard. “Finally. Let’s watch baseball.”
Eren spends the next four hours listening to Zeke stop and start the memory, describing every play in excruciating detail.
“Fuck my life,” Eren says. But then, a sliver of joy: two new texts on his brand new FreedomPhone. Armin and Mikasa.
From the stands, Zeke's beardlike voice: “Are you paying attention? Cause I'll quiz you later.”
"Fuck my life," Eren reiterates. But he calls off the Rumbling, at least. He's got some sexy texts to reply to.