fiddlestick | aefenglom IC Inbox

Yes, but I won’t tell you. I’ll show you.

[......]

Okay?

[Never knew Eren was into pictionary, but sure whatever]

[ the most insane game of pictionary yet. and since they’re bonded, if eren allows it— the gates are open to a memory that comes like the stab of a knife. there’re four sitting on the table, counting eren, and elliot may be sitting among them as if he were there. a young blond man, mikasa, a girl no older than twelve, terrified, and shivering as she stared at the man with his hair in a bun and his hand cleanly sliced, bleeding on the surface.

they all have their hands on the table. they all look petrified. eren speaks and the words are jumbled— he’s not showing him everything, it seems. that information was irrelevant. but he’s cold. mikasa attempts to speak, attempts to smile weakly, gestures to the bright red scarf around her neck— until eren’s mouth moves, his eyes narrow, and she sits back down with wide, wide eyes. his aura is direct and savage, making them flinch. especially her. the more eren talks, the more he delivers unemotional blows, the words become clear at one point: ever since i was a kid, mikasa. i’ve always hated you.

you can pinpoint the exact moment her heart shatters, and her eyes fill with tears. the blond makes to strike him from over the table (eren, how dare you—), but eren remains, unmoving, as if he knew— mikasa drives her friend into the table, and immediately stands stunned. the friend who was actually trying to protect her and she—

see? all you’ve ever done was live according to what— has told you to do. mikasa stutters, denying it quietly, but the heartbreak in her is far mor apparent when she recoils into herself, and sobs when eren delivers the final strike: that’s all you are. it’s when armin releases himself from her grin, flips the table, and punches eren right between the eyes. he doesn’t fight back, not yet. he takes an array of blows that cracks his nose and throws him into wine glasses, again and again, as if he deserved it. they all shatter—

and so does the memory. the after feeling that settles is not of the same hate that eren twisted his words into. it’s simply . . . an empty feeling.

he’s trusting elliot with this. ]

[Whatever Elliot wasn't expecting, it wasn't to have his vision be overtaken by a memory. One moment he's sitting in his room, the next he's transported to another place, another time. At least he's experienced something like this before, so it isn't as jarring but it was still surreal.

He can only watch the memory play out. The blond boy he recognizes from one of Mikasa's memories earlier, and Mikasa doesn't seem that much younger. This must've happened recently. And even though he barely knows the people in this memory except Eren, it's still...so painful to watch. It's painful to watch Mikasa get her heart broken. To watch Armin fly into a rage. To watch Eren be so cold and hostile to people who were clearly once so important to him.

...

Yeah. He's seen something like this play out before. A different situation, a different setting...but the beats were the same.

When the memory fades away, there's a moment pause before he finally responds.]

You were lying. You never hated her.

[ there’s something that feels clenched in his gut— he has not only shown elliot something his, for the first time, but mikasa completely vulnerable. it was a double edged invasion of privacy, but— it was better than his words of explanation. nothing else would be able to explain. just that. it hurt him. he didn’t show it but it ripped his heart in more than two pieces. into many, from the second he was responsible for sasha. he loved them all beyond words, but worse would be if they still stuck beside him. he’s going places he doesn’t want them to follow. ]

If you could help it, I don’t exist here. [ and, a moment that makes his throat feel tight and his heart plunge: ] Please.

She’s not ready and neither am I.

[There's a pause on his end, because boy, this is a lot of unpack. He feels for Eren and he feels for Mikasa, but...this solution doesn't sit right with him]

I won't say anything.

[To make that clear]

But is that really your plan? Pretend you're not here and hope everyone whose ever met you plays along?

Are you planning to ever be ready?

[ yes ]

I don't know when she's from and she smells like fae. I ate the last fae we dreamed about without thinking twice.

Until I figure this out, I can't risk her survival.

Keeping her in the dark won't keep her safe from that, Eren.

What if someone tells her that you're here, and she decides to go looking for you before you're "ready"? She could walk right into a very dangerous situation.

After what I did, I don't think so. Honestly, she's easily capable of killing me.

You don't have the whole picture. At least trust what I gave you.

Edited 2020-02-05 14:56 (UTC)

[Yeah...there's no way that girl's going to kill him, no matter what Eren tells himself]

You don't know that for sure. We went after Crow, even after everything he did.

I don't. But I don't think you have the whole picture either.

[ there’s silence, but only in text. eren reads and rereads and— if she went after him, or they, after everything— he did something wrong. he fucked something up. it’s all a possibility but it’s one that feels like a pitchfork was stabbed into his belly and someone was dragging the rest out mercilessly. himself, maybe.

and now she’s fae, the scent barely there but enough to remind him of the fizzy tang of exoskeleton and liquid between his teeth. he wouldn’t try to eat her if he were lucid enough, the true fae had simply bothered him. but what if he imprisoned her (~~again~~)? what if, what if, what if? he was already following her when she wasn’t looking. his feelings are tangled in a web of possibilities and all he could feel was— what was he feeling?

it wasn’t regret. it wasn’t disdain. ya boi’s simply sad and confused. ]

Did she have a scarf anywhere?

[ change of subject, but important. eren didn’t see one, but he had to be sure it wasn’t resting anywhere after getting drunk on milk. ]

[He can't say he's surprised by Eren's sadness and confusion. Eren liked to think he had handles on situations, but sometimes? That simply wasn't possible. Sure. It was possible that Mikasa might want nothing to do with him again.

But he doubts it. Bonds like that aren't so easily severed.]

She didn't.

Honestly, she was acting like someone who had a break up when we talked about Bonds. Seems like she's refusing to get one. She's looking into alternatives at least, but...

[That's going to be a worry]

I'd be willing to bet she remembers the fight.

[ careful, elliot. not everyone is you. ]

I wouldn’t blame her. [ not when he made it seem like he enslaved her— not that he made that information readily available to elliot. jumbled up words and out of context clues weren’t enough to point to anything solid. ] She’ll come around to it. For now, that’s all I need to know.

[Yeah but that's why he's having Crow spy for him to figure out just that. It's fine. ]

Not sure I'd be so optimistic about that.

But you didn't answer me before, are you going to let her know you're here one day?

[ eren laughs ironically at “optimistic”. he’s dead inside. ]

It’s inevitable.

Well that's...something.

[Talk about defeatist. Elliot is tempted to say more, but luckily he has talked to Crow by now, and Crow did point out that maybe Mikasa won't be as forgiving. They don't know yet.]

Well, thanks for letting me know. I'll try to keep quiet about you. But let me know if you need anything, okay?

Something? It’s reality.

[ or was hiding under a rock, forever, a possibility? not the first or the last time his directness is considered pessimistic, even when he was nine. fifteen. seventeen. temporary as it was— eren already told elliot once before: he doesn’t want forgiveness to begin with. if anything, he’s glad she’s upset. it means he did something right. wrong. you know what? whatever. either way it went, even if it upsets him deeply, he’s relieved about the ill-feeling. something god damn twisted to be feeling relieved about, but that’s how the story goes. her feelings down a drain and her scarf in the trash. ]

Thanks.

[ that’s really all he wanted in the end, but unasked opinions would always be littered in between the second he opened up. it makes him wonder for a second, if he made the right choice in saying anything at all. it makes him think if he should be going at things alone again because no one could be trusted with his intimacy but himself. it’s in elliot’s hand now, and after this— he still doesn’t feel as emotionally safe as he would humanly like to be. judgement follows left and right. or was he just projecting? maybe he’ll never be, with anyone. maybe he needs a double? bad idea. cut off all his bonds? also bad idea. emotions . . . relationships . . . they’re all complicated and eren is constipated on both accounts.

it’s easier when you just fuck.

he’ll find out. whether he closes off further for a while or manages to stay the same would depend heavily on how much he doesn’t want to hear a single drop more of how much he’s wrong. ]

Sure. I'll see you later.

[He leaves the conversation there and feels ... tired. He can tell Eren didn't like his opinions, it was obvious enough. But...Eren so rarely liked his opinions whenever things got Real. Where Class VII thrived on hearing different perspectives to help make decisions, Eren seemed to shun them more and more.

Ah well, he's not going to take it personally this time since he knows Eren is upset about his friend showing up. Eren may be off doing...whatever it is he does, but at least Elliot had some plan to handle things, for now]

Edited 2020-02-07 04:00 (UTC)

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