Eren Jaeger (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
abandonhumanity) wrote2023-09-26 12:38 pm
abandonhumanity) wrote2023-09-26 12:38 pm
PSL / MEME CONTINUATION
I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine
and rage the likes of which you would not believe.
If I cannot satisfy the one,
I will indulge the other.
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[Aubrey should really stop thinking she can prepare herself for anything.
[His first statement throws her, and the rest leaves no room for recovery. As Eren talks, tense and pained, Aubrey holds him tighter, even as her head spins. She feels ill.
[It’s not because she doesn’t believe it. She was readying herself for denial, not this consuming, revolting connection. It’s the way Mari got evasive the second Eren came up, how she and Armin talked around him; the feeling Aubrey was being lied to, even after Mari swore she wasn’t. It’s how all this happened before Aubrey said any real word about Eren, just that they were friends—ah, but that was more than enough, wasn’t it?
[It’s the voice. That faint, second voice, right before Eren’s plea, calling Aubrey’s name in unison. They were somewhere together.
[It makes sense.
[Mari saw him caged like an animal, and she closed him in.]
[And what Eren goes back to, what seems to hurt him most, is that Aubrey wasn’t there.]
[Hell, she’d almost rather he focused on her friend. Let that betrayal gnaw at her. But he doesn’t, and Aubrey remembers how quickly he went cold when she shoved him away, and she looks at him in dreadful understanding, an apology for so much more than she can find the words for—and she pulls him close, tighter.]
I’m here now.... [Her voice wavers. She’ll explain, she’ll try to explain, if only the world will stop spinning for just a second. For now, Aubrey holds Eren like they’ll never be close again.] I’m here… I’m not going anywhere.
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[Can either of them ever truly forgive each other for the last conversation they had? He's not sure of that. He's not even sure that either of them would truly want to. Aubrey and he are as complex as they are desperate for each other.
[Still, her comfort is a balm. It leaves him feeling oddly emotional. When he reflects back on his life, there are very few moments he can recall that reflect tenderness like this. His mother, maybe, but that was such a long time ago. Mikasa and Armin, certainly, but there was never much room for that sort of thing even with them.
[The beast, for now, is assuaged. His grip around Aubrey loosens just slightly into something more comfortable. Absently - subconsciously, really - his nails drag up and down her back.]
We have to learn to stay together...
[His voice is quiet, contemplative, but calm. Numbness still looms, but Aubrey's warmth keeps it at bay for the moment. How long can they keep this up?]
Even when we can't stand each other. I don't care.
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[Forgiveness is hardly on Aubrey’s mind at all. Even for that brief, fleeting evening when things might have turned around… well, maybe it should have been implicit in “it’s okay” or “we’ve all made mistakes,” but Aubrey can’t hear it that way. She doesn’t deserve it. And she can’t quite give it, either; she couldn’t to them, and she can’t to Eren now, even as his nails on her back seem to plead for it.
[There’s an apology, and there’s hurt, and with time and some scrap of mercy it fades into a scar. That’s what Aubrey knows.]
[She knows his seemingly endless kisses, pins and needles between declarations of love and hate strangled together, will stay with her forever.]
[Eren’s voice is calmer now. With the panic at bay, feeling seeps back into Aubrey. It’s warm. It’s atrocious.]
[She keeps holding him.]
I don’t know how much we can help it. [A quiet, repulsive admision.]
Before, when I got… set off… [Less whispered, now, and gripping Eren closer still—] …the world took you away from me.
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That’s all…?
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No, no, it’s— [She rests her head against his chest, listens for his heartbeat. With his expression like that, any second now she expects to be thrown from his arms again, and maybe this time really will be the last.] It’s so stupid, in retrospect—
It went dark. You went hollow, like an illusion; and there was another you, younger. One of the shadows. And that shadow kept taunting— like you weren’t safe, like I shouldn’t trust you. And— [“Myself.” It always goes back to that.] —listen, that wasn’t what scared me.
[Her left hand closes in on itself, gripping, clenching. It wasn’t the child; it wasn’t the blade; it wasn’t even the darkness, with the statuesque facsimile of the Eren she wants so desperately to know.
[Aubrey’s not done yet, but the rest catches. She should have been more upfront when they were cold, when she had nothing left to lose. Now she gets to fucking hate herself for what she’s about to say. Surely it’s a matter of time before yet another blade drops.]
[Faintly, for now she musters this:] I think… it was my fault that happened at all.
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[”Like I shouldn’t trust you.”]
[”I’m sick of being treated like a monster”
[Eren doesn’t realize the memory’s been shared - only a quick flash.]
What do you mean?
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[It’s not right. It’s not his fault.
[Aubrey feels like a monster. Now it makes sense. Oh, fuck it, just drop the blade—]
I lied to myself about you. And I don’t— even if you’re capable of monstrous things, I don’t care, [and here she meets his eyes, even if they’re hurt and angry,] because I know you’re human and I still love you.
I still want you to stay. I still want… to help you. And I never want to hurt you again. [Yet it’s not something she can promise, because that’s who she is, and that’s what this relationship has become. Always has been, in a way…
[Her voice breaks.] I’m sorry....
memory starts at 0:30
[And then she looks at him, and she says, “I know you’re human.”
[Eren feels years away; young and desperate to be known. It started in the prison, this memory of gnawing hatred pointed toward him instead of from. And for what? With cannons aimed at him from every angle, Eren Jaeger cried out, “I’M A HUMAN!”
[They fired anyway. But when Aubrey says what she says, a different memory comes to mind. It plays for her when he touches her cheek, fingers cautious, like he could scar her if he lets his hand slip.
[His voice comes out stunned, but…somehow at ease.]
Okay then…
I forgive you.
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[You’ve never loved, or been loved like this, more in your entire life. So unconditionally, so wholly—not like this, not since bygone days, years long-past. An understanding, deeper and truer and more human than anything; and you stare into the mouth of hell and fight to your very last breath. For her.]
[It strikes Aubrey through the heart. When Eren’s words tempt the old gnaw of loathing—that he’s being so kind, so forgiving, and she deserves none of it—it… has no bite. How could it?
[She loves him. He loves her. They could die here and now, arm in arm; and they’d go down fighting, hand in branded hand, for each other.]
[Stunned, soft, burning— Aubrey takes Eren’s face in her hands, whispers] I forgive you, too.
[…and kisses him like they’re the last people alive.]
1/2
[It doesn’t matter who they are. It doesn’t matter that they’re both doomed. It doesn’t matter that hate seeps in when they least expect it. The hate - God, for once, for once the hate isn’t strong enough. For once the hate doesn’t win. Because there are kisses like this kiss, and a girl named Aubrey, and a world that won’t let him run away.
[Oh, but he kisses her. And it’s warm, and it’s passionate, hungry for love, sick with relief, pained with longing, longing, ever longing. Her, her, her. These rare, insidious, gentle, moments of peace.
[There’s no one else in the world who could ever understand. She is his. He is hers. It matters more than anything.]
2/2