abandonhumanity | PSL / MEME CONTINUATION

[He's changed. She hasn't; at least, not in appearance. But the Annie he knew - the Annie he loved - was only ever a lie. Hatred rots inside of him as he stares at her, cold and dead. He remembers how it felt to love her. He feels it now, that sickening memory. She's beautiful. She's repulsive. She's a monster. She's Annie Leonhart.

[He doesn't bother answering; in fact, only says the first thing that comes to mind.]

You bitch.

[ She’d been prepared for anything he might say, anything he might do, but the loathing in his voice still hits like a punch to the gut. She deserves it, she knows that. Frankly, she deserves worse. ]

That’s fair.

[ She knows she’s done horrible things. She knows she’s a horrible person. But she’d made her father a promise, and she would have killed a ten, a hundred, a thousand more people if it had meant she could return to him. ]

["Fair." Sure. Maybe. But he doesn't care about that. Eren hasn't been concerned with fairness for a long time now; never really was, if he's honest with himself.

["Justified" might be a better word. He feels like he wants to snap her neck.]

Surprised you'd show your face.

[As if either of them really have a choice.]

[ All things considered, she thinks this is going pretty well. She had thought for sure that he would have attacked her by now. The old Eren would have. ]

That makes two of us.

[ She’d never expected to speak to him again, when she’d sealed herself inside a crystal prison. ]

[An attack isn't off the table. When he met with Reiner and Liberio, he wanted the opportunity to talk first, and he took it. It's the same with Annie. He hasn't seen her in over four years. He figures he deserves an explanation; people so rarely get what they deserve.

[She will, though.]

You've always been a coward.

[For Eren, it's the greatest insult he could imagine. Hiding in the interior - hiding from him. Did he make her doubt her plan? Was there any temptation to hesitate? If there was, it wasn't enough. Even for how much he's been able to steel himself over the last couple of years, he still remembers the way Levi's squad was crushed in front of his eyes. His heart burns with equal parts grief and rage. He's never forgotten them; the day he learned to trust no one.

[If she ever did love him, he'd only hate her more for it.]

[ The corners of her mouth twist up. ] And you’ve always known that.

[ She’d told him that, time and time again. He’d never believed her. And here he is, condemning her, as though cowardice were the worst of her crimes. That, at least, is familiar — Eren had always thought cowards were the worst sort of people, even when they were still cadets. She’d found it incredible, back then, that he had been able to still give himself to her, to reconcile what they had with her lack of courage. ]

[The thing is, he'd never quite believed it. Annie often said she was a coward, but with her skills, her confidence, the way she intimidated everyone she bothered speaking to - it just didn't add up. Her decision to join the Military Police had always baffled him. Why would she waste her skills on something with so little honor? "Fear" was never an answer that Eren's brain could reconcile.

[Treachery - in the end, that made much more sense.

[That disgusting, repulsive smile. Eren feels like he could reach out and strangle her. At his sides, his hands twitch with the impulse, the right one flexing as if in pain.]

Yet here you are.

Disgusting.

[All the more for how beautiful she is, for the way his heart hasn't stopped racing since he first laid eyes on her. It hasn't beat with so much vigor in years. He wants to strangle himself too.]

[ Sometimes, before all of this, Annie had wondered if Eren was even capable of feeling fear. Instead of fear, he had anger. Anger at the Titans, initially. Now it’s anger at her. But Annie isn’t like him. She’s made of flesh and blood where he’s made of hatred. He might have left his humanity back in Shiganshina, but Annie is still very much a human, with all of the cowardice that comes with it.

She watches his hands carefully. Maybe he will attack her after all. Maybe she would let him. ]

You’re like me, you know.

[ That wasn’t what she was going to say, but the words fall from her mouth unbidden. He is like her. Both in his transgressions — she doesn’t think she’ll ever forget the words she’d heard right before she’d been pulled from her artificial slumber — and in his very nature. She would kill any number of people to return to her father. He would kill any number of people to protect his people.

It had taken her a while to realize that. She had always thought of him as different, as better than her. But now, as she looks at him, it’s clear that they aren’t so different after all. ]

[At this, his lip briefly snarls; it's the closest thing to a cruel laugh he can manage - not much of an approximation at all.]

You're insulting me? Or yourself?

Why not both?

[ She shrugs, as though she isn’t baring her soul by simply being here. It wasn’t meant to be an insult, just an observation, but she isn’t surprised he took it that way.

She isn’t sure if he could ever surprise her again, not after genocide. ]

Explain yourself, then.

We’ve killed people. We’re cruel.

[ She wants to say more, but the words don’t come, trapped in her throat. ]

The same goes for anyone.

[His tone says it all - he's not buying it.

[Secretly, though, somewhere deep down, he agrees; knows for a fact that she's right, in fact. And he hates her all the more for it. He'd never considered them the same as kids; not until he found out she was a monster. That's the common ground they share.]

Edited 2023-12-23 04:06 (UTC)

[ She shakes her head. He’s right, plenty of people are murderers, but that isn’t really what she had meant.]

No. We’re survivors. [ And then, a little ruefully, she adds: ] We’re ruthless.

["Survivors". That really is what it all comes down to, isn't it? Kill or be killed. Destroy or be destroyed. Make it home, or die trying. And they've both lied. They've both manipulated. They've both allowed the trust and good faith of their friends to further their own sick, twisted goals. They'd both thought them noble for a time.

[For a time. Saving Eren's home, his people, his dignity - it's a pretty reason to preach, a fine excuse. And it's secondary to watching the world burn, to destroying what destroyed him.

[Are they really the same? Did Annie kill for the sake of watching her enemies die?]

What was your reason, Annie?

[Why? Why did she lie? Why did they trade secret kisses and hushed confessions? Why did she share her body with him, her soul - what he thought for sure was a soul?

[To hurt him? To punish the devils on Paradis? Was that all? Was that all?]

[ She shrugs. Does it matter what her reason was, in the end? People still died. Squad Levi, Marco, other cadets, thousands of faceless, nameless people…for what? She didn’t believe the propaganda, not like Reiner. It was impossible to think of the Eldians as devils when they ate, slept, cried, breathed — just like the Marleyans. No, everything she did was for one, horribly selfish reason.

She doesn’t want to tell Eren. But doesn’t he deserve…well, some honesty from her after everything? ]

It was for my father.

[ Her father, who had beaten her into the ground, who was crippled because of her, who had waited for her and had promised to love her no matter what. ]

[There's a heavy silence that hangs between them; it lasts for nearly a minute, Eren simply staring at her, his eyes as cold and dead as ever.]

All that. For one person?

[ She blinks, caught off guard, and then her expression hardens. Squaring her shoulders, she takes a step closer to Eren. How dare he. How dare he question her motives, as though he has some kind of moral high ground. He had been ready to destroy the world, and he would have justified every death. At least she had known that what she was doing was wrong!

Another step. She’s close enough now that she could reach out and touch him, cup his cheek, wrap her hands around his neck. ]

You think I enjoyed it?

[Annie takes a step closer to him, and gravity increases. Eren can feel the weight all around him - the need to touch, whether it be a cupped cheek, or a strangled throat. They haven't been this closer in years - not since he ripped her out of her Titan back in Stohess. Anything could happen now. He could tear her to shreds or pull her into his arms. There's an ache for both. The love of Eren Jaeger does not simply die; only gets worse, darker, more destructive.

[For the record, Eren knows that what he's doing is wrong too. His reasons are thin, a facade. He wants to watch the world burn. That's all it is, really. He wants to watch Annie burn too. And he's well aware of this. Murdering dozens for the sake of one person versus murdering millions for the sake of his own broken heart.

[Annie is a monster. Eren is something worse.]

Maybe I did once.

[One more word to use. He doesn't have to choose carefully.]

Pathetic.

[ Pathetic. As if she doesn’t know that already. As if she doesn’t hate herself enough. It stings, like salt in an open wound. The thought of Eren ever having thought that she enjoyed taking lives, betraying the others, betraying him is even worse. Not salt, this time, but a knife in her chest, twisting with every word he says. ]

Pathetic and cowardly and selfish, [ she says, agreeing. What does he expect her to do, argue with him? Challenge him? He’s right. ]

[Maybe he is expecting her to argue, challenge him. Maybe it's easier to think of Annie as a monster who enjoys spilling blood, who denies his accusations, who prides herself on the lives she's taken.

[A friend, a comrade, a lover - someone who did what they had to do because they saw no other option, not because they wanted to hurt anyone - that's harder to swallow. The fact that Eren, once a hero to humanity, can relate more to bloodlust than Annie, the traitor, can - that's hard to swallow too. Part of him means it when he says that he's doing what he's doing to protect the people he loves, just like Annie fought for her father.

[But only part of him. "Pathetic and cowardly and selfish."

[Yeah. She's right about that.]

We really are the same.

[With this, he raises his hand. The tips of his fingers brush across her right cheek. They linger there instead of dropping. He's touching Annie Leonhart again for the first time in four years.]

[ She almost — almost — wishes he hadn’t agreed with her. She doesn’t want them to be the same, doesn’t want to acknowledge any similarity between herself and Eren Jaeger, but for reasons she’s not entirely sure of, it feels vitally important that he knows that they are cut from the same cloth. Carved from the same flesh.

And then he touches her, skin on skin, and she promptly forgets how to think.

It’s deceptively gentle, a lover’s caress. She should step back, slap his hand away, turn her head to the side and bite his fucking fingers off, but she’s frozen in place, unable to move.

She can speak, though. Between clenched teeth, she hisses out, ] don’t touch me.

[Eren turns his hand, gentle knuckles skating over Annie's cheek; next, a warm palm, cupping.]

Push me away.

[ She doesn’t push him away, like the greedy, self-serving creature she is, and she loathes him more with every second that passes with his hand on her face. ]

I hate you.

[ It’s true. It is. Any…feelings she might have had for him are long gone, shriveled up and dead. So then why is she leaning into his touch?

He’s right. She is pathetic. ]

[She's pathetic, and he's pathetic, and she isn't pushing him away, just like he knew she wouldn't; is, in fact, leaning into his touch, warm cheek against warm hand. They're both still warm - like living, breathing humans? Or like steaming, rotting titans? Titan shifters tend to have higher body temperatures; everyone else just feels so cold when he touches them.

[There's a miserable pain to how she leans into that touch. Eren would like for those around him to believe that his heart shriveled up and died a long time ago, but here it is in his palm, beating. They were never meant to touch like this; he'll never be able to forget how it felt the first time.

[With burning lips, he kisses her, all hunger and want and desperation. His free hand comes to grip her the back of her head, holding it there in place. Don't break away. He wants her arms around him. He wants her holding him captive with shackles of flesh. Wrap yourself around his throat like a snake and constrict - anything, anything to be held by Annie Leonhart again.]

let's gooo

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