abandonhumanity | PSL / MEME CONTINUATION

[What...was he expecting, exactly?

[The writhing stops. He feels like a lung has been punctured, the air slowly leaking out of his chest.

[Of course. He always knew. There's only one way to love Eren Jaeger, and it's this. It's miserable. It's trying to tame a monster and wondering why it keeps snapping its jaws at you. It's putting your trust in mutual destruction. It's the world, burning, and all you can do is think about the guy holding the matchbook.

[Something small inside of him recoils. Has it always been this way? Didn't his mother hold his face in her hands and say, "I love you"? She was happy enough with Eren, wasn't she? She never looked at him like he was a monster. She never knew the monster he'd become...

[As for the rest of them? They're either dead due to Eren, or about to be. He is the common denominator. He is the root. He is the end of the fucking world.

[Of course Aubrey wishes she'd never met him. She'd be crazy not to.

[It cleaves a wound that no regeneration ability can touch. He will always know this pain, this pain, this terrible pain.

[The tension floods out of his body. His expression becomes even. His eyes dull like the last breath of life has been drawn out of him. He sits still, facing forward. He's tired.]

The nature of a detriment, I guess.

[His voice is as hollow as an echo.]

I love you too, Aubrey.

[It isn't revenge, the cold sentiment. He isn't doing it to hurt her. It's the horrible, miserable truth.]

[Guilt.

[Grief.

[Hardly strangers to Aubrey. They twist in the hollow husk of her heart as Eren goes still; inseparable as the chain that binds them.]

[Animals, really. Cruel. Dumb, foolish monsters.]

[She just wanted him to kill her. But they’re too similar for that. A dance in reverse.]

[“I love you too, Aubrey.”
How sweet. How detrimental.
She cups his dull, exhausted face in her free hand and leans in, very briefly, to kiss him.

[What a joke.]

We’re even.

[She kisses him. He hates her. He kisses her back. He loves her.

[A joke indeed. There was never any freedom in Aubrey. He stares down at the chains binding them together. She's a prison in her own right; captivity is all Eren Jaeger has ever known.

[He kisses her again. He hates her. Again. He loves her.]

We will never be even.

[He saved her life. She saved his. This is how they repent.]

[The kisses are unexpected. They’re everything. She’ll drown in this, instead, voluntarily and wholly.]

You’re right. [A word between each, if even that. A gasp for air.]

I can’t hate you.

[Even now.]

[He kisses her again.]

I can.

[Again. His hand comes up to weave through her hair, to grip the back of her head so he can kiss her again. Again.]

I can do both.

And I do hate you.

[Another kiss. Another.]

And I do love you.

[He'll kiss her as many times as she'll let him.]

This is Hell. And you're stuck with me.

[There’s no love in that grip. Is there? God. Who cares. She’ll let him do whatever he wants.]

[It’s not the worst way to drown. She deserves less.]

[Aubrey has lost the right to act like Eren is stuck with her. So, silent, she grabs back at him, allowing it, returning it, shutting her eyes as each kiss, each word, finds a new way to break her heart.]

[It’s almost as good as dying.]

[Anger gives way to a duller type of misery as Eren breaks away from the last kiss. He releases his grip on her skull, his arm falling limp at his side, like it's too heavy to keep holding up. He feels a familiar rot settling in. None of it - hurtful words, hollow kisses, subtle threats - made him feel any less repulsive than when this conversation (if you can even call it that) began.

[He wants to turn his head away from her and finds that he can't.

[Aubrey. To think she'd been smiling and laughing only hours ago. And now she's dead.

[What lesson is the universe trying to teach them this time?]

Say something.

[His voice holds no warmth, no patience.]

Tell me why you brought us here.

[Seems there’s another constant: no matter what he says or does to her, when Eren lets go, it’s too soon. It’s a final gouge in its own right.

[Aubrey releases him in turn, loathing and craving his warmth. That he insists, insists on this torment—maybe that’s what she’s earned.]

[She’s tempted to not answer, just to piss him off. When was the last time that feeling stirred? Fuck, she misses his smiles, however small, while they lasted. She’s probably strangled them for good, now.]

[Thinking all this, having the energy again… This is dangerous. The water’s so close....]

To throw a party.

[Not funny. It still reeks of spilled guts.]

I don’t know. To fuck off and die.

Dammit.

[He’s growling again, though without much passion. He’s angry - angrier the more he thinks about what’s happened - but it’s still dull.]

Are you going to tell me what the hell happened? How long was I gone?

[Right. She never did explain that.]

I answered wrong. About who you are. [Aubrey scratches absently at her neck, where Eren’s protective hand once was. It’s an oxymoron, but she feels numb.] World reminded me.

It didn’t take long. [It was the longest void of her life—so far, anyway.]

["Loyal." "Strong." "Brave." Bullshit. Maybe he could have been something other than a monster, if only he'd been born into her world; but now, Aubrey disagrees. She's been reminded.

[He wants to go home. He wants to end it. Once and for all.]

You can boil it all down to "who you are", huh?

It would be easier to believe that, wouldn't it, Aubrey?

["It does kill me."

[When he speaks again, he finds his own tone hard to place. He isn't looking at her anymore. His eyes are set forward, still lifeless. Still chained, his hand flexes and strains; clenching, unclenching, twisting, untwisting.]

I might be a monster, but I'm everything you saw too.

Let that kill you.

You’re not getting it, are you?

[It comes out strangely… angry? sympathetic? both? Still not impassioned. But flirting with it.

[Aubrey hasn’t stopped watching Eren. She doesn’t need to leave his face to hear his hand straining.]

I’d be wrong to say you’re nothing but a hero. And I’d be wrong to call you a pure monster. You know you’re more than that.

[All those questions… all true, damningly, still.]

It’s not all about you. [Hypocrisy, thy name.]

["It's not all about you." A familiar sentiment; Eren's been told that in no uncertain terms plenty of times throughout his life. She's right, but he's angry, and so, he can't see that. There's somewhere, maybe, deep inside of him that worries about the hand or about her mental state, infinitely more wounded. He can't seem to dredge that up right now.

[But the sensation does lap upon his shores, just a little bit.]

You made this about me. I am a passenger.

[In some ways, it really feels that way. One moment, things were kind and light. Hell, they even talked their way through a memory with little to no incident. They were fine. And now, everything's fallen apart, and due to what? Eren simply being who he is?]

[He’s right, too, and Aubrey’s gnawed raw enough to recognize it. All she has left is this disgusting, brutal honesty, pungent as the blood seeping through the wood not far away.]

Because you’re more than a “passenger.” [Again with that tone, adrift on the shoreline.] You’ve only ever been you.

[Is that an accusation? A declaration? Aubrey knows damn well it explains nothing, and maybe she owes him more than that. But she already twisted herself into something unrecognizable, trying to forget everything that ever irked her about him—just so she could love him. Looking back, it’s terrifying. (That she tried? That, imperceptibly but suddenly all at once, she started to care?) Maybe it didn’t have to be him, but it was. And he’d call her an idiot for it all, she’s sure.

[She still loves him. She still wants to love him.

[Isn’t that fucking enough?]

Back when we first talked… you said you wanted to know my reasoning. That was all.

[Her focus drifts to that lifeless room. Maybe it did have to be Eren, actually. He told her exactly what she needed—in all the wrong ways.

[Shame she hasn’t stopped wanting to drown.]

Is that really true?

[Cold and matter-of-fact:]

I wanted to know why you treated your friend badly - if you even had a reason.

[There's point in trying to hide their similarities this far in. After everything they've been through? He's not too proud to say what comes next.]

I thought I might relate to you.

[A joyless huff, with that.]

And I said it was a bunch of stupid pictures.

That’s not false. But, you know…

[At this Aubrey stands, much as the chain will allow. She doesn’t move otherwise.]

I think I’m just selfish. [“Just.” Eren is cold again, and for what? Because she couldn’t take a little shadow-play? Because facing her own illusions is killing her? Pathetic.] I think I break everyone I love.

[She meets Eren’s eyes, for this; or at least stares through him.] You weren’t wrong.

[Eren does meet her eyes. In that moment, he loves her more than he hates her; he’s not entirely sure why. Still, his expression remains soulless]

Then we are the same.

[A pause.

[Something is calling her back to that room. She can’t place it.]

[Her gaze flickers to his lips. She can’t go further than that.]

[A rifle is so goddamn messy....]

Then help me face this. [Aubrey grabs his hand. Her palm has only lightly scabbed, and drips again at the contact. It’s a rough, soulless grip.] And then we’ll end it.

[She tries to take him to the door.]

[He doesn’t follow. Will the chain even allow him too? He can stand now, at least. He grips Aubrey’s hand and tries to pull her back.]

What are you talking about?

[Eren is strong. He’s stronger than Aubrey. The chain goes taut at her wrist but his pull is stronger; she doesn’t face him.]

What’s back there. I couldn’t face it.

If I see it now, I can go.

The thing that tried to kill you?

[He is stronger, and he yanks her back again, trying to get his arms around her this time; it’s a restraint.]

You’re weak. I’m not fighting that thing with you here. Not negotiable.

[She goes stiff at the grab, like the first memory of Reiner is surging through again. The last thing she wants right now is Eren’s warmth; but god, it’s everything.]

That thing is Basil. [Faintly it occurs to Aubrey that Eren has no idea where this is, what’s really behind that door.] I need to see him.

Let me go.

[Basil. Eren has to force back a laugh; he doesn’t find a single thing about this funny.]

No.

[He doubts he’ll be able to bend them away from this place; he tries anyway, envisioning nothing. Take them back to the empty void that built them. Anywhere but here.]

[At the “no,” a wild, animal urge—to what, kick and scream and cry and shove at him, bite his hand, anything to be let go?

[It passes in a flash, and then it’s gone, gone, gone, just like this dark, sprawling fascimile of “home.” The chain, the water, the door, the door; she watches it melt away, slipping hazily into a flatline. Oblivion is all she was looking for, anyway.

[And Eren is still there, holding her.

[Ha…]

[Aubrey wilts. There’s no fight. She’ll keep standing, should Eren’s grip loosen, but there’s not much else left.]

Stupid. [A mutter. Amused, faintly.] Should’ve known I can’t get away from you.

[Can’t run from your shadow, at the end of the day....]

[Safety. But it doesn’t feel it. Eren folds his body enough to lower Aubrey to the ground - dead weight. He doesn’t drop her; unmercifully, he’s gentle as he lies her down. But his words are cold and cruel.]

Yes. You should have.

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