A lot of people don't like Eren's distant apathy (Eren himself only sometimes included), but most of them just get confused and weird about it. Levi was completely disgusted about it, that last time at home, back on the airship. That was what Eren needed from him, though. He couldn't manipulate the captain with words the way he could so many others. All he could do to get Levi to hate him — to give up on him — was that.
What he'd done to Reiner that day was so much worse. Whether it was deserved or not just depended on your point of view. Even Eren isn't sure it was deserved but he's realised that sometimes that's just reductive thinking. Not everything that happens is deserved. His mother didn't deserve to die. A lot of people don't. Didn't. Won't.
The two of them sitting here at this table eating ramen like they're normal? They deserve to die a thousand times. But despite what Eren's future holds in the end, they're both alive now. The world just keeps going for the ones that survive the horror. That will always be true, he figures. Who deserves what is all perspective.
He isn't sure what Reiner is thinking when he looks away. Blood and death, probably, because that's never far from them. They could kill half this food court in an instant without trying, without meaning to. Collateral damage.
A building full of people above them in Liberio, cheering on a speech full of propaganda.
The wall in Shiganshina, people running and screaming, dying because they'd been penned in like cattle and lied to for a century.
The world, burning.
Somewhere in that silence Eren started holding his fork too tightly. That, too, is almost deja vu for him, something with a spoon and people who have been dead for years. His fault too, though less on purpose. The consequences of that day, when Levi told him to live with his choices, have rippled outward into whatever he became in the end. He tried to rely only on himself and the world paid the price.
The world is always paying the price for Eren.
On a smaller scale, so is Reiner, even before they knew each other, even before Reiner knew Eren was the one they were looking for.
He sets his fork down too hard. So much for his facade of normalcy.
At least Reiner answers him, though it's as unsatisfying as anything Eren himself has said. He earned that, though, with all his bullshit leading. He's not Armin; he can't keep this kind of thing up. Part of that is something Reiner himself could relate to, the shaky tether to reality that makes just being a person really fucking difficult. Part of it is just Eren, too reactionary and too violent and too easily bored with words, even if he's the one who started this.
"I'm not running anymore, Reiner," he manages to say, letting his eyes move back to Reiner's face, and it's definitely an insinuation. He wants his foothold back and he can't find it. Reiner isn't the only one who thinks about that day in the rain.
If only you knew what else I could do, Eren thinks.
But he only says, "I got lucky," which is true. Without that serum in the underground cavern…would he have ever been able to do it? Would he have been able to do it then in that moment to save his friends? Would they have all just died, seared to death by Rod Reiss's titan transformation? It's no use thinking about it, really. They hadn't died. Eren had learned to use that crystal to his advantage. Now he can use it like a weapon, thanks to the War Hammer, but most people have no idea what that power can even do. Eren hadn't known, despite knowing that he needed it, that he would (probably) acquire it in Liberio.
"We learned the truth after that," he says, thought what the truth even is for someone like Eren, who stopped telling the truth years ago, is a shaky concept. "We'd all been brainwashed. Lied to. We thought we were the last humans alive on the whole planet. How fucking stupid you must have thought we were. But we just didn't know."
It's a good thing he's not still holding anything. He can just ball his fists up on the table and try not to get angry all over again, not really at Reiner, but at the whole disappointing shitty outside world. He still hates it, all of them out there progressing and living while his people are treated like livestock, their freedom stripped away from them for a century.
"You were lied to too, Reiner. They told you we were devils. We're just people. Every single person in the world is just a person. Some are good and some are shitty and some are monsters." Like me, he doesn't say. Like you. "But we're all just…people. You saw that, didn't you? Living with us? Back then I thought it was all lies, but you really did care about us, even if it fucked you up in the end. We were just people. We were just children, and so were you. They used you like weapons because they were afraid of you. Of us."
He lets his mouth just run away with him before he gets a handle on it again. Maybe it's saying too much. Wouldn't be the first time.
He finally gets it together enough to shut up again. He forces himself to unclench his fists, little wisps of steam rising immediately from the bloody half-moons left from his nails. Good faith, is that it? Blood, but only on accident. On purpose would look different.
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What he'd done to Reiner that day was so much worse. Whether it was deserved or not just depended on your point of view. Even Eren isn't sure it was deserved but he's realised that sometimes that's just reductive thinking. Not everything that happens is deserved. His mother didn't deserve to die. A lot of people don't. Didn't. Won't.
The two of them sitting here at this table eating ramen like they're normal? They deserve to die a thousand times. But despite what Eren's future holds in the end, they're both alive now. The world just keeps going for the ones that survive the horror. That will always be true, he figures. Who deserves what is all perspective.
He isn't sure what Reiner is thinking when he looks away. Blood and death, probably, because that's never far from them. They could kill half this food court in an instant without trying, without meaning to. Collateral damage.
A building full of people above them in Liberio, cheering on a speech full of propaganda.
The wall in Shiganshina, people running and screaming, dying because they'd been penned in like cattle and lied to for a century.
The world, burning.
Somewhere in that silence Eren started holding his fork too tightly. That, too, is almost deja vu for him, something with a spoon and people who have been dead for years. His fault too, though less on purpose. The consequences of that day, when Levi told him to live with his choices, have rippled outward into whatever he became in the end. He tried to rely only on himself and the world paid the price.
The world is always paying the price for Eren.
On a smaller scale, so is Reiner, even before they knew each other, even before Reiner knew Eren was the one they were looking for.
He sets his fork down too hard. So much for his facade of normalcy.
At least Reiner answers him, though it's as unsatisfying as anything Eren himself has said. He earned that, though, with all his bullshit leading. He's not Armin; he can't keep this kind of thing up. Part of that is something Reiner himself could relate to, the shaky tether to reality that makes just being a person really fucking difficult. Part of it is just Eren, too reactionary and too violent and too easily bored with words, even if he's the one who started this.
"I'm not running anymore, Reiner," he manages to say, letting his eyes move back to Reiner's face, and it's definitely an insinuation. He wants his foothold back and he can't find it. Reiner isn't the only one who thinks about that day in the rain.
If only you knew what else I could do, Eren thinks.
But he only says, "I got lucky," which is true. Without that serum in the underground cavern…would he have ever been able to do it? Would he have been able to do it then in that moment to save his friends? Would they have all just died, seared to death by Rod Reiss's titan transformation? It's no use thinking about it, really. They hadn't died. Eren had learned to use that crystal to his advantage. Now he can use it like a weapon, thanks to the War Hammer, but most people have no idea what that power can even do. Eren hadn't known, despite knowing that he needed it, that he would (probably) acquire it in Liberio.
"We learned the truth after that," he says, thought what the truth even is for someone like Eren, who stopped telling the truth years ago, is a shaky concept. "We'd all been brainwashed. Lied to. We thought we were the last humans alive on the whole planet. How fucking stupid you must have thought we were. But we just didn't know."
It's a good thing he's not still holding anything. He can just ball his fists up on the table and try not to get angry all over again, not really at Reiner, but at the whole disappointing shitty outside world. He still hates it, all of them out there progressing and living while his people are treated like livestock, their freedom stripped away from them for a century.
"You were lied to too, Reiner. They told you we were devils. We're just people. Every single person in the world is just a person. Some are good and some are shitty and some are monsters." Like me, he doesn't say. Like you. "But we're all just…people. You saw that, didn't you? Living with us? Back then I thought it was all lies, but you really did care about us, even if it fucked you up in the end. We were just people. We were just children, and so were you. They used you like weapons because they were afraid of you. Of us."
He lets his mouth just run away with him before he gets a handle on it again. Maybe it's saying too much. Wouldn't be the first time.
He finally gets it together enough to shut up again. He forces himself to unclench his fists, little wisps of steam rising immediately from the bloody half-moons left from his nails. Good faith, is that it? Blood, but only on accident. On purpose would look different.