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#attack on titan part 3
faithful91 · 6 months
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"Stay Alive. That's An Order." ~ Levi
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Attack On Titan Final Season (Part 3)
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thatgloomybitch · 10 months
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It was short but these frames worth the long waiting 😭
My boy, what have they done to you?
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Ps. Look a those beautiful yet painfully sad blue eyes
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dystopicbrain · 1 year
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newannyork · 1 year
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Angels playing disguised with devil's faces
Children cling to their coins squeezing out their wisdom
Angels planning disguised with devil's faces
Children cling on to their very last coins
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anabotti · 6 months
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cinematic parallels
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happybird16 · 1 year
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Going into the paths to give our man a hug because he deserves it
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ackerteasstuff · 6 months
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Levi and Hange at New attack on titan opening!!!
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they knew how to serve the power duo
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blckbrdlove · 6 months
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cause i don’t want you like a best friend
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paring: eren jeager x reader
summary: despite telling eren you want to take things slowly, the two of you jump into a relationship. much to mikasa’s dismay, the two of you seem very happy.
genre: fluff, smut, angst (for mikasa)
notes: PART TWO IS FINALLY HERE!!!!! i am so so sorry it took so long! life is crazy but i am trying. please keep in mind that there is still a lot coming. i am also not a mikasa hater, this is just a work fiction. any and all feedback is always appreciated! i will tag everyone on the tag list in the comments when i get a little more time later today! i have a few errand to run. as always, this probably needs more editing. title credits; dress; taylor swift
warnings: minors dni, fluff, quick getting into a relationship, newly established relationships, eren is a hopeless romantic, eren is a gentleman, eren is a sweet boy, eren falls in love with reader basically at first sight and has been smitten with her ever since, reader recently got out of a toxic relationship and is still healing- but is also very smitten with eren, unrequited love (mikasa), mentions of creampie, jealousy, smut, oral (f receiving), fingering (f receiving), cucking (? mikasa listens while they fuck in a bathroom, and through the wall while they fuck), reader is implied to be bisexual, reader is very femme, reader gives mikasa a slight sexual awakening?, implied slut shaming from mikasa about reader.
word count: 9.3k
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He’s late. Mikasa thinks to herself as she keeps looking at the entrance of the diner they eat at nearly every week.
“Where the hell is Eren?” Connie is the one to vocalize her thoughts, a twinge of annoyance in his tone as they’ve been sitting there for fifteen minutes waiting for him.
Before anyone can say anything else, the door chimes, signaling that someone’s walked in. Mikasa’s face lights up instantly when she sees Eren, and she doesn’t notice the look of hurt that’s cross Jean’s as he sits across the table from her.
Mikasa’s smile turns into a frown once she notices that Eren has you with him. You’ve got on a cropped light blue sweater with some light wash jeans, and the white sneakers you’re wearing have, what she can only assume to be hand painted, blue butterflies. Your makeup is, surprisingly, minimal. Just some light gloss and neutral eyeshadow that has a pop of blue in the inner corner.
Eren has a sheepish half smile on his face as his free hand scratches the back of his neck, “I hope you guys don’t mind, but I invited a, uh, friend to join us,”
You give a shy, half smile and a small wave, “I hope I’m not intruding, I told Eren we could always hang out later. He kind of insisted though,” As you look at Eren, your half smile turns into a dazzling, perfect smile. Eren grins right back at you just as brightly.
Armin goes to speak up, but Mikasa beats him to it, “Well you’re already here. So,” Her tone has everyone’s eyes narrowing in confusion as you look at Eren with a confused grin.
“Of course you’re welcome to eat with us!” Armin interjects before anyone can say anything else can say anything, causing Eren to smile softly at him before shooting a glare Mikasa’s way as he pulls out a chair for you next to Armin and sliding into the chair next to you.
Everyone notices the change in Mikasa’s mood, but no one comments on it. Sasha eyes you from across the table curiously, “Have we met before?”
You tilt your head to the side as you study her, she looks familiar but not enough for you to say you know her. Your eyes avert to the two boys at each of her side before you smile halfheartedly, “Hey you guys are on the football team, right?”
Jean nods as Connie loudly exclaims hell yeah, what about it. You shake your head and look back at Sasha, realization flooding you as you fight back a loud laugh. God, Hitch would have a field day with this one. “You got extremely, and I mean extremely drunk at a party after playoffs last year. Somehow you ended up in the kitchen with me and you kept eating my sandwiches. Even proclaimed your love for me, and offered to, in your words, eat me out for an extra dessert, when I gave you the cookies I had made for some of my friends.”
Jean and Connie bust out laughing at your confession while Sasha’s face heats up in semi-embarrassment. “Oh my god, that’s where that bag of cookies came from?”
Mikasa lets out a scoff at Connie’s words. Of fucking course you bake, just a real Suzie Homemaker. Eren’s head snaps in her direction, before looking over to you to make sure you were still engrossed in conversation with the three across the table; observing the way your eyes light up as you tease Sasha and tell her not to worry, you know you’re easy to fall in love with.
Yeah, you got that right, he thinks to himself.
Averting his attention back to Mikasa, a harsh whisper leaves his mouth, “What the fuck is your problem?” Mikasa’s eyes widen at Eren’s tone. Sure, she’s familiar with Eren’s hotheaded attitude after knowing him her whole life, but she can only count on one hand the number of times it’s been directed at her.
“W-what?” She honestly doesn’t remember what he said. Eren rolls his eyes, annoyed. “What is your problem? You were rude the other morning to her, and now you’re being shitty because Sasha already knows her? What the fuck is your deal?”
From across the table, Jean can tell things are heating up between the two and interjects before they can cause a scene. Despite knowing exactly what they’re arguing, they shouldn’t cause a scene over Mikasa’s one sided feelings in front of you, or in the middle of a restaurant. “Hey, how are your guys’ med school applications going?”
Eren gives Mikasa a look that tells her that their conversation is far from over before turning to Jean and letting out a laugh. “Eh, they’re going on my end, but I only applied to three.”
Your eyes are back on him, brow slightly raised in curiosity. “Oh, which three?” Eren smirks, looking proud of himself and ready to brag, “Harvard, Hopkins, and Stanford.”
His smirk deepens at the impressed look that crosses your face, “Oh, wow! Eren, those are really impressive schools!”
Too engrossed with you, he doesn’t notice the look on Mikasa’s face, but it’s too late and she’s already speaking up. “You didn’t tell me about Harvard and Hopkins?”
Everyone’s eyes are on her, and she tries to cover the distress in her eyes, but everyone notices pretty quickly. Eren’s eyes have confusion in them, “I didn’t know I had to tell you about every school I wanted to apply to?” Sure, it’s nice that they’ve all stuck together this long, but he didn’t expect her to be so upset over the possibility of going to different medical schools. She’s had her heart set on Stanford since she was fifteen anyway.
Your eyes peeking at her over Eren’s shoulder has embarrassment flooding through her, “No, I know. I just thought Stanford was your top pick, is all.” Eren nods, giving her an odd look before turning his body towards you, much like the rest of the table.
Armin speaks up first, awkwardly clearing his throat, “Annie told me you’re an art major?”
An enthusiastic nod comes from you, “Yeah! I plan on going to Italy after I graduate, actually. My mom knows this guy who lives there and he’s an incredible painter. I’d like to spend a summer there to learn from him.”
“That is so cool!” Sasha tells you, “What do you want to do with your degree?” Armin asks you, causing you to frown slightly.
It’s not that you don’t want to work, but you had been with Porco for so long and you guys had plans. He was getting some accounting degree so you could focus on doing things you like, he always told you he would take care of everything else, so long as you are doing something you enjoyed, he couldn’t give a shit. And while the breakup was most definitely for the best, if you’re being honest, you have no idea what you’re going to do with your life.
Both your parents are very empathetic about your situation, and after practically begging you to get out of it and told you multiple times that they’d take care of you no matter what, but you can’t help but feel guilt at the idea of just relying on their money forever. Even if you’ll end up with all of it someday anyway since you’re their only child.
Clearing your throat you look back to Armin and put on a fake smile, “Still to be determined. My mom does some design work, though. So I may work with her for a little bit.” Armin senses he struck a nerve, and before he can say anything else, the waitress comes back to take everyone’s orders.
You order waffle fries and a strawberry milkshake, opting to not embarrass yourself by ordering chicken strips. You would’ve ordered something else, but you didn’t get a chance to google the menu before you got here.
While the rest of your side of the table orders, the ding of the door draws your attention. Seeing Pieck walk in makes you frown, you had forgotten she works her now, not that you know anything about her these days. You’re surprised she even follows you on social media anymore.
Her gaze catches yours, and her eyes widen as she nearly runs into a table trying to get away from your line of sight. You have to refrain from letting out a huff of laughter, god how fucking pathetic. You’re so upset over someone who can’t even look at you? Fuck that and fuck her. Pieck was supposed to be one of your best friends, and sure, she was friends with him first, but you weren’t the only one who got treated like absolute fucking garbage by him. And she’s going to side with him?
Eren senses your mood has dampened slightly, and throws his arm around your shoulders, impulsively nuzzling his nose in your neck. A laugh bubbles out of your mouth at his actions, despite the fact that you try to hold it in.
Your laughter draws Pieck’s attention from the back where she’s hiding, guilt and longing consuming her body. Leaning against the wall, she takes a deep breath as she thinks about how badly she misses you, about how badly she fucked up. She wonders if you think she took Pock’s side in your breakup, and she wishes she could tell you that she hasn’t talked to him since two days after you broke up with him. She just can’t face you, what she did was bad enough. The sad thing is she knows that if she would’ve told you what happened after it had happened, you probably would have forgiven her.
Wiping her face, she sighs and pulls herself together so she can get to work, hoping she can ignore you and the stupid guy that’s latched onto you. What she can’t help but notice is the girl sitting next to him has the same look on her face that she knows she has on her own. Interesting.
Sasha and Connie’s eyes light up when you offer to make the cookies for them again, actually for them this time. The comment causes Sasha to flush in embarrassment despite the teasing wink you send her way.
Eren can’t help but feel his chest warm slightly at the fact you get along with his friends so well practically instantly.
Mikasa’s frown seems almost permanent at this point. Her heart hurts that the one person she wishes would notice doesn’t. The only person that notices is the one she wishes wouldn’t.
εїз
A few hours later, Mikasa is sitting in the living room of their apartment as she goes over advanced organic chemistry notes when Eren walks into the apartment. Trying to seem nonchalant, she doesn’t react despite the anxiety creeping up her chest, knowing he’s still upset about what happened at the diner this afternoon.
Eren does his best to ignore her, extremely hurt by her attitude earlier. He can’t fathom why she would act like that, especially when you were nothing but extremely nice during lunch, and the awkward car ride yesterday morning.
When minutes go by of him not saying anything, she thinks he may actually be seriously mad at her for her behavior. Armin walks out of his room before she can go confront him, asking him about you.
She doesn’t have it in her to listen to their conversation, trying to tune out what she does hear.
I really like her man, but she hasn’t been single long, she wants to take things slow.
Well I think you should lay your feelings on the table.
Coming from you? No offense, but Annie didn’t even know you existed until July.
Yeah, because I reached out to her during our summer class, telling her I liked her.
She tunes out the rest of the conversation, not wanting to listen anymore. She stares at the chemistry definitions and equations until she hears the door to the apartment slam and Armin goes back to his room.
εїз
Hitch walks into the apartment not long after you get home from lunch, sighing loudly before throwing herself on the couch and laying her head in your lap.
“Today was the worst,” She whines while your hum in acknowledgement, sticking your hand in her hair to rub her scalp.
“Agreed,” Her hand finds yours that’s in her hair, lacing her fingers with yours while she looks up at you with a pout. “Why was your day bad?”
A small huff leaves you as you set your phone down, “Eren’s friend seemed less than pleased to have to deal with them having to bring me home yesterday morning, and then today at lunch she seemed pretty mad about my presence.”
Hitch glances up at you with a raised brow, “I could’ve picked you up, but why would that still be bothering you today?”
You shrug before looking down at her, “I don’t know, I mean it’s not like Eren and I have anything but some tension. But I think I like him, I’ve only known him for like, two days though so,”
Hitch rolls her eyes, “Hun, you were with Porco for almost five years, and you were absolutely miserable for two of them. I’m not saying get into an immediate relationship with Eren, but if you like him, you should go out with him.”
Looking down at her with emotion swirling your chest, guilt creeping in, “But won’t it make me a bad person? Jumping into another possible relationship? Situationship?” Whatever it may be, you think to yourself.
Hitch is completely baffled at the thought, because you both know that Porco has been hooking up with girls left and right since coming back to school; a few of them having the nerve to dm you on social media in an attempt to brag. Not that you cared, if anything you’re desperate for him to move on.
She scoffs and sits up and grips your shoulders in her hands, fingers digging in almost painfully. “God no, and fuck anyone who thinks that.”
Despite her attempt at reassuring you, it doesn’t help much. Porco didn’t take your breakup well, at all. He spent two days sleeping on your parent’s porch hoping you would talk to him before your dad threatened to call the cops. The relationship wasn’t good, but you just didn’t want to hurt him anymore than he already is.
And you really don’t want him to try to hurt Eren.
“Why was your day bad?” Curiosity laces your voice. From the looks of her snapchat story last night, she had plenty of fun with Marlo after you left the party.
Groaning, she nuzzles herself back into her neck, “Stupid Marlo.”
Hitch and Marlo have been doing the off and on thing since they met freshman year at orientation. He wasn’t your favorite of Hitch’s boyfriends; you’re honestly surprised she never ended up with Colt.
For whatever reason, she really, really likes Marlo and quickly became attached to him, so you tolerate him like any best friend would. The past year has been weird for them, he’s so back and forth, indecisive about what he wants since graduation is coming up soon.
Running your fingers through her hair you let a sigh leave your mouth. She deserves better.
Lost in her own thoughts, Hitch makes a mental note to stalk all of Eren Jeager and his friends tonight. Just to be safe, she tells herself.
εїз
After Eren rushed out of the apartment, Mikasa immediately went and spent the next few hours lying in bed on her phone. At first she was just trying to distract herself with twitter, but then she ended up on instagram. On instagram, she finds herself on Annie’s page, and Annie’s page leads her to an old picture that you tagged her in. 
The picture isn’t anything special, it looks like it’s from Annie’s nineteenth birthday, captioned with a simple black heat. It’s just the two of you, your cheeks pressed against each other’s while you smile brightly. Mikasa can tell that this was before you really started experimenting with makeup a whole lot, because your face is nearly bare.
She locks her phone and turns over, facing the wall as she takes deep breaths. She isn’t sure why she’s so fucking upset. You aren’t the first girl that’s managed to catch Eren’s eye, and you’re not the first girl he’s brought to their apartment either.
Maybe it’s the fact that she’s never heard Eren talk about a girl the way he does you. Or maybe it’s the fact that even before you spoke to him, he noticed everything about you.
Maybe it’s the way that deep down she knows no matter how hard she tried, Eren would probably never look at her the way she’s seen him look at you this week. His eyes would never light up when talking about her the way they do when he talks about you.
What was so special about you? Would he even have noticed you at all if he wouldn’t have been a TA for that stupid chemistry class?
Was it because of the way you dressed? Did he prefer your soft and pastel wardrobe to her nearly entirely black and navy one? Or maybe it was the way you styled your hair, that could definitely be it, right? No, no, there’s nothing about you that even stands out that much. You’re not even the type that he usually goes for.
Frustration courses through her veins the longer her mind thinks about it. There isn’t anything special about you, you’re no better than her. So why does he want you so badly? Why, why, why? Why hasn’t he ever wanted her?
Eren’s been her best friend since elementary school, along with Armin of course. She’s always loved him, always. Why doesn’t he love her the way she loves him?
She doesn’t even realize she’s crying until she feels the tears streaking down her neck and her sobs reach her own ears, god, she wants to throw up. She’s never been like this.
Sighing, she picks it up to find an instagram notification. pieck.finger is now following you!
Curiosity gets the better of her and she decides to look at her profile, only to find dozens of photos that include you, all the way up to her latest post which was dated July 9th. You’re wearing a very skimpy black two piece that barely covers anything and Pieck is clinging to your right side. In the background of the picture, Mikasa makes out Porco Galliard’s features that have a heated glare directed towards the two of you.
She continues scrolling, not even bothering to wipe the tears off her face, a few of her pictures are just candid selfies, pictures with a cat, and group pictures that include Colt Grice, Reiner Braun, Bertholdt Hoover, and of course Porco. There are also a few with you, Historia, and Hitch. The more she scrolls, the more she notices a lot of her pictures are of just the two of you, and she’s always got the same look on her face when she’s looking at you. Interesting. 
εїз
Standing in front of your door, Eren’s mind, and chest, are running a mile a minute. He definitely should’ve called you first, and he knows he should’ve.
It’s after midnight and he’s not even sure if you’re awake still, but after talking with Armin, he knows it can’t wait.  
Exhaling a deep breath, Eren knocks on the front door to your apartment, sticking his hands in his pockets while he waits for an answer. He thinks his heart might give out when you do finally answer, you’ve got on a satin pink pajama set with a loose braid in your hair. You always look so pretty, so fucking pretty.
Your eyebrows furrow in confusion as you look at him, “Eren? It’s late, is everything alright? I wasn’t expecting you,”
He nods quickly, hoping to reassure you as he takes a deep breath, “Yeah, I just, well you know,” Fuck this is going to be harder than he thought
Relief fills you and a small laugh leaves you as you shake your head, “I know?”
He sighs, and a slight frown takes over his features, “I just felt like I needed to come over here before I lost the courage,”
Eyebrows furrowed in confusion, you frown slightly, “Lose the courage to what?”
Eren bites his lip, “I know I said I can take things slow. That we can take things slow,” you nod, biting your own lip causing him to groan.
“I want you so bad, not just in a sexual way. I just want you, and if you really want to wait then I can wait. I just want you to know that even if you still need time, I’m all in. I know we haven’t known each other very long, but I really, really like you. I’ve had the biggest crush on you since last semester when you walked into Hange’s chem class,”
A hand runs through his hair as he sighs, “I just really fucking like you. And I know you just got out of a relationship a few months ago and want to take things slow, but I just don’t want someone else to come in and sweep you off your feet. “
Grabbing your hand in his own he laces your fingers together, “I just want you to be mine and we take things slow from there.”
Eren’s eyes are staring deeply into your own as he studies your reaction, the green in his eyes is extremely vivid in the hall light for some reason. Your mouth is dry as you take in everything he said, trying to decide what the best response is.
Because, god, do you like him. And him saying everything he just said makes you like him even more, plus your talk with Hitch gave you a lot to think about. Why should you continue to let Porco’s possible feelings dictate you and what you do? You aren’t his anymore. You’re just yours.
Thinking your silence is him misunderstanding what’s been building between the two of you for the past couple days, he takes a step back and drops your hand, causing you to frown, “Eren-“
“No, uh, it’s cool. I just, I think I misread this.” Turning around, he makes his way towards the elevator so he can go wallow in self-pity and insecurities, but your hand on his wrist stops him.
“I don’t think you misread anything.” Between your fingers wrapped around his wrist, where he knows his pulse is thumping erratically and deeply, and the soft tone in your voice, your words have him unable to move.
Gently, you tug his arm, turning his body back towards you. His eyes meet yours again, before they glance down to your lips and then back up again, noticing your eyes are on his lips. A shaky breath leaves his mouth, fanning over your face as your eyes close slightly. “Well, are you planning to kiss me? Or are we just going to stand here all night?”
He lets out a laugh at your words, before leaning down and connecting his mouth with your slightly opened one. His tongue lightly traces against your bottom lip as your arms link around his neck to pull him closer to you. Your teeth nip at his bottom lip, causing him to groan deep in the back of his throat. Hands grip your hips through the satin shorts tightly, but not tight enough to bruise.
He pulls away, hands reaching up to hold your face as he leans in again. He smiles against your lips as he feels you tugging him towards your apartment, praying your roommate out so he can fuck you like you deserve.
εїз
The past month has been the worst month of Mikasa’s life.
You and Eren have been inseparable; during the very rare moment the two of you aren’t together, he talks on and on about you. He didn’t even go home with her for fall break like they had planned on doing, instead he surprised you with an air bnb for that whole week in Maine.
Not to mention, you’ve also gotten into the habit of staying at their apartment half the week, which means that she wakes up to you moaning Eren’s name while she listens to the sounds of your skin slapping together, comes home to you straddling him on the couch.
It’s been damn near fucking torture, having to listen to your quiet, breathy moans through the thin wall that separates her room from Eren’s. Having to walk into the apartment and see you two eating some sort of food she knows Eren would never eat if he had any say in it.
Eren, above all else, has always been a creature of habit. Now it seems all those habits involve you. He’s melded his own, however messy it was, schedule to fit your own. He wakes up earlier so he can watch you get ready for the day, a small section of his closet has a few of your own articles of clothing while a drawer in his dresser holds your underwear and sleepwear. He’s also started eating three actual meals a day instead of an energy drink before class, leftover pizza at three when he gets home, and whatever Armin would cook for dinner at eleven before he fell asleep. No, now he eats some sort of breakfast with you, he eats lunch with you, and you’ve taken on helping Armin cook dinner in the evenings you stay at their apartment or ordering some sort of overpriced food that none of them have ever heard of when no one wants to cook. He also uses different soaps; they smell a lot better than the stuff he was using. Mikasa has to admit his hair has been looking softer the past couple of weeks.
The nail in the coffin for her was when you had class later than him one afternoon, so he went and bought new, softer, sheets for his bed. He’s used the same sheets since they moved into this apartment and now all of a sudden he wants new ones? When she had asked him about it, all he had told her was that it was time for a nice change, ‘s all.
It also doesn’t help that you’re friends get along really fairly well with their friend group, so weekly meet ups that used to be between Mikasa, Eren, Armin, Connie, Jean, Sasha, and Marco also now include you, Hitch, Historia, and Ymir. It’s almost like your groups have melded into one. Almost, but not really.
You’re like a parasite that’s not only infected Eren, but everything about her life.
Ymir is probably the one Mikasa could get along with the most, she’s the most laid back out of the four of you. Historia and Hitch are a different story, they’re fiercely protective of you and don’t seem to like her very much. She wonders if they’ve managed to notice something Eren’s been so oblivious to all the years in the few times they’ve joined in on game night.
She imagines that the three of you were mean girls in high school. It definitely fit; three pretty, rich, cheerleaders who don’t socialize with people out of their inner circle of friends. At least that’s what she likes to think, partially due to the harsh glares Hitch sends her when she thinks no one is looking, the other side of her likes to think that because, well pretty, rich, snobby cheerleaders.
Mikasa grew up in a well off family, but your dad is one of the best anesthesiologists in the country and you’re mom not only comes from an extremely rich family but is also an incredible designer. So while Mikasa definitely had a great home life, you’ve never heard the word no in yours.
Evidently, it seems like Eren can’t tell you no either, since he’s bought twelve dozen flowers in the past three weeks and taken you out on eleven dates since you two became official.
He loves taking you out, showing you off. Showing people that you’re his. Especially the guys on the football team when their hanging out with Jean and Connie because he knows it’ll get back to good ole Galliard.
More than anything else, she’s hurt. She, Eren, and Armin used to do everything together and spent so much time together, and now they both have girlfriends. She just feels alone.
While this has been the worst month of Mikasa’s life, Eren thinks it’s been the best month of his.
He’s loved spending the past month getting to learn everything there is to know about you and teaching you everything there is to know about him. You two have spent every possible minute together since he showed up at your doorstep early that Friday morning.
He doesn’t think he’s ever met someone so incredible. He truly has never enjoyed someone as much as he enjoys you, he enjoys you so much he has literally watched you watch paint dry and all he could think about was how good you looked in the lighting, the way the sun was hitting your face while you patiently waited for the green to dry so you could put the blue over it.
Sure, his mom was pretty upset that he bailed on fall break, but when he told her that he was going to spend it with a girl, she had been ecstatic.
Carla was starting to get worried that he would never settle down. When Mikasa had come by their house to visit, Carla threw questions at her about you. How you met Eren, what you were like, if she could show her a photo of the two of you.
Mikasa relented, loving Carla too much to not show her you. She wasn’t too sure if you even had photos of the two of you on social media, but the second her instagram loaded to her feed a picture of you and Eren with big smiles on your faces. Eren had on a black nike hat sitting backwards on his head, hair pulled back in its signature bun while you’re face is pressed up against his, pretty eyeliner lining your eyes with a lilac color sitting at your inner corner.
Carla had squealed in excitement when Mikasa hesitantly turned the phone around to show her the photo that Eren had simple captioned with a simple black heart. Gushing about how beautiful you are and how happy Eren looks and how good you two look next to each other.
Mikasa left pretty quickly after that.
That trip to Maine was the best last minute decision he could think of, but it ended up being one of the greatest ideas he ever had. You two spent a whole week just the two of you, eating fancy over-priced food that Eren knew his father would be livid about once he saw the credit card bill for this month, took fancy bubble baths in a ridiculously large bathtub, and Eren also got to take you to a few fancy museums. Not that he would ever admit it, but the museums were purely self-indulgent, he just wanted to listen to you ramble about all the different types of art, hear which ones you liked the most and why. He really just likes listening to you talk, honestly.
Currently you and Eren are curled up on the couch discussing Halloween costumes to wear for the party one of the frats is hosting tonight. Eren thinks you guys should be a doctor and sexy nurse, typical. But you’re insisting that you have to keep up with the original costume idea that you, Hitch, and Historia already have planned out. Telling him that you thought the costumes were hot and a good idea!
“I’m just sayin’, angels are pretty basic, baby.” Eren tells you for the third time causing you to groan, “Well, for one, we’re going to be sexy angels and two, we always dress up together! I can’t just bail.”
You have a valid argument, from what is on your instagram page, the three of you have done costumes together since middle school, which is over a decade. Last year the three of you were the powerpuff girls, given you were the powerpuff girls in lingerie, but powerpuff girls, nonetheless.
“Oh! You could be the devil! It would be perfect; we could be dressed up together and I don’t have to change my costume! It’s a win-win!”
With how excited you sound; one could assume that you just solved world hunger or something. Which Eren definitely believes you could. You’re a lot smarter than everyone seems to give you credit for.
“Oh yeah, a big bad devil looking to taint a pretty, innocent little angel,” Eren’s voice drops to a low, seductive tone. Hand reaching down to creep at the hem of the pretty, lavender satin shorts you’re wearing under one of his t-shirts.
“Oh, most definitely,” You play along as his hand moves from the hem to the waistband, tracing the dainty lace that he knows is black.
“Mhm, too bad I don’t have anything to wear,” You roll your eyes and huff on a sharp laugh.
“Eren, all you need to wear is black jeans and a black t-shirt. That’s nearly all you we-“
He cuts you off when he sinks his teeth into your neck and his fingers dip into your panties, “E-eren!”
His middle finger traces your clit, applying barely any pressure as he lightly circles the sensitive bud. Relishing in the way your body has come to react to him.
Just as he’s about to pull your pants off and go to town, your phone rings causing you both to groan loudly, a cry of frustration leaving your mouth as he pulls his hand from your panties to grab your phone from the coffee table to give you.
“Hitch, I swear to go-“
Eren doesn’t hear the whole conversation, he doesn’t really need to, knowing that Hitch is probably just calling to make sure that she and Historia can still come over to get ready for the party since Eren offered to drive you guys because Ymir has to work later than she planned.
“Oh? You’re in the parking lot? I thought we said six?” Eren sighs and stands up, adjusting his pants as he goes to prepare his room for whatever it may be about to witness. He wouldn’t ever complain about your friends, especially since they love you as much as they do. But this is definitely not the first time Hitch has shown up when you two are about to fuck.
“I’m really sorry about this,” You start apologizing, knowing he’s about to be kicked out of his room so you three can get ready.
“No! Don’t be, I offered after all,” He laughs and scratches the back of his neck, the last thing he wants is for you to feel unwanted in his home.
You give him a sheepish smile, a slight glint in your eyes as your hold up the bag with your costume, “To make up for taking over your room, you wanna help me put this on?”
Green eyes suspiciously look at the bag, taking it from your hand and opening it, he has to bite his lip to hold in the groan he’s about to let out when he sees the heaps of white lace.
“You’re killing me, baby.”
εїз
Eren’s definitely basking in the fact that you and you’re friends have taken over his bedroom. He feels like a real boyfriend, having been kicked out of his room so the three of you can get ready.
Armin and Annie are dressed as some couple from the show they watch together, but they look cute together as they sit on the couch while listening to Eren ramble about your costume that he helped you put on before your friends got there.
“Is Mikasa going?” Annie asks off handedly as she looks between Armin and Eren. Annie isn’t stupid, she knows Mikasa’s been feeling lonely and left out. It makes her feel bad, knowing that even though Mikasa is more hurt because of Eren, Armin being busy is also affecting her.
Eren shrugs while Armin answers, “She had said something about not having anything to wear, so I don’t know,”
Speak of the devil and they shall appear, because Mikasa walks out of her room the second Armin says that.
She’s got on a black and red plaid skirt that she’s pulled up a few inches, and a white button up that’s tied above her navel. She looks kind of like Britney Spears in the ‘baby one more time’ video. She’s also got on a lot less makeup that normal, which causes the three on the couch to do a double take.
“You look great!” “Wow,” “You look different?”
Annie cuts Eren a sharp glance as his words come out more as a question than a compliment, and Mikasa twitches uncomfortably under their stares.
Before anyone else can say anything, you walk out of Eren’s room wearing a white lacy lingerie set, a pretty white robe . The lace sits pretty on your skin and your hair is curled nicely. Pretty gold and white liner lines your eyes, with sparkly pink gloss makes your lips shine. The little halo headband you have on pulls the whole look together.
“Oh wow!” Eren’s eyes on you as he stands, taking your hand and twirling you around so he can get a full look, as if he didn’t see you in it just a little bit ago when he helped you get it on.
Mikasa’s eyes are wide with a bit of shock, her voice speaking her thoughts before she can catch herself, “That’s what you’re wearing?”
Eren’s head snaps towards hers, eyes dark when he sees the judgmental look on her face. “What’s wrong with what she’s wearing?”
Mikasa let’s out a slight laugh, not realizing how upset her is by her statement, “Well, I mean, it’s literally just lingerie? You’re gonna let her go to a part dressed like that?”
Before anyone can say anything else, Hitch walks in with Historia at her tail, eyebrows raised as Eren responds, “It’s Halloween, I really don’t see a problem, Miks.”
Hitch and Historia are both standing next to you, wearing near identical outfits, waiting to see how the next few minutes are going to play out.
“I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m just saying you’ll probably just catch some attention.” Armin winces at her word choice and goes to speak up before things can get any worse.
“Hey now-“
“Even if there was a problem with what she’s wearing, it’s none of your fucking business. She looks great and worst case scenario I have to knock someone out.”
Eren’s tone has you shift uncomfortably as Mikasa scoffs at him, “Eren, don’t be rid-“
“End of discussion, Mikasa.”
Hitch, though loving his response, coughs awkwardly at the tension rising in the room, “Well, as amusing as this has been, Ymir is already on her way to the party so we should head that way.”
Historia nods in agreement, reaching for her phone to text Ymir that you guys are about to head that way.
Armin sighs and stands, “Who all is riding with me?”
“Mikasa can ride with you.” Eren doesn’t hesitate with his words as he hands you his keys and tell you to go start that car, he’s just gonna go get his horns and then you guys can go. You awkwardly give Mikasa a half smile before you, Hitch, and Historia walks out of the apartment, and Mikasa rolls her eyes in annoyance.
Eren looks at her, shaking his head in disappointment, “You don’t have to fucking like her, but you have got to fucking respect her, Mikasa. Basically slut shaming her and her friends? Seriousl?”
He doesn’t give her time to respond before he’s walking out of the room, slamming the front door as he leaves.
Armin gives Mikasa a pity filled look before shaking his head, “What you said was unnecessary.” With that he grabs Annie’s hand and leads her out of the apartment. Mikasa sighs before following after them, slight guilt gnawing at her.
εїз
The party is in full swing by the time you guys walk in, Historia rushing to find Ymir while Hitch goes to see if Marlo ever showed up. You and Eren elect to go find drinks in the kitchen, Eren promising to limit himself to one beer so you can have a good time with your friends.
He’s got his hand on your waist, flaunting you and your pretty self to everyone there. It’s an ego boost knowing that people want you, and they’re more than welcome to want. But only he can touch you.
You, lost in your own world of Eren, don’t notice the looks you’re getting. The hair sticks up on the back of your neck when you see Porco with Reiner playing beer pong out of the corner of your eye, but Eren keeps pulling you along to the kitchen. Not even letting you pay attention to him as Eren sends him a cocky smirk and wave.
After a few drinks you manage to find your way back to Historia and Hitch, the later grinning and pulling you into her when she sees you. “Oh my gooood! I thought Eren was going to hold you hostage all night!”
Historia nods in agreement at your friend’s typical over-dramatic drunk self. “Yeah! We should go dance!”
You look back to Eren, eyebrows slightly raised as he smiles at you, nodding for you to go ahead as he takes your cup. “I’ll just hang out with Ymir,” He tilts his head over to her, standing in the corner glaring at anyone who looks at Historia for too long.
You smile back brightly, kissing his check before running off with your friends.
Mikasa regrets coming to the party. The schoolgirl getup she’s wearing doesn’t really look any different than what she normally wears, just a lot less material, and she’s practically alone since Annie and Armin came together. Sure, Sasha and the other guys are here, but she wishes Eren was here with her.
She’s been drinking since they got to the party, regret swimming deep inside her as she remembers how upset with her Eren was as he was leaving for the party.
Jean’s been trying to get her attention all night, and if she were in a better mood maybe she would have indulged him a little so she could have some validation that while the one she wants may not want her, but someone does.
It makes her feel sick, knowing she would stoop so low to get some validation from someone who has genuine feelings for her, but she can’t help it. Being wanted by someone feels good, even if you don’t want them.
Instead, she watches Eren from across the room as he stands next to Ymir, the two of them holding yours and Historia’s cups, talking to her while they watch you, Hitch, and Historia dance and grind on each other.
She wonders if it makes him hard, the way you dance with your friends. You’re facing Historia with her hands on your hips, toying with the pretty tulle fabric that sits there with thigh sitting in between your own while Hitch is at your back, right up against your ass while her hands sit at the pretty lace at your ribcage. Head leaning back into Hitch, your one hand travels in front of you to the back of Historia’s while the other goes behind you to rest at Hitch’s nape.
Mikasa feels her underwear damped slightly with arousal, much to her confusion, as she watches the three of you, eyes unmoving from your bodies as it becomes harder to tell where one beings and the other ends. She wonders what it would be like to be sandwiched between you and Historia right now, if she would feel heat coming from your own core’s as she danced between the two of you. Or maybe to be in between you and Hitch, she wonders where your hands would be on her if she were stuck between you and your best friend, if they’d be on her at all.
He’ll fuck you tonight, well he fucks you every night. But the way he’s looking at you now, you and Mikasa both know he’ll be fucking you tonight until your too dumb to even think about anything other than the way his cock makes you feel.
“Um, wow,” She hears Jean say. She doesn’t have to look up to know he’s talking about the three of you, practically everyone at the party is watching.
Annie hums and looks over at you guys before back over to the group, “Oh, they’re always like that. It used to bother the fuck out of Galliard, especially on nights like tonight when they’d be dressed like that. I bet Reiner’s about to cream his pants if he’s here and can see.”
Connie gulps slightly, eyes not moving, “This, uh, this happens often?”
Annie snorts, “All the fucking time.”
“Oh.” “Nice.” Marco and Sasha speak up at the same time, it’s no secret that Sasha definitely has a little crush on you.
“I guess. It’s nice to that Eren isn’t getting pissed off, though.” Annie seems genuinely happy about that, for some odd reason, but Mikasa tunes out the rest of the conversation as her eyes move to Eren.
Armin lets out a laugh, “Yeah, like Eren would go put a stop to that.”
Annie looks up at him, genuine curiosity seeping through her blue eyes, “Is Eren a cuck?” Connie nearly spits out his drink while listening to Armin try to clear up the confusion he may have just caused.
“So, uh, not to be like, well that guy or anything. But have the three of them, ever, well you know?” Ymir’s dark eyes move from Historia to Eren’s, a teasing smirk on her face and eyebrows raised.
“Oh, absolutely.” Her answer causes Eren to choke on air. With wide eyes he looks at the three of you and then back to Ymir in question
She laughs and rolls her eyes, “Oh my god, no! They haven’t all three had some insane, incredibly sexy three way.”
He lets out a sigh of relief, not for sure if he would be able to compete with someone like Hitch for your affections. Historia, obviously, is in love with Ymir so she is something he wouldn’t have to worry about, but Hitch? She knows you better than anyone else, she knows everything there is to know about the ins and outs of you.
“Right, no. Of course not.” Ymir laughs at him in slight mockery before looking back at the three of you. “They’ve definitely made out, though.”
“Right.” Eren has to physically shake his head to get the thought out of his mind before he excuses himself from Ymir to make his way over to you.
Your eyes light up when they find his green eyes that are currently dark with an emotion you’ve become all too familiar with the past month.
“Hey, pretty,” You worm your way out of Hitch’s hold and launch yourself at Eren as if you hadn’t seen him for days.
“Hi!” He smiles fondly at you, “Are you having fun?”
You nod, “Oh, yes! The most!”
As glad as he is that you’re having a good time, he’s getting really fucking hard. Given, he’s been half-hard since you showed him what your costume is, but seeing you dance with your friends the way you were made it damn near worse.
Leaning close so his mouth his by your ear, “Come with me for a few?”
Though comes out as a question, you know better and nod excitedly as you let him pull you upstairs to an empty bathroom.
Eren has you sitting on the counter before the door even closes all the way, hand immediately going to the back of your neck to pull your mouth to his. His kiss is just the right amount of rough, tongue rolling with your own after his teeth bite at your bottom lip.
You whimper lightly as he pulls away to trail wet and sloppy kisses from the corner of your mouth to your jaw and then to your neck.
He bites down when you shift your hips to grind against his denim clad cock, trying to hold in a groan while your own voice goes up in pitch due to the friction of the denim and lace against your throbbing clit.
He peels your panties off of you as he pulls his head from your neck. He quickly presses his mouth back to yours as your hands make work of his belt, drunkenly trying to pull it from the buckle as he distracts you with his tongue.
He pulls away just enough to laugh at your frustration as he helps you with his belt, then pulling his pants down just enough for his hard cock to spring free, one hand moving to your waist to pull you closer to him as the other one works itself up and down his cock to try to relive some of the tension.
“Can you be quiet for me? I can’t wait, but if you’re good I’ll make it better when we get home,”
You nod, head buzzing with lust and alcohol but the submissive gaze in your eyes is still there. Eren likes that you’re like this. Submissive, wanting to please him, wanting him to please you, but just taking whatever he gives you with a bright smile.
Shifting you, he moves your body, so you ass hangs off the edge of the counter and spreads your legs a little wider so he can place his body between them. Pretty lace hangs off of your left ankle as you bend your knee slightly to help give Eren a better angle of your clenching cunt, shining with arousal that’s been brewing since your fun was interrupted earlier.
He guides his cock into you, groaning at the way you clench down on him as he pushes his way inside you. He knows he should’ve prepped you a little first, but he just can’t help it.
The sharp pain causes tears to well in your eyes as his cock bullies its way into your tight cunt. Eren tries to hush you when little cries come out of your mouth, but his own groans are almost louder than your noises your making.
He can’t help himself; your cunt is clenching down on him so tightly as he slowly works his way in and out.
The pain starts melting into pleasure after a few minutes, whines laced with pain turning into sharp gasps of pleasure. Your legs tighten their grip on his torso, signaling for him to move faster, to fuck you deeper. Eren, being the giver he is, does just that.
The sounds of your skin slapping together is drowned out by the music downstairs, but Mikasa can hear it clearly as she stands outside the bathroom door with her ear pressed against it. She isn’t sure why she’s doing this to herself, listening to Eren moan your name while he fucks your sloppy cunt, as he calls it.
She isn’t sure why she continues to listen as your moans get louder, signaling your orgasm, she doesn’t know why she continues listening as Eren’s thrusts get audibly louder as he fucks you harder and faster, trying to fuck you through your orgasm.
She especially doesn’t know why she continues to listen when Eren starts moaning, telling you how he’s going to fuck you so full of his cum and you’re gonna take it like the good girl you are.
Mikasa isn’t sure why she does the things she does, but she finds herself back in Jean’s presence after watching you leave with Eren right after fucking in the bathroom. Giving your friends the excuse that you’re feeling tired and want to go lie down.
She especially doesn’t know why she does what she does when she lets Jean fuck her again, and she yet again lets the guilt eat at her when she hears him mumble to himself that he loves her.
εїз
When Mikasa comes back into the apartment, she finds you in the kitchen. She wants to die, and not deal with you right now, but you think that this might be the perfect moment to try and clear the air between the two of you, since you’re fairly certain Mikasa doesn’t like you.
You smile at Mikasa softly from across the kitchen, “I don’t think you like me much, do you?”
Discomfort rises in her as she shifts awkwardly on her feet, eye’s not moving from your own and you take a sip of water from Eren’s favorite cup.
“What would give you that impression?”
You bite back a laugh at her, “Not to be rude, it’s kind of obvious. But I get it!”
Her eyes widen. Do you get it? Do you actually really? Get it? Do you know that she’s in love with her best friend. Your boyfriend.
“You do?” It’s quiet, and you almost don’t hear her, had it not been for you seeing her mouth move in the soft glow of the refrigerator light you wouldn’t have notice she responded at all.
“Oh, most definitely! As a best friend, it’s your job to protect him from anyone who may be bad news. I do that for Hitch and Historia. And it’s really understandable! I know Eren’s never had a serious girlfriend or anything like this before, so I get you being weary of me,”
She has to tune out the rest of your stupid blabbering. You really don’t get it.
Part of her wishes that you did know; that you did hate her for loving your boyfriend. She wishes that you would tell Eren how much you hate her, that she isn’t a good friend for him, to try and drive a wedge between their twenty some odd years of friendship.
She wishes you would show him your true colors so he would hate you as much as she does.
“but yeah, I really do like him, Mikasa. He’s really good to me and I think we make each other really happy.” The fondness in your voice when you speak to him makes her snap her attention back to you, and she has to fight an eyeroll when she looks back at you and sees you smiling at her, a hopeful shine in your pretty eyes.
She doesn’t know what comes over her when she says her next words, “Well, like you said, Eren doesn’t really do girlfriends. So, I imagine whatever infatuation he has with you will wear off sometime soon. I think you give him too much credit, it’s only been, like a month anyway.”
This bitch, you think to yourself as your gaze hardens slightly. A feeling rising in your chest that you’re unfamiliar with as you bite your lip, “Okay.”
Mikasa quietly watches as you take the mug, dump the remaining water out before setting it in the sink, turn around and leave the kitchen.
“Good night, Mikasa.”
And before she knows it, she’s alone again. While you’re in bed waiting for Eren.
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theragethatisdesire · 1 month
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quick bright things - eren jaeger x afab!reader, 18+!!
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okay hi. after my many-months writing hiatus, i am offering up this humble creation. welcome to the world of quick bright things, caught somewhere between a fairytale and a shakespeare play and a priceless piece of jewelry. this was inspired by....a lot of things, from midsummer night's dream to saltburn to the secret history to romeo & juliet like, you name it and i've probably crammed it in here. eren is a lot different than i normally write him (or read him, for that matter), i hope you all find him as lovely as i do! this will be 2 parts (for now...), i'm not sure what else to say except i'm happy to be back and i hope you all love part 1 ₊˚⊹♡
pairing: eren jaeger x reader
wc: 10.4k
DISCLAIMER: this post contains MATURE CONTENT that is intended only for those over 18. if you are a minor, please do not read below the cut.
cws: alcohol, swearing, smut, fingering, reader has female anatomy, wet dreams, allusions to cannibalism (idk that's a stretch it's more of a metaphor), exhibitionism, cum-eating, creepy stepsiblings, rich assholes, throat-closing amounts of sexual tension, i honestly don't even know what to put here
without further ado...
-
"Last year I abstained / this year I devour / without guilt / which is also an art."
“Now don’t forget: university is for discovery, for adventure.” Your mother tucks the front of your shirt into your skirt, tugs at your collar until it’s sitting prettily against the cliff of your collarbones. It’s not a good fabric, this shirt; it’s cheap and scratches uncomfortably at the summer sunburn still lingering on your chest. “It’s for finding your passions, your life path, yourself…”
“Darling, you’ve been philosophizing since breakfast. You’re going to give the poor girl a conniption.” Your father chuckles lightly, swinging the hammer at the wall of your dormitory and finishing the hanging of one of your many posters over your creaky, lofted bed. The posters are bright and colorful, almost garish in the pristine, ancient light pouring in from the windows. With a slow blink, you realize you’re going to take them down later, that they feel incongruous with the dust particles and the oak furniture.
“It’s alright, really.” You manage a smile of compromise, lips clamped tight to hold the flutter of nerves in your throat at bay. “I think I’ve got it from here.”
There’s an expectedly teary goodbye, a small monologue from your father about how much you’ve grown, and a few reminders from your mother to separate the darks and the lights when you do laundry, to focus on your studies. Just before she slips out behind her husband, she grabs you by the shoulders and presses her lips to the side of your head, kisses a blood-red print into the shell of your ear.
“Don’t forget. Find something.”
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
Whether it started with that conversation or with the buildup that accompanied the thirty-six months of monotonous paper-writing and numb boredom of your first three years at Oxford, you can’t be sure. In truth, maybe your first three years weren’t all that boring, and they only seem so by comparison of everything that came after, but you can’t be entirely sure of that either.
What you can be sure of is that something down the line—between meeting Sasha in that class on Milton and squeezing her hand as the plane landed and the dozens of bottles of champagne you’ve consumed over the last weeks—something led you to this moment, standing in this kitchen somewhere outside Verona with your bare feet against the hot clay tiles, staring at the sharp angle of an unfamiliar, tanned collarbone. 
He’s coated in linen: a half-unbuttoned, burnt-orange drape of a shirt is rolled carefully up around strong forearms, and one large, boyish foot peeks out from his baggy jeans, propped up on its throne upon the opposite knee. A golden cross winks at you from his chest, nestled in the sparsest dusting of chest hair and dripping with the same peach juice that’s sliding down his Adam’s apple, from his strong chin, from the crooked smirk that’s pointed at you like a knife.
You recognize him before he speaks– this must be Eren. Sasha’s mentioned him enough times: the shock of rich, dark hair, the lakewater eyes, the way he leans back in his chair like a king and cocks his head like a trickster. This is Eren, and you tell him so.
“Guilty.” The sun compliments everything about him but his smile, a little too sharp with too much danger behind it. It’s a smile made for moonlight. “And you are?”
A memory surfaces in your mind, a cautionary childhood tale. “You can never let a fairy know your name,” Emma tells you, graver than death, crouched in the bushes beside you, “or they steal you away, and you can never be human again.”
“Well?” Eren says expectantly, head leaning even further to the left. He’s studying you, the baggy linen pants pooling around your toes and ruby-studded ears poking out of a fray of frazzled bedhead. You feel naked, feel a wild urge come over you and wonder how his eyes would glow at you if you were. You shiver, goosebumps raising in the stuffy summer air. When his lips twitch, you realize Eren’s noticed; you feel feverish.
You mumble your name at him, as if it’s something given unwillingly. Waking the espresso machine seems like the right thing to do with your hands, and you’re grateful for the noisy mechanical sounds it provides to shatter the still morning. You bring an absentminded hand to rub over the tip of your ear, feel if it’s grown to a point yet.
“We haven’t met, have we? I feel like if we had, I’d remember.”
God, you wish he’d stop talking.
“Well, do you go to Oxford?”
“Sometimes.” You roll your eyes, and he laughs, little bells and glass shattering. “I’ve been abroad for the last semester. I flew in from Egypt a couple of weeks ago.”
“Hm,” you hum to yourself, choosing a small red cup for your morning coffee. You aren’t sure what to say; the most exotic place you’ve ever visited was a seaside town three hours from your house.
You can hear his newspaper crinkling; the sound of him putting it down betrays his arrival behind you, but you still don’t expect the puff of warm breath over your shoulder. He comes into your space like he belongs there, like there’s never been a door that wasn’t held open for him to stride through. “Are you still asleep?”
Before you can answer, you hear a shriek from down the hallway, and you breathe a little sigh of relief, thanking whatever ancient gods that belong to the hills you’re in for the interruption. Venus springs to mind, and you swat her and her entourage of Graces away from you with a huff.
“You absolute asshole!” Historia comes barreling into the kitchen, dramatic, fluffy dressing robe spilling out into the unrelenting summer heat behind her. You realize that in the three weeks you’ve spent with her, you haven’t once seen her in the actual kitchen, watching the way the breakfast chef’s eyes widen at the sight of her as he hurries by with an armful of eggs.
“Stori!” Eren elegantly catches her best attempt at a tackle with the good grace you assume he does everything with, breaking out into a warm peal of laughter. “Since when do you not love a surprise?”
“Since always.” Historia’s face is scrunched up where she’s buried it into the crook of his neck, forehead red with the effort of squeezing Eren as hard as she can. “You could have at least called, I mean– ugh, I didn’t even get the chance to get your favorite–”
“Relax.” Eren urges her, rubbing soothing circles into the small of her back. He carries them both over to his seat, plopping down and curling her up in his lap like a child. Eren holds his cup of coffee to her lips temptingly, and Historia shoves it away with another scowl. You hide your giggle at her antics behind your espresso, not wanting to remind them of your presence, but enjoying the show all the same. “Brat.”
“Ow,” Historia hisses when he pinches her thigh, expression lightening when she catches sight of something on the wall. “I always forget how pretty the kitchen is here.”
“Where’s your brother?”
“Still getting dressed.” Historia’s blue eyes turn to the frescoed ceiling with an irritated huff. “You know he can’t stand to be seen in his pajamas.”
“That’s because he doesn’t wear any,” Eren remarks with an eye roll of his own. “You could have called to let me know we’d adopted such a pretty houseguest for the summer.”
Your face burns with acknowledgement, and you can feel your toes curling into the clay bricks of the floor hard enough to scrape the tip of your pinky. Eren seems satisfied at your bewilderment, letting his eyes drag over your hardly-covered chest lazy as a wandering mouth.
“Why would anyone wear pajamas under those heavy duvets? It’s almost thirty-two degrees out.” Armin breezes in in a feigned display of nonchalance, but you can see the way his eyes skim over Eren like a ship narrowly avoiding an iceberg. The Titanic was inevitable, and so is the gravity of Eren sitting golden on the other side of the room.
“You look good, Min.” Eren squints his eyes at Armin’s shirt, nearly identical to his own. “Where’d you get that?”
“You left it last summer,” Historia hums, tucking her head under Eren’s chin and nuzzling into his chest more completely. Armin makes a soft snort of irritation, grabbing for a fig in the bowl of fruit on the counter and beginning to rummage through the cabinet drawers.
“Do you want half a fig?” Armin’s cool gaze slides to you, and you shake your head, feeling a little underwater as two lifelong relationships unfurl in front of you, your mind still fuzzy from last night’s wine. “Historia?”
Historia says no as Eren says yes, and Armin makes his sound of annoyance again before continuing his rummaging, muttering about the inconvenience of finding a knife.
“Do my eyes deceive me?” Sasha, still disheveled with sleep and grinning bright as Christmas morning, pops her head around the doorway. “Shouldn’t you be overseeing the construction of your pyramid?”
“I’m not dead, Sasha,” Eren laughs—it really is distracting when he does that—pulling Sasha onto his other knee, ignoring Historia’s grumbles of discontent. The NYU Men’s Lacrosse t-shirt that Sasha cropped too short rides up, exposing the swell of her breast, but no one acknowledges it. Eren’s hand tucks in snugly around the curve of her hip, easy and natural, and you wonder if his fingers have ever itched to travel up under the hem of her tiny sleep shorts.
“Not dead yet.” Historia glares up at him venomously, reluctantly making room for Sasha to pile onto Eren and smother his face with kisses. Sasha pulls away from him suddenly and frowns.
“Peaches?”
“Where are the knives in this fucking kitchen?” Armin’s growl of frustration is loud enough to make you jump, and Sasha giggles at you.
“Jesus, Armin, you’re going to kill her, and it’s not even noon.” Sasha slips off of Eren’s knee, practically bouncing over to where Armin’s viciously jiggling a locked drawer. She slides open the drawer next to him and draws a long, wide knife from it, passing it to him with the blade extended and her eyes on you. “Did you meet Eren?”
“Careful of his hand!” Historia squeals, shooting an arm out towards Armin as if she can deflect the tip of the blade from across the room.
“It’s fine, Stor.” Armin’s voice floats across his nearly-bare shoulder, mild and careless as it grazes the collar of the too-big button down sliding off of his slim frame.
“That knife’s a little big for a fig, Sasha.” Eren stands, placing Historia on the table and pinching her cheek when she scowls at him.
“There’s no such thing as a too-big knife– listen to me. Did you meet Eren?” Sasha’s fingers are gripping into the flesh of your arm– hard. Your eyes widen in surprise at the urgency in her eyes, like if you haven’t been introduced to Eren, there’s grave danger afoot.
“We met.” It happens quickly and easily, the slide of his heavy arm around your shoulders. You can feel your body tense under the lazy weight of him, big hand wrapped around you like it belongs there. “I don’t think she’s particularly fond of me.”
Eren shoots you a wink that you’re sure is intended to mean something, a reference to an inside joke that you have yet to establish, maybe.
“I didn’t say that,” you say in your own defense, wanting to yank Sasha to the side and demand to know why she hadn’t warned you that Cupid himself was going to greet you in the kitchen this morning. Armin slices the fig neatly in half, a strangely practiced motion performed by small, soft hands. He offers it to you again insistently, and frowns when you shake your head.
“I said I wanted it, ‘Min,” Eren says with a hint of red to his words, snatching the halved fig from Armin’s hand and biting into it voraciously, little pieces of the flesh spattered around the corner of his mouth.
“You’re such a brute,” Armin scoffs, picking the meat of his half out gingerly with an oyster fork that you don’t remember him grabbing from the drawer.
“Why don’t you like Eren?” Sasha pouts at you, grabbing the hand that’s squashed between yours and Eren’s hips. Your palm feels hot against her fingers.
“I said I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t say much of anything, to be fair.” Eren’s got the fig pressed to his mouth, digging his teeth and tongue around in the husk of it obscenely enough to make your cheeks warm. Being so close to him is filthy, that cross around his neck is looking you straight in the eye to make sure you feel it. 
“Eren’s always a pest,” Historia provides from her perch on the kitchen table, picking at her perfectly manicured toenails, “why would she like him?”
“You like him plenty,” Armin says, not looking at her. It’s not the first time that’s been brought up, if Historia’s answering sneer is anything to go by.
“You’ll love him if you give him a chance.” Sasha smiles hopefully at you, nodding.
“Yeah,” Eren grins down at you, teeth colored with fig, “give me a chance.”
“Eren, you’re going to scare her off,” Armin says with a roll of his eyes, peering around Eren’s broad shoulders to look you up and down. The way his eyes drag over you makes you feel like there might be a stab wound somewhere on your person that you don’t know about yet, the adrenaline of the moment keeping you numb.
“Back off her, Eren,” Historia echoes, “she’s fun, I don’t want you to make her leave.”
“She’s not going to leave.” Eren looks directly at you as he says it, something in his smile growing imperceptibly darker. A dare. How much will you let me get away with?
You stare and stare at him, ignoring the continued bickering of Armin and Historia in the background. He’s golden and blood-red, oil smeared on his forehead and a crown of thorns nestled in his dark thatch of hair if you look close enough. If you’re not imagining it, his hand might be tightening around your shoulder, maybe he’ll leave a purple bruise on it.
“Of course not,” Sasha interrupts your thoughts, thumbing at your cheek affectionately, “she belongs here. With us.”
“She’s our little fairy,” Historia giggles dreamily, referencing the long-winded fairy tales you drunkenly make up every night, casting each other as heroines and knights and dragons.
“Right,” Eren agrees, not breaking your gaze, “our little fairy.”
The only thing that comes to mind is your childhood friend, Emma, looking on at you sadly with her muddy toes, watching the wings sprout from your back.
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
Days lug themselves by, barefooted and dragging their heels, and most of the time, even the monotonous rise and fall of the sun doesn’t help to differentiate one calendar block from the next. Like a bat, or maybe a slinky, silvery fish in an underwater cave, you rely on your other senses to track the passage of time.
For example, today, you know it’s a Wednesday because Maria, one of the three house chefs, brings fresh peaches up from the co-op down the hill every Wednesday. Sasha’s spent the last thirty minutes hand feeding you peach flesh as you lounge by the pool, insisting that you suck her fingers clean of juice and feeding you little sips of champagne each time you sober up enough to tell her that that’s lewd. Historia swats at you and giggles at the smacking and slurping sounds you make around Sasha’s fingers, oiled-up palm landing on oiled-up hip with a wet slap; Armin admonishes her quietly from his seat beside her, insisting the girlish noises emanating from the three of you are tearing him from his book. You can feel Eren watching, too– that’s all, though. Always just watching.
You wonder how opaque the lenses of Armin’s sunglasses are, perched haphazardly on your nose, wonder if they’re doing a good job of masking the slow lick of your gaze over Eren’s skin, wonder if you care. Maybe the champagne is finally getting to your head.
“We should go in soon,” Historia sighs, a hand tossed across her forehead. She’s a little movie star, built for the golden age. “It’s so hot.”
“It’s always this hot,” Sasha argues, and you can practically hear the furrow in her brow, not willing to take your eyes off of the trickle of sweat running down Eren’s chest to see it for yourself. You’re really getting the hang of it, this opposite-sense thing. Everything’s upside down here in the heat.
“She’s getting hungry,” Armin supplies, wiping the sweat off his palms to reach up and turn the page of his novel. Brideshead Revisited. A little on the nose, isn’t it?
“I am not!” Historia hates when people point out her appetite, but not really. She kicks up a fuss because it’s “ladylike”, and she’s advised you to do the same.
“You are,” you sigh, really feeling the heat sink into you even with the heavy, lazy movement of lolling your head to face her, “you always get hungry around this time.”
“What time is it, then?”
You don’t reply– you don’t know the answer.
“I think we’re all hungry,” Eren, ever the peacemaker when he can find the time to be so, sits up, letting the shirt that’s been shading his face fall into his lap. Your eyes track its descent– even that seems slow. He says something to you, managing a crooked grin while he squints in the heat of the sun, but you don’t hear it.
“Huh?”
“Everyone except you, anyway,” he repeats himself, reaching over Sasha and smearing his thumb through the peach juice collected on your chin. Eren’s thumb disappears between his pink lips, and when he sucks on it with a satisfied hum, your jaw clenches hard enough to hurt.
“I guess it’s getting close to dinner,” Sasha says regretfully, picking her wristwatch, a priceless Braus family heirloom, up from a puddle of orange juice and tanning oil. “We should probably clean off.”
“I might even shower twice,” Armin rubs a hand over his belly with a grimace, “this tanning oil makes my skin greasy.”
“I feel disgusting,” Historia agrees, sliding red toes into her sandals and standing with a dramatic stretch.
“Filthy,” Eren murmurs in agreement. He’s still staring at you.
“I’ll be in soon. I’m so close to the color I wanted for today– I just need, like, ten more minutes.” You peel down the strip of bathing suit stretched over your hip, showing off the distinct mark of yesterday’s color and today’s tan.
“You’re crazy,” Sasha scoffs, throwing some designer sarong her mother lent her over her shoulder, “I’m melting.”
Armin and Historia pause their bickering over who gets to wear Armin’s Cucinelli belt to dinner—Armin wants it for his trousers, Historia for her maxi dress—just long enough to offer a momentary goodbye, breezing along into the house with Sasha. You settle back into your chair and take a deep breath, letting the sun sink into you just long enough to forget that you’re not alone.
“Open up.”
You’ve been enjoying this game of trading one sense for another, and you keep your eyes shut firmly, letting your jaw fall open and your tongue hang out. A piece of peach, fleshy and dripping with juice, finds its way onto your tongue, pinched too roughly between strong fingers. When you close your lips around the fruit, the fingers stay with it, frozen in their pinched position and forcing you to suck the peach from them, to swallow around them, to run your tongue along them and get as much of the meat as you can. When the fingers withdraw from your lips, you open your eyes and gasp quietly.
Eren’s leaning over you, a solar eclipse that smells like tan skin and sounds like Campari, and in the silhouette of the sunlight, you think he’s smiling.
“You’re still hungry,” he says, a question that’s left its punctuation mark behind. You think of Historia, of the improper shame of revealing your appetite. You dodge.
“I’m never hungry.”
“Never?” Eren crawls over you to kneel between your legs, propping one of your ankles up on his shoulder. The game you started is ripped out of your hands, chess pieces flying into the pool, scattering across the table, knocking over bottles and matchbooks. It’s so silent out here in the sun it hurts, and you almost miss the constant buzzing horseflies of early summer.
“Never.”
“If you’ve never been hungry,” Eren muses, tilting his head so that his cheekbone fits into the sensitive arch of your foot, reaching a hand down to splay it wide on your belly, “you’ve never been full.”
“How do you figure?” Your words come out throaty, waterlogged.
“Can’t have one without the other.” Eren shrugs, turning his head to the side. His lips brush against your heel, your Achilles’, the swirly seashell dangling from your anklet. You dig your teeth into your bottom lip, toes twitching behind his ear. “I don’t believe you, anyway.”
“No?” You try to tilt your head coyly, like your heart’s not clawing and scratching against your throat to get to him. Hungry, indeed.
“You wouldn’t stare like that if you didn’t want to.”
You’re taken aback, but not enough to fall out of the moment– Eren’s lips closing around the knob of your ankle slowly, like the pit of a fruit, make sure of that.
“Didn’t want to what?”
Eren’s hands meet the cushion on either side of your head hard enough to rattle the chair, his long, tanned body stretching over yours. He’s close enough to brush his nose against yours, but you can still see the hazy green of his eyes flicking here and there on your face: from your eyes to your lips to the beauty mark on your cheek. Your poolside lounge feels more like a butcher’s block under your taut spine.
Sasha’s told you about the wolves in these hills, that they howl murder at night, but they’re sleepy and indulgent in the heat of the sun. One of Eren’s canines catches the light and glints at you as he grins.
“Eat yourself sick.” He practically spits it into your mouth, one thigh pressed into where you’re sticky and sinful, and he chuckles under his breath when you shudder under him, feverish in the late-afternoon heat.
Before you can even think of biting back, Eren’s off of you, picking your sandals off of the ground and sliding them gently onto your feet, stopping to run his palm from your ankle to your kneecap with an appraising hum. 
“We should head inside,” he says evenly, offering a hand to pull you to your feet, “I’d hate for us to miss dinner.”
You don’t have anything to say back to him, letting him lace his fingers through yours like lines in a play, interspersing seamlessly with the summer scenery. Eren leads you through the kitchen, waits patiently for you to take your sandals off, and waves you on your way up the stairs, saying he needs a cigarette. As the distance between you grows, your mind grows clearer, and you turn on your heel, calling down to him from the top of the stairs.
“Eren? Eren? Where are you, Eren?”
“Call me something else,” Eren pokes his head around the corner, smoke pouring from the grin on his face, “whatever you want, really. Make your own name for me.”
“You stare at me, too,” you say, tearing through his impishness. Eren cocks his head, unperturbed, smile growing wide as he nods.
“I do.”
“So you’re…” You can’t bring yourself to say it, not where it might echo in the cavernous hallway, where it might take the form of a confession. You scamper down the stairs, nearly sliding on bare feet, almost crashing into Eren when he appears at the foot of the staircase, catching you with two broad palms on either side of your ribcage. You pluck the cigarette from his mouth, stick it between your own teeth, narrow your eyes accusingly, and whisper: “You’re hungry too.”
“For every man hath business and desire, Such it is.” Eren takes the cigarette back, pulling on it and making a clear show of trying to hide a smirk.
“Hamlet?”
“A woman with teeth and a brain,” Eren tilts his head at you, “aren’t you something?”
“Do you always quote Shakespeare when you want to fuck somebody?”
“Only when I want to fuck you.” Eren stubs the cigarette out on the ancient oak of the staircase railing, grins up at you brilliantly, smiles brighter when he notices how obviously flustered you are.
“I need to go take a shower,” you say hurriedly, choking on the remnants of your shame and your confidence as they burn out in your throat, making an attempt to back up the stairs away from him. Eren laughs at your attempted escape, catching you by the wrist and pulling you close to him, close enough to dizzy you on the tendrils of smoke still sticking to him. Your breath stills, your heart slows as Eren wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you together, skin on tacky skin.
“Oh, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?” Eren coos to you, mouth moving against your cheekbone. “C’mon, just one bite.”
“He that is proud eats up himself,” you hiss a quote back at him in response, ripping yourself from his grip and scrambling up the stairs, heart pounding and cheeks burning. You can hear a lovesick sigh follow you up to your room, and hope that the slam of the door behind you is enough to keep it from touching you.
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
The murky waters of your vision ripple out into clarity, and you’ve found yourself in a forest. You’ve been here before, you recognize the tall, thick trunks and the bed of fallen leaves under your feet. You’ve been coming here since you were a little girl, been wiggling your toes in the greenery since before you could remember. You never come alone.
It appears just as you remembered: a blinding glimmer of light, a flame for a head, and ribbonlike wisps of energy that beckon you like arms, like love. One step towards it, and it disappears, vanishing into nothing with an echo that might be laughter. You think it’s happy to see you.
When it reappears a few feet away, you take your first steps, sighing at the feeling of the wild enveloping you, of the prickling of your skin, kissed by the chill winding through the trees. You wish you could explore this place, so familiar and so strange all at once, but you know you have to keep moving, keep following the lights as they lead you deeper and deeper into the forest. They won’t hurt you; you aren’t sure why that’s true, aren’t sure why you keep moving. You just know better than to stop.
They lead you over a familiar path, winding past a creek, over a bed of flat stones with an ice-cold creek running over them. You never tire here, legs pumping and arms working to push yourself faster. You’ve never caught the lights, and you aren’t sure if you ever will, but again, you know better than to doubt. It feels like hours, feels like minutes, feels like purpose, chasing these lights through the forest, but suddenly, something’s new.
There’s a little chirping sound, almost conversational and too high-pitched for you to understand; you’re not even sure if you recognize the language. It ricochets around the bones in your body, touches something ancient in their marrow. You almost jerk your head to the right to find the source, but you resist, pushing ahead on your path as the lights lead you deeper. You get the feeling that you’ve gone off-script somewhere, that this is a part of the forest you haven’t seen before, but the warmth in your bones shoos your doubts away. You’ve never been this far, but it feels like home.
A growl curls around the shell of your ear, plants fear right in the center of your chest. Your eyes widen at the light before you before it disappears; you frown at the next one, not daring to speak but demanding an answer anyhow. The lights will save you, won’t they?
Shrieks from overhead, guttural, animalistic calls, howls and chatters of excitement; you never presumed to be alone in this forest, but you never presumed to be in danger, either. The lights urge you on, vanishing and regenerating at an alarming rate, your feet drumming against the forest floor faster and faster. A sliver of moonlight begins to glow from the trees a ways off, an indication that there’s a clearing ahead, and you shove the bile in your throat down, swing your arms faster, ignore the frantic fluttering of your pulse in time with the bestial chorus ringing clearer and louder from the trees with each passing second.
You do, against all odds, manage to launch yourself into the clearing, and the moment you feel the soft cushion of moss under your feet, as opposed to the branch-littered, crunchy path of the forest, you nearly stumble to your knees as your eyes adjust to the sudden brightness of the clearing. The grumblings of the woodland entities have quieted, an almost awestruck silence settling in the open space around you.
“There you are.”
Your head snaps up comically fast– “You?”
“Me,” Eren says, that razor-sharp, moonlight smile lighting up his face. He looks…right here, as if the forest is extending a sense of belonging, as if he’s been here longer than the ancient trees themselves. Even the little crown nestled atop his head is fitting: a tangle of brambles and thorns and leaves tucked into his dark locks. Is that a throne under him, that mass of branches and leaves and some silvery metal you can’t place?
His eyes glow in the starlight, illuminated with a certain hunger that you can feel reverberating through your bones. It should be frightening, but it’s enticing. You feel welcome.
“What are you doing here?” Your tongue is slower on the uptake than your mind, and you can feel the suspicious expression folding your facial features, hiding the thrum of anticipation the sight of him brings.
Eren cocks his head pityingly, smiling at you in a way that would seem predatory if it wasn’t so entirely disarming, so entirely inviting. Your feet are bringing you closer before he even speaks— you know why you’re here before he says it.
“I’ve been waiting so long,” Eren beckons you onto his lap, firmly grabbing your shoulder and silently demanding you straddle him when you try to turn away from him, “you’re beautiful, so…alive here.”
He takes a bit of your hair between your fingers and rubs it, satisfaction flickering over his face. It’s then that you realize how little fabric covers you; really, it’s only a thin, wispy excuse of a dress, hanging in tatters around your body and leaving your skin free for the taking. Taking notice of your dress leads you to take notice of another pressing matter: Eren’s naked beneath you.
“Where are we?”
“Does it matter?” Eren reaches up to toy with your hair again, smiling gently. He tilts his head up, asking you for something you can’t identify, but that you already know you’re willing to give. Your soul, maybe.
Your lips meet his in a tentative brush, a motion that feels shy, but practiced. It’s a reflex, an instinct, to kiss him this way. Eren groans gutturally against your mouth, pressing into you deeper, digging his fingertips into your bare skin. The chorus of inhuman chatter erupts around you both again, and you jump, almost pushing away from him before he stops you with a firm hand against the small of your back.
“Sh,” he whispers, nipping at your chin, “don’t pay them any mind. You’re with me, remember?”
It’s difficult at first with the ever-growing hum of life around you, but it grows increasingly easier to melt into him, to lose yourself in the rhythm of him. He’s thick and hard underneath you, pressed right where you’re already slick and ready for him, and he’s got a tight grip on your hips, working you against him to make sure you feel it and oh– do you feel it.
A debauched gasp pours from your mouth to his; Eren sinks sharp teeth into your bottom lip with a grunt of approval, pulls you up to situate you over his twitching cock. You can feel the lecherous eyes of the woodland creatures, spirits, monsters, whatever they may be around you, looking in on the sticky, tangible arousal building between your bodies. The steady glow of Eren’s eyes, the prick of the thorns in his hair under your fingertips, the insistent weight of him pressing against the wet heat of you: all of it keeps you grounded, keeps your hips rolling into Eren like your life depends on it, like it’s what you were born to do.
“Are you ready?” Eren murmurs, quiet as the grave, stilling your hips and lifting you.
“I’m not sure, I–”
“I’ve been waiting so long,” Eren interrupts, “so long for you– you’re ready for me, I know you are.”
And with that, he’s sliding you down onto his cock, splitting you open, dropping your jaw. The cacophony from the forest grows deafening, but the glowing eyes in the brush streak and blur as your eyes flutter closed, a stuttered moan falling from your lips.
“Oh–”
“Knew you were ready,” Eren sinks his teeth into your collarbone, lets you wiggle and roll your hips until he’s situated comfortably inside of you. “You were born for this. For me.”
You can’t even bring yourself to disagree, to refute, to question. It’s godly, the way he fills you, the twinge of pain in the pit of your belly that doesn’t waver, no matter which way you squirm. The longer you sit, perched upon him– you feel something akin to divinity, akin to prophecy ringing through your bones. You were born for this.
“Eren…” It’s more of a sigh than anything, a confession and an admittance of guilt, a repentance. He likes the way it tastes, you can tell by the way his hands grip you harder, roll you along his cock faster with an urgency that betrays his calm, adoring gaze. He’s sinking his claws into you, bit by bit, and you’re better for it. You belong here, with the night on your skin and Eren nestled inside of you.
“Don’t ever leave,” Eren smiles gently, as if it’s a choice, “stay with me forever.”
The pleasure’s beginning to peak in your stomach, the howls swirling in the air around you start to feel more like a blanket, the moonlight like a crown. His hands are so hot they almost burn, his tongue licking up your neck feels like a baptism. Your back is arching, your blood is rushing, the stars are speaking to you– what are they saying?
Your fingernails have left angry indents in your throat where you’ve clutched into the skin in a desperate attempt to regain your breath, shooting up out of your slumber with a vicious jolt. Your head spins with the sudden movement, the antique furnishings of the room bleeding into candlelit blurs as you heave for breath.
“Sleeping?”
You nearly jump out of your skin at the gravel of Eren’s voice, having believed yourself to be alone. Some instinctual part of your mind almost remembers falling asleep on the loveseat in the glass-enclosed sunroom earlier, one too many martinis to thank for that, but you can worry about that later– Eren’s your priority now, shirtless and leaned against the doorframe with one eyebrow raised and a very telling flush rising to his cheeks. The chilly wetness between your legs brings your dream to the forefront of your mind. Had he heard, somehow?
“What are you doing down here?” You do your best to narrow your eyes into something convincing enough to pass for annoyance, unsure if you’ve managed to pull it off with the rapid rise and fall of your chest.
“Water,” Eren says simply, raising a glass you hadn’t noticed he was holding, “but it seems like you might need it more than I do.”
“I don’t–” He ignores you, crossing the room to hand you the ornate glass. Your throat is dry, and so you drink, eyeing him suspiciously as you sip.
“Dreaming?” The corner of his mouth twitches almost imperceptibly.
“Nightmare.” You push yourself up to sit, crossing your arms defensively over your chest. “How’d you know?”
A long pause, Eren’s eyes dragging over you slowly, your skin burning. “You were squirming.”
“It was disturbing,” you say truthfully, looking over your shoulder and half-expecting to see some horrible monster leering at you from the doorway, salivating over you and Eren, “but I’ve had this same dream since I was a kid. Part of it, anyway.”
“Need company?”
“No,” you say quickly, shaken by the dream and how low Eren’s pajama pants hang on his hips, “I just need to get to my real bed. I’m sure sleeping outside had something to do with it.”
“That’s not true.” Eren’s scooping you up into his arms before you can open your mouth to argue, as if you even would. This isn’t unusual for him; you’ve grown used to his tendency to touch you, to hold you close to his chest as though you belong there. It echoes in your head, you were born for this. A shudder wracks through your body. “Cold?”
“Mhm,” you hum, not trusting your own voice. Eren nuzzles your head deeper into his shoulder, lets you get a noseful of the scent of him. Dewdrops, mankind, a rotting forest floor. It gives you a disconcerting sense of deja vu.
“Sleeping outside is good for you,” Eren goes on, scaling the stairs with impossible ease, “my mom used to tell me that.”
“Is that so?” It brings a sleepy little smile to your face, despite yourself: the image of a messy-haired, fussy baby Eren, curled up in his mother’s lap and looking up at the night sky.
“Sure.” You can hear the nostalgia in his voice. “The stars can talk to you that way, through your dreams. They show you where you’re supposed to go.”
Your blood runs cold at that– does he know? How could he? He’s a man, not a mind-reader, not a mystic. Right? You let him carry you to your door in silence, the only noise being the padding of his bare feet down the Turkish carpet runner in the hall. When he gets to your door, Eren finally starts to move to let you down, and your mouth moves without your permission, voice small and echoing in the still nighttime air.
“Eren?”
He freezes, muscles locking you in place against his chest. “Yeah?”
“Was I talking in my sleep?”
Eren settles you on your feet before answering, leaving one lingering hand on your hip and bringing the other up to brush at your cheek. Your eye must have been watering– his thumb catches a stray tear. His smile is a little too sharp when he answers.
“No, why?”
“Just wondering.” Relief courses through your body, but your muscles stay taut under his touch.
“Okay,” Eren looks you up and down one more time, as if he’s making sure you’re all there, “goodnight, then. I hope your dreams get better.”
When he turns to go, the broad silhouette of him growing darker as he retreats, you remember something fragile underneath the floorboards.
“Wait, Eren! You forgot your water.”
“My what?” When he turns to face you, he’s still grinning– baring his teeth, more like. You think you’re imagining the glow in his eyes, too fresh from that dream.
“Your water. I think I have a cup in my room if you need it.”
“Oh.” Eren waves a hand nonchalantly through the air, catching a stray stream of moonlight. You can see the dust particles dancing around his hand, enchanted by his movement. “Wasn’t thirsty."
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
It’s a slinky, dazzling dress; Elie Saab, Spring 2005, maybe? 2006? Sasha had lent it to you, insisted upon you taking it, really. It’s got to be worth at least your years’ rent payment, dripping with Swarovski and cut low and square across your chest, and easily the most decadent thing you’ve ever worn but– it’s family dinner night. No expense is spared.
Historia sits across from you, reaching one dainty hand out for Armin’s negroni, nearly dipping the massive drop-pearl charm on her bracelet into the first course: a cold, cucumber soup. Armin nudges her meaningfully, scowling and handing his glass to her, glancing apologetically at the stiff-backed butler across the room, who wasn’t looking anyway. Sasha’s at the head of the table, working on Historia’s serving of the cucumber soup, dunking focaccia bread into it in a voracious manner that you’re sure wasn’t outlined in the etiquette courses she’d endured as a child. And he’s next to you, naturally.
His dinner jacket looks out of place on him, oddly enough: angular and overly formal, as well-fitting as it is. You wish it was a little greener, a little more playful, something to match the Eren you’ve gotten to know under all the glitz and glamour. It’s too human for him, really, but that thought makes you shudder faster than you can shove it to the side.
“Wasn’t that the girl from Luxembourg?” Sasha asks through a giggle, finally leaning back to allow the butler to collect the remnants of her first course. Historia frowns at her, gulps back nearly half of Armin’s cocktail.
“No, the girl from Luxembourg was a slut. He wouldn’t have touched her.”
Armin and Eren exchange a look that implies that, whoever the slut from Luxembourg might have been, she didn’t escape their clutches unscathed. Historia notices the guilty smile dimpling Eren’s cheek and smacks Armin in retaliation.
“Ouch, Stori!” Armin scowls right back at her; if you didn’t know about Armin’s father’s remarriage to Historia’s mother, you’d think they were actually related.
“She was a slut,” Historia sniffs, finishing the rest of Armin’s cocktail in a second swig.
“It was Eren’s idea– you’re always punishing me for what he does.” When the staff place the second course, some sort of ceviche, in front of him, Armin crosses his arms over his chest and looks away like a huffy child. Sasha laughs and swats at his shoulder.
“Don’t pretend you don’t have your own hand in things. You can’t blame everything on Eren.”
“Maybe he can,” you shrug, the champagne going to your head. You’re feeling impish, feeling like one of them. Wildly, you reach a hand up to pinch at Eren’s cheek, smiling to yourself when you feel it turn warm under your fingers. “I mean, just look at him. He’s a devil.”
“Am not,” Eren scoffs, slapping a hand on your leg and shaking it playfully, “you weren’t there anyway. Min’s very convincing when he wants to be.”
“I am.” Armin smiles at you, head tilting intrepidly. “I can get Eren to share anything I want, I bet.”
It feels loaded, like a challenge, and Eren’s fingers tighten where he’s gripping your leg. When you chance a glance to the side at him, his jaw is tense, gaze focused on Armin like a threat, like a predator.
“Not anything,” Eren says, voice low and dangerous, more somber than you’ve ever heard him. Armin’s face falls for a millisecond, scrunching his nose at the murderous glint in Eren’s eyes, before he clenches his jaw and glances between the two of you with a haughty smirk.
“Est-ce vrai? En êtes-vous sûr? Tu l'as dit toi-même - je suis convaincant quand je veux quelque chose.”
“Ne commencez pas avec moi, pas pour ça.” It’s hardly louder than a murmur, but the threat carries all the same. You look to Sasha with widened eyes, hoping for a translation, but she’s chewing slowly on a bite of her ceviche, looking at Armin, Eren, then Armin again with a strange expression you’ve never seen before.
A heavy silence settles over the table, Eren’s fingertips leaving sore spots through your dress where they’re digging into your thigh, and Armin’s eyes dancing over Eren’s face, that same smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. Daring.
“You two are so in love,” Historia gripes with a roll of her eyes, smashing the carefully-cubed ceviche on her plate into a mush. You eye the smear of meat on her fork disdainfully and set down the bite you had been about to pop in your mouth, opting for your glass of bubbles instead.
The jokingly grumpy lilt of Historia’s comment seems to cut the thread of tension that had grown taut between the two men, as Armin allows Sasha to pull him away from Eren and back into his corner of the table with her and Historia. Their conversation drones on, the ethics of Eren and Armin’s tendency to tag-team women fading into the background as you wait for Eren’s hand to slip from your thigh. It doesn’t.
His thumb rubs idly over the slit of your dress, brushing it back and forth over your bare skin for just long enough to get you used to the pressure of his palm beaming heat through the thin fabric, get your guard down. And then his fingers slip underneath, grabbing into the hot flesh of your thigh.
You jump ever so slightly, flighty as a fawn, and Eren chuckles under his breath beside you when you choke a bit on your champagne. He’s cool—stoic, even—as he bashfully bats away the scandalous insinuations of Sasha and Historia’s storytelling, the lewd raise of Armin’s eyebrows at the mention of a certain leggy redhead in Prague. His hand stays steady, possessive and permanent on your leg. When Armin and Historia start arguing over yet another of Armin’s alleged missteps with one of her college friends, Eren takes the opening to lean into you, murmuring into your ear.
“What’s got you so jumpy?” His breath puffs out hot and sensual against the shell of your ear, and you can feel your earring lifting with the movement of his lips. He’s so close.
“Not jumpy,” you answer under your breath, trying to keep your composure.
“Hm,” Eren hums, leaning back just enough to study your profile, “wasn’t sure if you’d dozed off, started dreaming again.”
Your head whips towards him in what is surely an uncouth accusation of insinuation, borne of shock, but luckily, Armin’s too busy being hand-fed ceviche by Sasha and scolded by Historia to notice. Other than his eyes, Eren’s stiller than death, watching over the antics with the littlest smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. His eyes, though, flick down to you, glinting like a dare.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means something?” It’s a challenge, and you realize too late that the rope around your ankle has cinched, and you’re caught in his trap.
“No,” you say, hoping for more conviction in your voice, but it comes out as a breathy whisper. The corner of Eren’s mouth twitches, and it pulls an irritated huff from you.
“Tell me about your dream. The one that woke you up the other night.”
“Tell you– w-what? Here?”
“Yes, here,” Eren repeats you, quiet and calm, keeping one eye on your bickering friends to ensure you’re kept all to himself, “unless it’s something you can’t share.”
The blanching of your face tells him everything he needs to know, and that sickening admission almost overshadows the fact that he knows. He undeniably knows, now; maybe not the specifics, but enough to know that you had woken up sticky and gasping after a sinful dream. Maybe he even knows it was about him. 
You’ve given up on trying to understand the otherworldly elements of Eren; the way he seems to appear at inopportune moments and know what you’re thinking at every turn, but this is too much. You quickly realize that while you’re not sober, you’re certainly not drunk enough to deal with him, and you finish your glass of champagne in a single gulp.
“You’re one to talk about sharing,” you hiss at him, trying to will away the goosebumps prickling your arms as his fingers inch higher, skating along soft skin. Eren’s demeanor falters, if only for a moment– he looks frustrated.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Eren leans into you, brows furrowing. “I don’t share just anything, and especially not just because ‘Min wants a taste.”
“Am I yours to share?” That heavy swig of champagne has gone straight to your head it seems, as you turn your face up to him defiantly, finally saying the quiet part out loud. The weight falls off your shoulders like a head, and you can almost feel the itch of the guillotine at your neck as the words leave your mouth. Eren, ever the gentle executioner, only lets the calm fascination return to his face, brings his fingers further up your thigh.
“Tell me about your dream, hm? They’re not listening, it’s just you and me.”
He’s only inches away from where you’re already beginning to grow hot and wet– he hasn’t even done anything, and you want to chastise yourself over the undeniable need beginning to bubble inside you. Eren’s smiling so sweetly, as if he’s lulling you into a sense of complacency, and your tongue hangs heavy in your mouth, eager to spill your secrets.
“I…I’m scared.”
Eren’s eyebrows raise and his smile grows a bit toothier, disbelief written plain on his face. “Of me?”
“Sometimes,” you say, small and honest as the grave, “it’s like you aren’t real.”
“I’m very real,” Eren insists, two fingers pressing against the damp silk of your panties, his eyes lighting up when you stifle a gasp, “doesn’t that feel real?”
“Wait–”
“The dream,” Eren says again, increasing the pressure of his fingers, “were you scared of me there, too?”
“Yes,” you whisper, ashamed and painfully cognizant of the feel of him between your legs, “I was in a forest, running after the little lights, they– I’ve seen them for a long time.”
“Since you were a child,” Eren repeats your confession from the other night. He’s reading you, you realize, not like a book, but like a poem. You couldn’t put the difference into words if you had to, but there’s a certain melody to the flickering of his gaze over your hot face.
“They’ve never led me anywhere before,” your words hitch in your throat, stopped dead when Eren’s fingers start rubbing circles over your swollen clit. The silk is thin and soaked, and his fingers slide over you in a way that feels god-given. Your jaw hangs ever-so-slightly, the butlers coming to change the course. You wait for Eren to slip his hand out from under your dress, fearful of the staff watching as he toys with you, but he only nods encouragingly.
“Keep going.”
“Um,” you stammer, swallowing thickly and glancing at the plate of bleeding, rare filet in front of you, “they took me to a clearing in the forest. There were creatures, ones I’ve never seen before.”
“Did they hurt you? Any of them?” A furrow appears between his eyebrows, deep and concerned. Some small part of your brain, muted since Eren’s hand slid beneath your dress, worries itself with why Eren seems so disquieted with your dream– it’s not like you actually could have been hurt, it was only a dream. Wasn’t it?
“No, they stayed away. They just made a lot of noise, but they all got quiet when…”
A knowing smirk. “When?”
“When I saw you.”
Eren pats your thighs gently, urging them apart; he looks relieved, exhilarated, unreal. If you didn’t know better, you’d think his eyes were glowing in the candlelight. Armin, Historia, and Sasha’s clamor across the table grows louder with each passing second, but as soon as you begin to wonder if you should be doing a better job of hiding what’s very clearly happening under the slit of your dress, Eren’s fingers have wiggled their way beneath the fabric of your silk thong. Your teeth dig into your bottom lip, eyes widening.
“I was glad to see you,” Eren says quietly, “in the dream, I mean.”
“You said you’d been waiting for me,” you whisper, keeping your voice low to hide the whine scratching at the back of your throat, “that you’d been waiting a long time.”
“I bet I was,” Eren hums thoughtfully, grinning viciously when he sinks a finger into you, clearly relishing the way your fingernails tighten into his wrist. “I never lie.”
“Even in a dream?” You feel fuzzy and warm, blinking moony, worried eyes up at him. Eren shakes his head in confirmation, curling his finger and making your thighs clench. “You put me in your lap, and–and, you had a crown. It was nighttime, I think, and the moon was really bright. You were inside me.”
Eren slides another finger in to match the first, and you’re hardly able to stifle a moan when it comes fluttering through your teeth, a breeze of a sound compared to what you’re struggling to keep captive in your chest. Eren’s other hand reaches forward to grab a small piece of the carved steak, brings the meat up to your mouth and brushes it over your lips.
“Eat,” Eren instructs, smiling placidly as you mindlessly obey, biting into the red meat, “but keep telling me.”
He waits patiently for you to chew around the bite of steak he’s offered you, eyes searching you for something– what it is, you can’t be sure. Your mind is wobbling around the flashes of memory of your dream, distracted every few steps by an overwhelming rush of pleasure from between your legs, Eren’s fingers curling incessantly against your walls. You swallow, never taking your eyes off of him.
“You fucked me.” The confession is breathless when it leaves you, and even through the haze of what you pray isn’t a rapidly-approaching orgasm, you don’t miss the way Eren’s shoulders stiffen, the way his eyes flash. 
“Did I fuck you, or did you fuck me?” Eren murmurs back to you, mischief in his eyes and a tense gravel to his voice. “You said you were in my lap, after all.”
“I—oh, god—I don’t know,” you’re barely able to keep your voice low, a little whimper interrupting you, “Eren–”
“Keep going, it’s okay,” Eren’s fingers don’t slow– in fact, they begin to move more harshly, “you’re safe with me, you know that. I showed you in the forest, didn’t I?”
“Mhm.” You can’t stop your forehead from falling onto his shoulder, teeth digging into your lip so hard you aren’t sure if that coppery taste is from the steak, or your own blood. The conversation in the room, despite being made by only three people, feels like a deafening rush in your ears. 
The realization hits home that Eren’s going to make you cum all over his fingers in front of your friends, the staff, and your dinner, and he’s going to wrench it out of you in a matter of seconds, if the tightening of your gut is anything to go by.
“What else?” Eren practically growls in your ear, low and hoarse. “Is there anything else?”
“You asked me– fuck, you asked me something.” Your hips are canting forward into his palm, your face tacky and warm thinking about the couture fabric under you, now drenched in your cum and sweat. “Eren, you have to slow down, please–”
He’s merciless, pumping his fingers into you ceaselessly, rendering you a lost cause. “What did I ask you?”
“You asked—oh, my god—asked if I, if I would stay with you forever.”
“What was your answer?”
You can’t respond, not with the way you’ve stopped breathing to swallow down the debauched moan bubbling in your chest. Your entire body tenses, strung tight as a bow around Eren’s fingers as the knot in your stomach unravels, cool, inevitable release finally crashing over you. Eren works you through it, murmuring little hushes into your hairline, and placing a comforting hand over your fingers that are digging into his wrist, smiling against your forehead as you slide your hips back and forth over his hand.
You manage to pull the whole thing off impressively subdued, no more than a tinny whimper leaving your lips, only to be absorbed by the sleeve of Eren’s dinner jacket. When you dare to sit up, to meet Eren’s eyes, he’s still looking at you expectantly, as if that wasn’t enough.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” you whisper, waiting for Historia to chastise you, or Armin to make a lewd comment. The three of them are still arguing, Sasha stealing bites from Armin’s plate each time he turns to snap at Historia, who’s now sitting amongst a crowd of empty crystal glasses.
“What was your answer?” Eren says again, pulling his fingers from you and smirking at the glisten that stretches down into his palm.
“I woke up,” you say with shaky conviction, trying to glare at him.
“Are you still scared of me?” Eren asks innocently, picking up a piece of his steak with his hand and feeding it to you again. Your cum mixes in with the flavor of the steak, gives it a certain tang and salinity that makes your heart beat faster, even though you’ve just floated back down to consciousness.
“I– I don’t think so, but…” you trail off, looking down at the plate. Eren brings another piece to your lips, letting you bite half and giving the rest to himself, not missing the opportunity to suck on the tips of his fingers. Your thighs press together when his eyes flutter shut, knowing what he’s tasting and watching him revel in it.
“But what?”
“I don’t think I understand you,” you confess breathlessly, “I think that’s what scares me. I spend all day looking at you, and I never feel closer to understanding you, to really touching you. It’s like you’re not…” you trail off in search of the right word.
“Real?” Eren cocks an eyebrow at you.
“Human,” you say without entirely meaning to, widening your eyes at him in apology. “I’m sorry, not in a bad way necessarily, but– you feel…like you’re above me. In a sense.”
“Above you?” Eren frowns, forgetting his dinner entirely and looking straight at you with rejection written all over his face, wrinkles you want to smoothe over with your thumb.
“I just…” you sigh, finding it harder to meet his gaze by the second, “I don’t understand what you want with me.”
“Still?” Eren tilts his head. “Even after that?”
“The dream?” You nearly chuckle in exasperation. “It was just a dream, that’s all.”
Eren frowns a little, reaches for your glass of champagne– oh, god, when had that been refilled?– and hands it to you. He watches you take one sip, and then another, that concentrated pull of his eyebrows never ceasing until you reach a shaky hand out for your fork, beginning to feed yourself small bites of steak. His perplexed expression ripples out into one of contentedness, smiling gently as he watches you take care of yourself.
“All days are nights to see till I see thee, and nights bright days when dreams do show me thee,” Eren finally says, looking at you very much like you’re supposed to be parsing something out from his quote.
“On to the sonnets now, are we?” You cock a playful eyebrow at him, despite your tired, slouching posture and your repeated attempts to keep your guard up. Eren grins mischievously, leaning in as if he means to press the tip of his nose to yours.
“I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say–”
“If it be love indeed, tell me how much?” You’re quicker than him on this one, a vicious little smirk cutting across your face when you manage to cut him off. Eren’s eyebrows raise, impressed, but you don’t keep him down for long.
“There’s beggary in love that can be reckoned,” Eren finally says, twirling the ring on your pinky absentmindedly. You don’t even remember when he laid his hand atop yours, but it feels heavy and comforting, and so you let it lie there, just for the time being.
Your post-orgasm exhaustion hits you like a train, the temptation to slump against Eren’s shoulder winning out over your propriety. You’ll sit back up by the fourth course, you tell yourself, nibbling on a large piece of parsley that had come as a garnish on your plate. Eren doesn’t seem to mind the weight of your fuzzy head nodded into the cotton of his shoulder; in fact, he seems to adjust himself so you can nuzzle closer, eyes blinking owlishly as you reach for your glass of bubbles. You’re teetering dangerously close to the edge of unconsciousness, and you almost wouldn’t care, until something catches your eye.
Over the rim of your glass, Historia is staring at you. It’s not a look of admonishment, but more…caution? Concern? Pity? All you can discern for certain is that Historia must have seen everything Eren did to you, everything he’s still doing to you, taking a caviar bump off the back of his hand and laughing at Armin, shoulder shaking under your cheek. Historia’s brows furrow at you, her bottom lip wavering slightly.
You sit up suddenly, ignoring the way the room spins with the speed of your action. Eren turns his head to you, surprised, only to follow your gaze across the table to Historia. You’re trying to keep from looking at him, but you can’t help yourself, watching his expression crumple into something stern and disparaging.
Historia withers for only a moment, before narrowing her eyes at him threateningly. Eren squeezes his hand around yours. Sasha shoves Historia admonishingly for not listening to her joke. Armin’s eyes focus in on where your fingers grip your champagne flute hard enough to turn white.
You think you see a few pairs of familiar, glowing eyes in the bushes outside, peering in on the scene at the table. You think you need to go to bed.
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faithful91 · 1 year
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“𝘚𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘻𝘰𝘶 𝘞𝘰 𝘚𝘢𝘴𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘺𝘰”
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𝘈𝘯𝘪𝘮𝘦: 𝘈𝘵𝘵𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘖𝘯 𝘛𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘯
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thena0315 · 1 year
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The last remaining members of the Survey Corps
By Illustrator Michelle Sugimoto
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zewarudo · 6 months
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cosmicjoke · 6 months
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Alright... okay... I just... need a moment.
Fuck, I'm emotional. I'm trying to gather my thoughts, but it's difficult. So I'm going to try my best.
First, I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone involved in the creation of this anime, of this story, of this masterful, masterful piece of art. The animators, the composers, the writers, the voice actors, the directors, the producers, just, everyone. And most especially, to Hajim Isayama, who, without doubt, has created one of the greatest stories ever told.
And with that said, I'm just going to say this. "Attack on Titan" is, in my opinion, the greatest show ever made. I mean that, sincerely, and with all my heart. It's the greatest show, and one of the greatest stories, of all time. It's truly a masterpiece. A pillar of great art. I don't think that's hyperbole. I think that's absolutely true.
I don't even know where to start.
I'm just blown away. Completely blown away.
Ahh, well, I guess I'll just start by talking about some of the changes that were made, and what wasn't, and how much I appreciate both. I knew they would stick with the overall story and not change the ending, and I'm so glad they didn't, because it was always the right ending. I don't care what anyone says, what anyone's criticisms are. This was always, always, always the right ending.
The obviously biggest change was the conversation between Armin and Eren near the end, and I think, given the controversy caused by this particular moment in the manga, I'm not surprised, and I think they did an excellent job of clarifying what Armin actually meant, and most importantly, that he wasn't ever condoning Eren's actions. That they had Armin instead take on and shoulder the responsibility of Eren's actions, in a show of love and friendship to Eren, was incredibly moving and gut-wrenching at the same time. That Armin blamed himself for what Eren did as much as Eren himself, and said that they would be together again someday, in hell, was actually incredibly shocking to me. But then, it makes perfect sense for Armin's character. Armin, who from the very beginning understood and accepted the bleak reality of war, of having to abandon one's humanity in order to accomplish victory. Armin's never shied away from who he really is, or what he's capable of, or tried to console himself with an idealized self-image. It doesn't surprise me that he blames himself for Eren's actions, or takes on as much responsibility for them as he places on Eren. Though one could argue all day against Armin's self-condemnation, I think it makes perfect sense for his character. I also adore how they really clarified and left no room for doubt as to the motivation behind Eren's actions. He just flat out admits at the end that it was because he wanted to "see this sight", meaning a world completely devoid of humanity, of life. He admits to Armin that he's a "slave to freedom", that this outcome came about because of who he is and for no other reason. Not to make the alliance into heroes, not to save Paradis. It was because Eren couldn't accept a concept of freedom beyond what he'd seen in Armin's book. Because, as he says of himself, he was an idiot who came into power. 80% of the world's population died because of that. But as Historia also admits in the end, it's also a result of ALL their choices. I always have maintained that AoT is a cautionary tale of what happens when we blame and persecute and hold accountable people for the sins of the past. Eren, an idiot, only came into that power to begin with because of Marley's persecution of the Eldian's, continuing to punish the Eldian people for the crimes of their ancestors. Indeed, Historia was correct. It was a culmination of all of their choices. Violence begetting more violence, and on and on the cycle continues.
The Jeagerist's created an army out of fear of reprisals from what remains of the outside world, but in doing so, they sealed their own fate. In becoming so hostile to begin with, they ensured those reprisals. That's the great irony. They formed an army to protect themselves, they became a hostile nation, an isolationist nation, and in the end, it lead directly to them being destroyed. As Armin tells Eren, his violence and desire to see a world wiped clean of humanity leaves them with nothing but the lesson of kill or be killed. It leaves nothing but a legacy of continued violence. That's the whole point of this story, of course. That violence only ever leads to more violence. Even when we don't have a choice, even when we're backed into a corner and there's no way out but to fight, even when it's the right and only choice. That's the tragedy of violence. That's the tragedy of the world. That's the tragedy of humanity. It's not that violence is always wrong. Violence isn't always wrong, but it's always tragic, and it always only leads to tragedy. Armin's condemnation of Eren and his actions here, telling him that he's robbed the world of even the small hope of one day understanding one another, that's the condemnation of Eren's violence, the condemnation of the cycle of violence. He pushed Paradis toward armament through his actions, but so did the rest of the world. People will always fight one another. There will always be war as long as there are people. The only way there won't be war is if there are no people, as Armin says, and that's the biggest joke of all. There's no such thing as lasting peace. Paradis meets its demise in the very end because it falls to the same trap, the same cycle of violence, the same cycle of continued hate that drives all war and that, saddest of all, is intrinsic to the human condition. Violence is intrinsic to the human condition, and to nature itself. In the end, Paradis brings about it's own demise, just as, in the end, Marley and all those who persecuted the Eldian's, brought about theirs. This is an anti-war story. That's what it's always been. Anyone who says otherwise is a fool. But it's also a story about the tragedy of humanity and the inescapability of our nature as a species.
So, okay, now, because I'm primarily a blog which talks about Levi, and because Levi is probably, far and away, my favorite character of all time, I have to talk about him.
What can I say?
Levi was the hero of this final episode. Of this final bow of what, again I repeat, is the greatest show I've ever seen, and one of the greatest stories ever told.
Levi is a hero.
First, if anyone, if I see anyone ever, ever, ever question Levi's commitment to humanity and to saving it ever again, after watching this episode, I will come down on them like a fucking bomb myself.
Levi saved humanity.
They all did, of course. They all contributed.
But Levi... Levi was the leader that saved humanity. He became the leader in that moment that humanity needed. For all the talk and accusations thrown Levi's way, of robbing humanity of it's greatest chance at survival in Erwin, by letting Erwin die, it was in a time of humanities greatest need that Levi stepped up and took the reigns and didn't let humanity fall.
Levi wasn't the strongest in this battle. He wasn't humanities strongest soldier anymore. He wasn't the most affective in battle, or able to single-handedly turn the tide of the battle, like he might once have been able to. But he didn't let anyone give up. He didn't let anyone give in. He didn't let anyone lose hope.
I've been saying this since the manga ended, but seeing it brought to life like this only drives it home all the more.
Levi rallied and organized and held together his soldiers when they were all ready to give up and give in. When his own body was ready to give in and give up, Levi's heart and will wouldn't. It was Levi who enabled Mikasa to deliver the final, killing blow to Eren by not giving in to despair or fear or grief when it became clear that everyone on the ground was going to turn into a pure titan. It was Levi who, in the end, fulfilled the dream of his fallen comrades of a world without titans, by keeping it together and giving out orders, by abandoning his own driving need to save lives, like he's always done, since the beginning, in order save more, in order to save the lives of people who had done nothing, in fact, but condemn and persecute him his whole life.
Levi is a hero. He's a pure hero. He has the purest heart of anyone. He's the best of them all.
And I think the change they made to Levi's final scene just drives that truth home all the more.
I'm not gonna' lie, I nearly burst into tears seeing what they did in Levi's last scene. To have him sitting there in his wheelchair, his body not even a fraction of what it had once been, but still finding a way to help people, to help, especially, children, again, it drives home without doubt what Levi is. A hero. To see him handing out candy to children, to see the happiness he finds in that simple act... Jesus Christ, I really don't even know what to say about this. It was maybe the most beautiful moment in the entire series. Shit, I'm gonna start crying just talking about it. To see him smile, again, at last, to see him truly at peace. He found a way to be a hero, even with his strength gone. He found a way to be a hero without having to be a weapon, because Levi's heroism was never in his strength. It was never because he was physically strong, or a weapon. It was never because being a hero was easy for him. It was because of his heart. Because his heart is the heart of a hero. His heart is the heart of someone who has only ever wanted to help and protect others. That he still wants to and does help people, despite already having given everything...
Yeah, don't nobody ever, EVER say to me again that Levi doesn't care about humanity. He helps even when he doesn't have to. Even when he deserves to be selfish.
He cares more than anyone.
Man, that's all I have for now. I'm pretty speechless about this episode. I'm just beyond words.
Greatest show ever. Not anime. Just any show, ever. One of the greatest pieces of cinema ever made. One of the greatest stories ever told, with some of the greatest characters to ever exist.
Thank you Hajime Isayama, for giving this gift to the world.
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Shingeki no Kyojin The Final Season Part 3 (Part 2) Illustration Countdown
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sailorspica · 27 days
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ATTACK ON TITAN: THE FINAL CHAPTERS, "THE BATTLE OF HEAVEN AND EARTH"
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anabotti · 4 months
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OH NO THEY'RE GONNA CRASH
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