[the girl who ran away before the dust settled. the girl who couldn't bear to be there any longer than she had to. she's not expecting much from him right now. she doesn't even know what she's going to say or if her messages are going to get through. it takes her... too many tries to get out something that doesn't sound awful.]
[ it takes a while not for eren to read it, he does so the moment it pops up on the screen of his phone and tweets, but to respond. firstly, because he honestly hadn’t felt like it. a half hour or so gives him enough time to think on it— he hadn’t seen her afterwards. where was she then? he realizes he didn’t even ask.
soon enough: ]
No. But I’ll see you, if you don’t mind.
[ tagged to the message is his address and floor number to his room. just tell security you’re here for eren and they’ll let her through. ]
[but what if she does mind? fortunately she's had some time to prepare in the interim, mostly just by trying to burn off excess energy by pacing around the parts of the apartment that her roommate isn't in. all it does is build up more energy, too much to respond to his text, too much for her eyes to focus on for a moment, but once they do she's off. it doesn't take her long to start walking to the address, to give her name to security, to head up to his room and knock on his door.]
It's Lina.
[she hears herself say it but she's barely present. it's like all of this is playing out in front of her and she's just being carried along, powerless to stop anything. she was a coward. she is a coward. she can't even make herself stop dissociating long enough to be here for him. she doesn't deserve to be here right now.]
[ the tapping of eight paws come to see what’s at the door first— the mystery scent earns a whine or so, but all ceases when more human steps come over to open the door for her. ]
Come in, [ eren says, quiet and with a short bow of his head to greet her. his dogs, both a german shepherd and a pitbull-boxer mix are well behaved and obedient, sitting, staying, and waiting. the mutt is a little more anxious, tail wagging furiously under him to get the command to greet the new human, while the shepherd . . . isn’t as enthusiastic. he stays at eren’s side, and sighs as he lays down by his feet. he’s more of a veteran with his owner, and knows full well that something’s wrong. he looks just as dim as the human jaeger next to him.
the apartment is large, two floors, of refined modern taste and low lit golden lights. there’re paintings on the wall, one of the dragon they rode on some days ago and the titan eren can create, japanese style watercolors painting a magestic scene of friendly battle. there are some realistic models of sports cars decorating the space between family photos, many with him and his boyfriend, or him with clover, or him with clover and his mother, a photo of a father nowhere to be found. an electric drum set sets just by the living room leading to the view from wide windows. the whole place is probably that on a good day: beautiful. it’s just rather depressing now— eren has that sort of emotional impact.
at least, once lina steps inside and eren closes the door behind them, kaiser, the mutt, goes off into the dog corner to grab something on the floor, bringing a squeaky kong soccer ball to the visitor, looking between her and eren with a constant saggy tail. perhaps she could make his human smile? ] I’m sorry.
[even before everything hits her and she realizes how opulent his place is, it strikes Lina that she really shouldn't be surprised. this is just how her life would be, isn't it. just getting confirmation that everything she suspected about the world Clover ended up in—but then she remembers her sister again and everything drains out of her all over again. she's not paying attention to the dog trying to make her happy, but she... god, it would be nice not to know what the hell is going on. she appreciates that the dog is trying.]
[they're all trying. some of them are doing better than others.]
It's fine. [lying.] Us not talking was normal anyway. [she hates this. she can't figure out how to make words happen right. she's looking at Eren while she talks but she's more looking past him. only half of her feels like it's here right now, which frees her up to say things without a filter holding them back.]
[ eren doesn’t have much of the energy to talk back to it being normal that they don’t talk. it’s something he had been meaning to fix ever since he dreamed of them, and now—
look at them, united by the worst possible thing that could happen to all three of them.
kaiser eventually gives up, glancing at both humans with saddened eyes, and huffing as he lays down instead, the toy still next to his muzzle. all eren can do is look down and listen, anyway. he does let his eyes wander up once he hears her. she ran away. in other times, maybe eren would’ve been appealed, and snapped at her. she left clover. if they were siblings, she should be doing differently, right? she should’ve been there.
but what does eren know about being in the right? thinking back to when he was talking to elliot— he said one thing and did the opposite all over again. flaws are cruel things, he doesn’t know how to change it. it’s like it’s always on autopilot. with a thought, now looking at her, eren shrugs his shoulders up, and from the counter takes two cups, filling hers with water first and running it across the counter to her. ]
You did what you had to do.
[ it was eren’s only ticket into armaros. if it weren’t for lina, they probably would’ve succumbed to cannons, no matter how large eren could become. ]
[no, she didn't. she didn't have to run. she didn't have to do anything but she got it in her head that she needed to be there to try to save her sister when there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it. she was never going to be strong enough. she was never going to be able to protect Clover. she hadn't been able to for years. why would this have been any different?]
[she takes the water absently, but the surface isn't still while she holds it.]
What did she do to deserve this?
[it's not a question that needs an answer. it probably doesn't have one. she probably hadn't done anything. Retrospec does this. it just does this and nothing anybody can do will stop it from happening once it's made up its mind. nothing matters. nothing matters.]
[ maybe she had a brother to push her. maybe she had seen something that eren hadn’t. perhaps she didn’t have to die, but it happened, regardless of it being an accident or not. for a moment, eren has no answer. he feels the weight of personal guilt on his shoulders instead.
it’s the same question he’d always make about his father, about people at the hospital. he’s learned a lot from there and still keeps learning. he tries to tower over these lessons as learned, but in the end— eren is as flawed as any human could be. he doesn’t hold his glass, because the water wouldn’t be still either. ]
She did nothing. [ he doesn’t blame minato, or lina, or clover herself. he blames himself, but he doesn’t dare to verbalize it. that’s the sort of thing you suffer silently with. lina’s company had yet to achieve the rank to hear it. ] But we always need someone to blame.
[ eren puts his head in his hands, before raising it up to keep his reddening eyes only at a glance of color and nothing more. ]
[and Lina blames the world. she still blames the world and still hasn't accepted that some problems are her own fault but right now she can't even bring herself to get angry at anyone or swing it around into "if i'd been nicer", "if i'd been better to her", "if i hadn't been such a fucking bitch then maybe my sister would still be alive" because none of that is productive and she's still. scared. of being that vulnerable.]
[she's scared a lot, she guesses. setting the water down, she joins Eren in putting her head in her hands, rubbing her palmheels against her closed eyes in a useless attempt to stave off tears. her voice is already fraying as she brings up memories of meeting in a dream, of being better sisters to each other no matter what.]
She was going to help me look for scholarships. For culinary school.
[this is miserable. she doesn't even want to think about it. she can't. she doesn't want to think about anything right now because it's all going to come back to Clover and how they were going to be better and how they were better sisters than the world allowed them to be and how they were going to be better and now she'll never have that chance because one of the people she loved so much it made her heart ache has been torn from it and she won't... she won't ever recover. she can't. how can she?]
[her breathing is ragged, too. she's trying so hard to keep herself together. geteilt und zusammengebracht.]
[ there’s a small stretch of silence, eren’s shoulders are shaking, but soon, it’s apparent that he isn’t crying when he inhales: he’s laughing.
none of this was funny— he’s only remembering her. he’s thinking of what she asked him on the phone, and what he suggested. she went the whole extra mile. she did something that eren was feeling something different for. he’s feeling like he made a difference in stark contrast to her end. it’s ironic.
at the same time, eren is far from happy. it’ll take some to move on, but the more he thought about it, he wondered: would clover be enjoying the attention or tell them to stop weeping? ]
[Lina isn't... surprised. she's been through grief before. nothing as serious as this, but close enough to it. people react differently. and maybe she's been waiting for something to break for a while. maybe she wants any excuse she can to not cry, and she can't even make herself be mad at Eren for laughing because she gets it and it's. the most sickening kind of infectious.]
[she leans down, nearly resting her entire head on the counter, propping herself up only by her forearms now, and there's a monotonous string of nearly-silent laughter coming from her throat before she even realizes it. her hands are still dry, so she's not crying yet, but she knows she's going to soon. but for now, she can take this, and she's even ready to answer when he asks.]
I cook. I wanted to start making Clover food again, like I did when we were kids. I thought it might help.
[ he wants to be thankful, but at the same time—
grief doesn’t go away. he knows what he knows of lina through a twisted dream, but weren’t they all human? he wished he could’ve been having this talk earlier, maybe with clover sitting there next to them.
well, they shouldn’t stop looking, even with clover’s life-or-death status up in the air. eren crosses his arms on top of the counter as well, and kaiser seems to wander curiously over to the laughing. because laughing was— good, wasn’t it?
his eyes are tired and worn from stinging so much. ]
If you know the places she was looking into, let me see it.
[this is. so much. is this what a loving family looks like? Eren and Clover actually... both wanting to help someone out? people just. working towards a common goal together? even though Clover isn't...]
[Lina doesn't know. she doesn't want to think about it. she doesn't want to but how can she help it, how can she think about anything other than her dead sister, the sister she couldn't even wait behind for to see her body hit the ground, the sister she won't even be able to bury because she can't bring herself to do it, and the laughing transforms so suddenly and seamlessly into dry, shaking sobs that it almost surprises Lina herself.]
[she wants to say something. she wants to be better about this, but there's such an unbearable weight pressing her against the counter. she's useless. all of this was useless. everything they did. everything they were working towards. it's all gone. none of it mattered. none of it matters. why can't she stop thinking that? why can't her head just stop?]
[ at least now he can’t say he didn’t try, but try usually isn’t on his list of things to do. it’s get things done.
but, there she goes. eren doesn’t particularly like to see people cry, but then again, he’s always got some sort of leak in his tear ducts— he’s easier to cry than almost anyone. he lets it out when he has to, and when he’s had enough, he ceases. lina did not get her time. lina didn’t even see her (not that seeing a body would matter, there wasn’t one to bury and a hold a funeral for).
eren isn’t one to bare too much patience at times, and he’s almost in the current mind to tell her to stop. emotion bubbles in the form of irritation that’s too short fused to keep reigns on, and to keep from speaking out to her, he briefly looks away.
he takes his own time to breathe, and after a few moments, he gets up from his side of the counter and walks. he’s walking over to her side, clattering a chair over to sit himself down in front of her. at this point, she’s had plenty of time to cry. ]
[she doesn't want to be here. she doesn't want any of this. she wants her sister back, she wants Clover to still be there, she wants the terror to go away, she wants to never have been an Intoner, she wishes she'd never gotten the app, she wants... she wants...]
[—Eren calling her name pulls her out of it. she can't do anything right now. she can't take anything that happened back, and she can't slide back into her own darkness and rid the world of another sister. she has to be here. she has to be present.]
I'm okay.
[it's a lie. but if he's going to try to stop her, she doesn't have the energy for a fight right now. she barely has the energy for anything. she pushes her head up, wipes at where there should be streaks on her face but she hasn't been able to make any tears actually come, and tries to look at him. her throat is so, so tight.]
I don't... know what to do. I don't know what to do.
[he's trying so hard to move forward for her and she just isn't ready to take the first step. she'd apologize if she realized what she was doing.]
[ he makes that clear. he hates lying in every form apparent to him and he’s not about to accept a facade just to let things slip by when the reason he accepted her presence was because things weren’t okay. not that he had high hopes that things would be any better with lina here when both were grieving.
but he was searching for something, someone still familiar to cling to after clover had slipped from his fingers. ]
I never thought I’d lose more family. [ he doesn’t particularly cry, but his throat does go right again to speak. he pushes onwards. ] And this wasn’t the way I wanted to get to know you more.
[there's a bitter ghost of a laugh stuck in her throat at the idea that the death of their sister is really what's bringing them together. after they fought so much, so briefly about her in a dream that still feels real, and after Lina had put so much useless, useless work into fixing things.]
I wanted to get good enough at cooking to invite both of you over one day. [so she could show Clover what she'd been missing out on. what she gave up. but that's not... that isn't the important part. and it isn't true anymore anyway.] I wanted to make you the best meals of your lives and get to know my brother better that way.
I wanted to do so much, and I just... [if he's lost people, she probably isn't saying anything new. but this is. this isn't something she knows. and it's not something she wants anyone to know.] I thought I would have more time.
she says everything else, and he hears it, but his mind zones in on the choice and it’s meaning. eren certainly doesn’t throw that word around effortlessly with others, and he chooses to judge what he’s seen until now— perhaps lina wasn’t one to say it so easily either.
because “brother” was family. eren almost thinks but you don’t know me, and i don’t know you— yet they both did have a sister in common, didnt they? they had an option to pursue. eren purses his lips, remains silent and watches the hands hovering between his legs, until it’s back up at the girl. ]
We always need more time. [ he says, softly, because even with enough time, enough was never actually enough. he holds his hand out to her, palm up and open. ] So make the best of every second you have.
[ and this might sound rushed, but— nothing is such when your heart is in the right place. ]
I’d like to get to know another sister with those.
[it's. no, sorry. it's easy for her to do that. it always kind of has been. she's always moved fast, brought people closer into her life than maybe they deserve to be. but it's the only choice she's ever had, because she knows that people leave. and yet she's never prepared when they do.]
Did you—[don't call attention to it, Lina. don't bring up how you called him your brother. don't say anything about how he called you his sister. just don't.] Sorry. Yeah. We can... we can do this.
[she's been through worse.she's seen people get taken from her before. and her hand reaches out, and she takes his, and she holds it tightly—not too tightly, not to hurt him, but enough to know that they're both there. together. her voice is solemn but she's finally able to look at Eren in the eye.]
[he's said it a couple times now, but she's still surprised by it. she's surprised every time people actually want to be around her—she's always been so... bitter, so depressed and negative, and yet so desperate for contact that she'll take any she can get and clutch it until the life is gone, or make it out to be more than it could ever possibly be, or cover up flaws that she tricked herself to never have seen. there's a long pause while she thinks of all that, while she tries to come up with the words.]
How much earlier? I... you had the worst first impression of me. I'm so sorry.
[ eren waves that off with a tongue click and a shake of his head. finally, he can pick up his glass without it trembling, so he takes in water to wet his lips. ]
If we go by that, then I’m probably worse.
[ eren’s answer to finishing that dream was of course, killing her, they are better off not using those as anything accurate to go off of. ]
Ever since Clover told me about her other sisters. [ even though, that as a child, eren had the small fear of clover’s “family” returning to take her away. these are adult times now, though. ]
[ha. yeah. adults who would never have fears like that, of families taking sisters away. god, Eren is too good to her. a lot of people are but Eren is the one she's focusing on right now. she still needs a few to collect herself, but if he's able to keep calm then she can probably manage it, too.]
I deserved it. I wish that weren't the side of me you saw, but I think it... I think it needed to happen for me to start to change.
[for her to actually admit that is another one of several steps forward that she's needed to take for a while now. she won't thank him for it, but it's on the tip of her tongue.]
One of my friends taught me to stop assuming things and listen to other people, and. [sigh.] I just wish I'd learned it sooner. But it's like you said. We have the time now and now you can... I don't know. You can get to know the same Lina that Clover knew.
[ the part that mattered most was her acknowledging that, so it’s good enough for eren. he wouldn’t even want the thank you. now, he can’t say much about assumptions— he does that constantly and it’s hard to get some reigns on that with difficult people, but. he’s getting better, he likes to think. he’s working on it. he can’t always be as right as he thinks he is. ]
[though it does... hit her, a little. that the same Lina that Clover knew isn't Lina as she is now. Clover had started to get to know her, to see what she'd turned into and the kind of woman she was trying to become, but... but. Eren would be able to know Lina better than her own sister had. and that would hang over Lina for their entire friendship if she let it, and right now she wasn't in the mood to fight it, but she wasn't really in the mood to succumb to it, either.]
Is there... anything you wanted to know in particular? [a dry, humorless laugh chased that sentence.] I'm not good at talking about myself.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ii
it's lina
[the girl who ran away before the dust settled. the girl who couldn't bear to be there any longer than she had to. she's not expecting much from him right now. she doesn't even know what she's going to say or if her messages are going to get through. it takes her... too many tries to get out something that doesn't sound awful.]
do you want company right now
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soon enough: ]
No.
But I’ll see you, if you don’t mind.
[ tagged to the message is his address and floor number to his room. just tell security you’re here for eren and they’ll let her through. ]
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It's Lina.
[she hears herself say it but she's barely present. it's like all of this is playing out in front of her and she's just being carried along, powerless to stop anything. she was a coward. she is a coward. she can't even make herself stop dissociating long enough to be here for him. she doesn't deserve to be here right now.]
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Come in, [ eren says, quiet and with a short bow of his head to greet her. his dogs, both a german shepherd and a pitbull-boxer mix are well behaved and obedient, sitting, staying, and waiting. the mutt is a little more anxious, tail wagging furiously under him to get the command to greet the new human, while the shepherd . . . isn’t as enthusiastic. he stays at eren’s side, and sighs as he lays down by his feet. he’s more of a veteran with his owner, and knows full well that something’s wrong. he looks just as dim as the human jaeger next to him.
the apartment is large, two floors, of refined modern taste and low lit golden lights. there’re paintings on the wall, one of the dragon they rode on some days ago and the titan eren can create, japanese style watercolors painting a magestic scene of friendly battle. there are some realistic models of sports cars decorating the space between family photos, many with him and his boyfriend, or him with clover, or him with clover and his mother, a photo of a father nowhere to be found. an electric drum set sets just by the living room leading to the view from wide windows. the whole place is probably that on a good day: beautiful. it’s just rather depressing now— eren has that sort of emotional impact.
at least, once lina steps inside and eren closes the door behind them, kaiser, the mutt, goes off into the dog corner to grab something on the floor, bringing a squeaky kong soccer ball to the visitor, looking between her and eren with a constant saggy tail. perhaps she could make his human smile? ] I’m sorry.
Even more for not talking to you sooner.
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[they're all trying. some of them are doing better than others.]
It's fine. [lying.] Us not talking was normal anyway. [she hates this. she can't figure out how to make words happen right. she's looking at Eren while she talks but she's more looking past him. only half of her feels like it's here right now, which frees her up to say things without a filter holding them back.]
I ran away.
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look at them, united by the worst possible thing that could happen to all three of them.
kaiser eventually gives up, glancing at both humans with saddened eyes, and huffing as he lays down instead, the toy still next to his muzzle. all eren can do is look down and listen, anyway. he does let his eyes wander up once he hears her. she ran away. in other times, maybe eren would’ve been appealed, and snapped at her. she left clover. if they were siblings, she should be doing differently, right? she should’ve been there.
but what does eren know about being in the right? thinking back to when he was talking to elliot— he said one thing and did the opposite all over again. flaws are cruel things, he doesn’t know how to change it. it’s like it’s always on autopilot. with a thought, now looking at her, eren shrugs his shoulders up, and from the counter takes two cups, filling hers with water first and running it across the counter to her. ]
You did what you had to do.
[ it was eren’s only ticket into armaros. if it weren’t for lina, they probably would’ve succumbed to cannons, no matter how large eren could become. ]
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[she takes the water absently, but the surface isn't still while she holds it.]
What did she do to deserve this?
[it's not a question that needs an answer. it probably doesn't have one. she probably hadn't done anything. Retrospec does this. it just does this and nothing anybody can do will stop it from happening once it's made up its mind. nothing matters. nothing matters.]
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it’s the same question he’d always make about his father, about people at the hospital. he’s learned a lot from there and still keeps learning. he tries to tower over these lessons as learned, but in the end— eren is as flawed as any human could be. he doesn’t hold his glass, because the water wouldn’t be still either. ]
She did nothing. [ he doesn’t blame minato, or lina, or clover herself. he blames himself, but he doesn’t dare to verbalize it. that’s the sort of thing you suffer silently with. lina’s company had yet to achieve the rank to hear it. ] But we always need someone to blame.
[ eren puts his head in his hands, before raising it up to keep his reddening eyes only at a glance of color and nothing more. ]
Were you guys talking more?
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[she's scared a lot, she guesses. setting the water down, she joins Eren in putting her head in her hands, rubbing her palmheels against her closed eyes in a useless attempt to stave off tears. her voice is already fraying as she brings up memories of meeting in a dream, of being better sisters to each other no matter what.]
She was going to help me look for scholarships. For culinary school.
[this is miserable. she doesn't even want to think about it. she can't. she doesn't want to think about anything right now because it's all going to come back to Clover and how they were going to be better and how they were better sisters than the world allowed them to be and how they were going to be better and now she'll never have that chance because one of the people she loved so much it made her heart ache has been torn from it and she won't... she won't ever recover. she can't. how can she?]
[her breathing is ragged, too. she's trying so hard to keep herself together. geteilt und zusammengebracht.]
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none of this was funny— he’s only remembering her. he’s thinking of what she asked him on the phone, and what he suggested. she went the whole extra mile. she did something that eren was feeling something different for. he’s feeling like he made a difference in stark contrast to her end. it’s ironic.
at the same time, eren is far from happy. it’ll take some to move on, but the more he thought about it, he wondered: would clover be enjoying the attention or tell them to stop weeping? ]
You cook?
no subject
[she leans down, nearly resting her entire head on the counter, propping herself up only by her forearms now, and there's a monotonous string of nearly-silent laughter coming from her throat before she even realizes it. her hands are still dry, so she's not crying yet, but she knows she's going to soon. but for now, she can take this, and she's even ready to answer when he asks.]
I cook. I wanted to start making Clover food again, like I did when we were kids. I thought it might help.
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grief doesn’t go away. he knows what he knows of lina through a twisted dream, but weren’t they all human? he wished he could’ve been having this talk earlier, maybe with clover sitting there next to them.
well, they shouldn’t stop looking, even with clover’s life-or-death status up in the air. eren crosses his arms on top of the counter as well, and kaiser seems to wander curiously over to the laughing. because laughing was— good, wasn’t it?
his eyes are tired and worn from stinging so much. ]
If you know the places she was looking into, let me see it.
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[this is. so much. is this what a loving family looks like? Eren and Clover actually... both wanting to help someone out? people just. working towards a common goal together? even though Clover isn't...]
[Lina doesn't know. she doesn't want to think about it. she doesn't want to but how can she help it, how can she think about anything other than her dead sister, the sister she couldn't even wait behind for to see her body hit the ground, the sister she won't even be able to bury because she can't bring herself to do it, and the laughing transforms so suddenly and seamlessly into dry, shaking sobs that it almost surprises Lina herself.]
[she wants to say something. she wants to be better about this, but there's such an unbearable weight pressing her against the counter. she's useless. all of this was useless. everything they did. everything they were working towards. it's all gone. none of it mattered. none of it matters. why can't she stop thinking that? why can't her head just stop?]
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but, there she goes. eren doesn’t particularly like to see people cry, but then again, he’s always got some sort of leak in his tear ducts— he’s easier to cry than almost anyone. he lets it out when he has to, and when he’s had enough, he ceases. lina did not get her time. lina didn’t even see her (not that seeing a body would matter, there wasn’t one to bury and a hold a funeral for).
eren isn’t one to bare too much patience at times, and he’s almost in the current mind to tell her to stop. emotion bubbles in the form of irritation that’s too short fused to keep reigns on, and to keep from speaking out to her, he briefly looks away.
he takes his own time to breathe, and after a few moments, he gets up from his side of the counter and walks. he’s walking over to her side, clattering a chair over to sit himself down in front of her. at this point, she’s had plenty of time to cry. ]
Lina. [ he calls for her attention. ]
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[—Eren calling her name pulls her out of it. she can't do anything right now. she can't take anything that happened back, and she can't slide back into her own darkness and rid the world of another sister. she has to be here. she has to be present.]
I'm okay.
[it's a lie. but if he's going to try to stop her, she doesn't have the energy for a fight right now. she barely has the energy for anything. she pushes her head up, wipes at where there should be streaks on her face but she hasn't been able to make any tears actually come, and tries to look at him. her throat is so, so tight.]
I don't... know what to do. I don't know what to do.
[he's trying so hard to move forward for her and she just isn't ready to take the first step. she'd apologize if she realized what she was doing.]
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[ he makes that clear. he hates lying in every form apparent to him and he’s not about to accept a facade just to let things slip by when the reason he accepted her presence was because things weren’t okay. not that he had high hopes that things would be any better with lina here when both were grieving.
but he was searching for something, someone still familiar to cling to after clover had slipped from his fingers. ]
I never thought I’d lose more family. [ he doesn’t particularly cry, but his throat does go right again to speak. he pushes onwards. ] And this wasn’t the way I wanted to get to know you more.
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I wanted to get good enough at cooking to invite both of you over one day. [so she could show Clover what she'd been missing out on. what she gave up. but that's not... that isn't the important part. and it isn't true anymore anyway.] I wanted to make you the best meals of your lives and get to know my brother better that way.
I wanted to do so much, and I just... [if he's lost people, she probably isn't saying anything new. but this is. this isn't something she knows. and it's not something she wants anyone to know.] I thought I would have more time.
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she says everything else, and he hears it, but his mind zones in on the choice and it’s meaning. eren certainly doesn’t throw that word around effortlessly with others, and he chooses to judge what he’s seen until now— perhaps lina wasn’t one to say it so easily either.
because “brother” was family. eren almost thinks but you don’t know me, and i don’t know you— yet they both did have a sister in common, didnt they? they had an option to pursue. eren purses his lips, remains silent and watches the hands hovering between his legs, until it’s back up at the girl. ]
We always need more time. [ he says, softly, because even with enough time, enough was never actually enough. he holds his hand out to her, palm up and open. ] So make the best of every second you have.
[ and this might sound rushed, but— nothing is such when your heart is in the right place. ]
I’d like to get to know another sister with those.
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Did you—[don't call attention to it, Lina. don't bring up how you called him your brother. don't say anything about how he called you his sister. just don't.] Sorry. Yeah. We can... we can do this.
[she's been through worse. she's seen people get taken from her before. and her hand reaches out, and she takes his, and she holds it tightly—not too tightly, not to hurt him, but enough to know that they're both there. together. her voice is solemn but she's finally able to look at Eren in the eye.]
For Clover.
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I'm doing this for me me, too. [ just to give her a slight correction. ] I wanted to get to know you much earlier.
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[he's said it a couple times now, but she's still surprised by it. she's surprised every time people actually want to be around her—she's always been so... bitter, so depressed and negative, and yet so desperate for contact that she'll take any she can get and clutch it until the life is gone, or make it out to be more than it could ever possibly be, or cover up flaws that she tricked herself to never have seen. there's a long pause while she thinks of all that, while she tries to come up with the words.]
How much earlier? I... you had the worst first impression of me. I'm so sorry.
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If we go by that, then I’m probably worse.
[ eren’s answer to finishing that dream was of course, killing her, they are better off not using those as anything accurate to go off of. ]
Ever since Clover told me about her other sisters. [ even though, that as a child, eren had the small fear of clover’s “family” returning to take her away. these are adult times now, though. ]
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I deserved it. I wish that weren't the side of me you saw, but I think it... I think it needed to happen for me to start to change.
[for her to actually admit that is another one of several steps forward that she's needed to take for a while now. she won't thank him for it, but it's on the tip of her tongue.]
One of my friends taught me to stop assuming things and listen to other people, and. [sigh.] I just wish I'd learned it sooner. But it's like you said. We have the time now and now you can... I don't know. You can get to know the same Lina that Clover knew.
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There’s nothing stopping you.
[ by all means— they have all night. ]
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[though it does... hit her, a little. that the same Lina that Clover knew isn't Lina as she is now. Clover had started to get to know her, to see what she'd turned into and the kind of woman she was trying to become, but... but. Eren would be able to know Lina better than her own sister had. and that would hang over Lina for their entire friendship if she let it, and right now she wasn't in the mood to fight it, but she wasn't really in the mood to succumb to it, either.]
Is there... anything you wanted to know in particular? [a dry, humorless laugh chased that sentence.] I'm not good at talking about myself.
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