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.
2/3 surprise! nothing but memory
[Basil used to brush your hair. For such a thin little thing, his fingers could be rough; he spent a lot of time gardening, sometimes with his grandmother and sometimes (more often) alone, and after a good afternoon of weed-pulling, his nails were filthy. Sometimes when you watched him work, he tugged on stray grasses with such ferocity you’d think they shoved him around, called him names. You got it. Everyone needs an outlet.
[Besides, raised voices scared him. Lots of things did. Where you learned to fire back, he withered. He hated making people upset; even when your own roughhousing pushed him over, he could always stand back up with a smile. And whenever he caught a snag, he apologized. “Everything will be okay.” You wished you had a brother like him; he wished he had a sister like you. Neither of your parents cared to provide. But you had each other, and maybe that was enough.
[You made more friends, and introduced him to them, and that could have been enough.]
[He needed you, when Mari died.]
[You don’t remember the last time you saw him laugh, or smile, in a way that didn’t shake and quiver like cornered prey. So, after a while, you stopped turning his way altogether. But not before he aimed that pleading, wild look at you; desperate, tearful, sorry beyond words. Just defiant enough to sputter; just broken enough to infuriate you. You wouldn’t let him talk. You didn’t want to hear him. Over some stupid goddamn pictures—that you stole.
[An image: lakeside, evening. New friends leave; they don’t know what’s going on, that this lake isn’t yours alone to claim, because you have not let them know. Kel and Sunny see through you, and they won’t leave. You are sick to death of them. All of them. All of this. And Basil—Basil is cowering behind you, and it’s all his fault.
[5:46–7:23; no sooner, no later.]
[Splash.]