[The question feels ridiculous. Maruki is as true to Eren as any person from Paradis would be. In his mind, he never forgot; in his mind, the memories he's experiencing right now are as timeless and impossible as any. Everything feels like it happened yesterday, tomorrow, a thousand times each.
[All the more troublesome that Maruki didn't answer his question. Eren takes a step closer, yellow sunlight leeching shadows from his face, leaving them only beneath his eyes.]
I do. I told you that I would.
[His friend is shaken. Eren's forgotten how to be one. There's some dull ache in the back of his heart, but he doesn't know what to do with it. If it's really been four years (didn't that witch say ten?) since they last met in this reality, then Maruki must have thought he was well and truly gone.
[Surprise. Hell won't end for Eren. For someone like him, it shouldn't. He's accepted that.]
Maruki. [There's nothing to his voice, really. It's vacancy is more sincere than it used to be. He doesn't sound like he's trying to hold anything back; there's nothing there.]
[ In the shifting sands of Maruki's memories, he has lived a reality in which he succeeded in the only dream he ever had, created a perfect world and then isolated himself from it. Not a soul remembered Maruki Takuto. As it should be; at the end of the day, he is unimportant, only a canvas for what others need him to be and he crafted an ideal reality in which no one needed him at all.
He has lived countless realities in which Rumi's eyes turned toward his, lifelike once more but entirely blank. She never remembers him. She never will remember him. There is no world that fixes such a simple fact of life, no world in which he would ever alter his greatest regret even if given the chance.
Everyone says that when you leave this reality, you forget. Maruki refuses to believe it. Has never once cottoned to the idea. Those who forget do so because their wills are weak. His is strong, strong enough to call forth a god. He will never forget, never. The same should go for others, but it isn't a given. Even Eren, even the one other person with as much power over the fabric of reality as him–
But it's what Maruki fears more than anything, and thus, what he's resigned himself to. Being forgotten, being alone.
Eren remembers him.
There's no life in his voice when he confirms it, but he remembers him. Says his name, empty, but present.
Maruki's throat tightens with a relief so total that it unnerves him. How exactly is he supposed to take it when his bone-deep fears are allayed all at once? He feels weightless, adrift. He has to inhale before he speaks, and it shudders. ]
A little more than two weeks. For me, I mean. Not for you. Clearly.
[ A beat, and he tries to smile. Can't feel his own face to feel how effective it is. It might be starting to crumble instead, for all he knows. ]
[There are very few - very few - times that Eren can remember Maruki's breath shuddering, or his expression crumbling.
[It's only been two weeks.
[Eren feels an anxious tug in his chest. One of the more disquieting things about Visium is that he is loved here - loved in new, frightening, overwhelming ways. The less he deserves, the more he receives; even back home, he couldn't escape it.
[It's not easy. Two weeks here, a handful of years there - time has been taken, and Eren can't figure out how much, to what level his anger should rise.
[His right fist clenches at his side, unfurls, clenches again.]
Eh...
[He looks away from Maruki, scratching idly at the back of his ear.]
That's hard to tell you. I was...fifteen when I got here, and I died when I was nineteen. That only feels like a little while ago.
[ It isn't shock, or surprise, or anything of the sort. Maruki knew Eren would die. He's known that since nearly the beginning of their friendship. Eren's future couldn't be changed; he would return to see it through, and he would die, and that would be that.
So will Akechi. So will Venat. The three people in Somnius he loves most will all return to their deaths, and Maruki has power over all reality, yet there's nothing he can do to stop or change that.
It might bother him more if he wasn't already convinced that their souls and memories persist beyond death, beyond realities. There are those he's meant to meet, to befriend, to let into his beleaguered heart, and he will see them again.
Eren has already died, and he's seeing him again now.
He does smile this time. Wide, and with a choked out, wet laugh as he tips his head back to turn his face toward the sun. Two weeks, four years. Departure, return. Death, rebirth. Or hell. Either way: this fucking place. ]
[ And because he knows that this Eren won't, Maruki goes to him instead. Picks his way across the half-destroyed floor of Eyn Sof, the singed and tattered edges of the rug where they sat every day to eat their lunch. Crosses the shell of his office to meet Eren head-on, because he cannot be stopped, neither of them can ever be stopped, and wraps him up in a hug so fierce that it could bend reality all on its own. ]
[What does it matter how long its been? Maruki hugs Eren with such force that you think they'd gone ten thousand years without seeing each other, but that's always how it's going to feel, isn't it? Eren remembers his promise. He knows that, by being here, he hasn't broken it - there's that, at least.
[Still. Maruki and Eren, the two-headed God, were pulled apart. It's profoundly wrong. Eren feels it in every mangled bone.
[His hand finds the nape of Maruki's neck, firmly grasping. His other arm claps around the man's back, pulling him in close, tight.]
I promised you.
cw suicidal ideation? i guess?? listen they're both worryfrog
[ There's a permanent, persistent twinge at the base of his neck now. Has been ever since he blinked out and in of existence with a wealth of visions suddenly crowding his mind; an unfamiliar persona evolved out of his own magnified willpower, consuming him, absorbing him, stabbing him through his nape so he could finally let go.
Another coincidence between them. He hadn't even had a chance to tell Eren before war, before–
It feels so stupid. Two weeks is nothing, in the grand scheme of things. But he doesn't need to make Eren understand why it felt so viciously cruel; he gets it, they both get it. And he places his hand right where it needs to be to quell a new ache that he doesn't yet know.
Maruki grips him impossibly tighter, doesn't pull away. Doesn't care who stumbles across his shuttered office and sees him clinging to his newly returned friend. His voice is muffled into Eren's broad shoulder. ]
I'm sorry you had to come back. To life, I mean, not to me.
[ Eren has spent months in Somnius acting as if he's already dead. He's even told Maruki, at times, to pretend that he is. He never has. He won't now, either. But he can recognize a desire fulfilled and then ripped away again, plain as day. ]
[ It's beyond lifeless. It should be concerning to Maruki, and maybe later it will be, but for now he can only feel relief that Eren exists at all, even against his own wishes. ]
Next time you leave, it'll be because we've broken free. And then you won't come back. You'll be done.
[ It's the only comfort he can offer his friend.
It sits heavily for a long moment, and then Maruki grinds his face into his shoulder, the frames of his glasses digging into his face. He can feel the humid fog on them, hear the strain in his own voice. He doesn't care.
Eren told him once that he could cry, if he wanted to. He wasn't able at the time. Now he isn't able to stop himself, but it's still subtle, soft. ]
[It feels impossible. The last Eren was alive, he was the very definition of a monster - a massive beast of bone that crawled across the Earth, decimating everything in its path. Of course, Maruki has never seen Eren that way - Eren knows that, remembers - but it doesn't change the fact that someone very human is curled against him, softly weeping, all because he couldn't bear two weeks without him.
[Four years ago - two weeks ago - it would have made him cry too. He can almost imagine it, the two of them, crying alongside each other.
[He never has seen his friend in a state like this.
[Eren loves. He hates, but he also loves. His love is violent, all-consuming, destructive, and steadfast. It never ebbs. It exists for so few, so massive that it blocks out the sun.
[Eren loves. It never was beaten out of him. There's no reason left to hide from it. The world has already been devoured.
[Eren is taller than Maruki now. He turns his nose into the man's hair and closes his eyes. Fingers trail over shuddering shoulders.]
[ He laughs again, wants to shove Eren's head, mess up his hair, tease him for being ridiculous. ]
Well, I wasn't furious. I was just–
[ It feels so stupid. Two weeks is nothing, in the grand scheme of things. He knows this.
But he has spent every single day since the afternoon that he let Rumi go building a life that ensures he never experiences loss again. He did it once, and that was enough. It shattered his heart and set him on a course for total perfection, total solitude. He couldn't ever do it again, and in the end, it was easy to do: Isolate, create distance, let no one in.
Coming to Somnius threw a wrench into things, but his desire to leave and to allow others to return to their own realities should they so choose ought to have inured him to the pain. He lost a few friends before this. There was some sadness, at first, but it faded easily with the knowledge that they were better off no longer trapped in a false reality. He really did think that was a foolproof safeguard.
Six, seven years since Rumi, and this is the first loss he's experienced.
It's stupid. It is. He knows it. But it shredded through him slowly, and it was never in anger. Only the pure misery of grief. ]
It doesn't matter.
[ He shakes his head, thumps a weak fist against Eren's back. ]
Don't apologize, though. I know you had nothing to do with it. You wouldn't have left like that if you had any choice in the matter. It's just... this place.
[At last, Eren releases his grip, pulling back to set a hand on either one of Maruki's shoulders instead. He looks his friend in the eye. Foggy lenses block the path; Eren takes it upon himself to push them up into Maruki's hair. Who wants to cry with glass in front of their face?]
Tell me how it felt. [Eren doubts he told anyone else.]
[ Glasses gone, his eyesight even blurrier than it would be otherwise. Maruki tugs the sleeve of his sweater over the heel of his palm to swipe it beneath both eyes and looks at Eren, squinting to try to sharpen his features.
He isn't a crier like Eren is. Was. There are no loud, gasping sobs to be had here. When Maruki does allow himself to cry, it's a quiet, slow thing. His eyes well up just enough for tears to get caught on his lashes when he blinks; they don't spill. ]
I know you lost a lot of people here that you cared deeply for, but that was the first time it happened for me.
[ His eyes drift from Eren's face to the half-ruined office around them, fuzzy in his poor vision. Here, of all places, being made to try to explain how grief feels to the person who has been mired in it for so much of his young life. ]
I've never had a best friend before.
[ Rumi, maybe, when they were in high school, but it so quickly became something else that it hardly counted. Since then, nothing, no one. ]
I felt alone.
[ He wasn't. He knows that he wasn't. That doesn't change how it felt. ]
[Eren and Maruki, separated, is a uniquely lonely sort of Hell. Eren understands, of course. He barely remembers what it was like to be here before - hasn't had time to remember - but he remembers that feeling, that loss, that terrible waiting period, over and over and over again.
[He remembers having to continue living. He remembers how impossible that felt. When Mikasa disappeared, he questioned every day how he managed to make himself breathe. It was worse than Hell.
[He also remembers thinking that if Maruki ever left Visium without him, he'd burn it straight to the ground.
[Of course he felt alone. Eren squeezes his shoulders. He's hurt a lot of people, abandoned them. The grief and betrayal they felt is perhaps what's more difficult to live with than anything, but Eren doesn't fear that here. He knows he is forgiven without having to ask. Because he and Maruki were not designed for one reality alone. Despite everything, that terrible grief, Maruki must have still known that it wouldn't be the last time...
[Still. To know that this man, whom Eren adores more than almost anyone, was in so much pain - it's gut-wrenching.]
[ He isn't alone. He never was, never will be now that he knows every reality is just another opportunity to find his friend again.
I see realities through to their end. ]
I know. I know, we both do.
[ Another laugh, but this one doesn't struggle for breath like the others. Still teary, but with true mirth behind it. He hears exactly what Eren is saying, and he's so goddamn relieved.
Maruki rubs at his eyes again, doesn't bother with his glasses just yet. Just in case. Heaves a huge inhale, tries to collect himself; there will be time later, he hopes, to tell Eren more.
For now, he just wants to hear him. Start committing this new voice to memory. ]
[That question is more loaded than it's ever been. Eren knows that the nature of his memories is no mystery to Maruki - meaning that the fact they're a mystery to him is no mystery. It's worse now than it's ever been. He remembers everything, of course, but it's difficult to place what belongs where. This reflects more in the prolonged silence than it does any flicker of facial expression. Eren removes his hands from Maruki's shoulders.]
My head is a mess.
Everything I remember feels like it happened all at once.
Thinking now...even as a a child, I remembered you. But that doesn't make sense...[His tone really hasn't changed much, but Maruki wouldn't be imagining it if Eren sounded more or less resigned to this.]
[ It's hardly surprising. Maruki hadn't expected a clean, cut and dry answer. That's not how memory works, and they both know it too well. Eren more so now than ever.
Eren's hands drop away, and Maruki replaces them with his own over his friend's shoulders. When did he get so tall? Only a couple inches more than him, but still. He can't call him shrimpy anymore.
But back then– ]
That did happen here. There was a period of time where we were occasional younger, or different versions of ourselves. I spent a lot of time with you as a kid.
[ It's all plainly, gently stated. He can only imagine a fraction of what Eren is feeling now, infinite futures and realities and pasts and memories jumbled into one mind. He will be nothing but patient with the person who has always deserved his help the most. ]
I can help you sort a lot of things out. We'll take it slow. There's time.
[Maruki's hands are on his shoulders, as grounding as ever, but Eren has been left without a single other tether. His brow just barely pinches in, the ghost of a frown. He glares at the ground, more focus than fury.]
I don't think...there's much left of me anymore. [Stated as simple fact - not so loaded with emotion as it might have been had he'd said it before it was really true. He took on a burden that one mind simply can't. He wasn't meant to survive that. The goal has been reached, and what's leftover is...slurry. Once you sort it out, what else is there?]
[ Maruki hears it. He's listening. He has listened to every word Eren has said to him, nearly every single day for months. He has reams of paper dedicated to keeping everything about Eren straight. An unfathomable amount of information, shared to both counselor and friend, all painstakingly catalogued and filed against his heart.
He hears the truth in Eren's words, but he also knows they come from a different reality, with a different set of circumstances.
And now he's here, with Maruki. Change is as inevitable as they are. ]
Maybe. Maybe not. You won't know until you find out. And please don't take this as me spontaneously developing an ego, but...
[ His hands rub up and down Eren's upper arms, soothing. ]
You've got an expert in the field at your side. You haven't had someone around to help you or let you simply be, Eren.
[ His eyes are dry again, smile entirely genuine and radiantly warm. ]
If you don't trust your own mind, trust me. I never let you down before.
[ He holds a preemptive hand up between them, stops a protest before it starts. ]
I know you're different now. I know. But that doesn't change what I'm telling you.
[ And then, the hand replaced on his shoulder, firm and grounding. Maruki expects this to take a long time. Maybe the whole rest of the time that they have together in Somnius. It doesn't matter. His patience is eternal, as is his stubbornness, and his conviction is pure. Eren might as well be looking at the sun. ]
I helped you before, and I'll help you again. Just watch me.
[ Heat rises up behind his eyes again before he can stop it, and they shine as he grins, shakes his head, jostles Eren. ]
That's okay. Eren. I don't expect you to.
[ He can't make Eren understand anything at the moment. He can only be here for him as the slurry of his mind slowly sifts and settles, as much as it ever will.
It's an honor, really. He can't make Eren understand that, either. ]
You don't need to do anything. Just– come rest. [ A beat, and a slightly sheepish, watery laugh. ] When you're done seeing everyone else, I mean. I don't presume I take precedence.
[Eren hates to see him crying, of course. It's not something that Maruki does. To that end, he's grateful to see it too. He doesn't think Maruki would show almost anyone else. This is what Eren's asked him for. They can both "just be" for at least a little while.
[He thumbs Maruki's tears away with no fanfare, then knocks his glasses back onto his nose. It might seem like a playful gesture - really, it's an awkward, aimless one.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no subject
[All the more troublesome that Maruki didn't answer his question. Eren takes a step closer, yellow sunlight leeching shadows from his face, leaving them only beneath his eyes.]
I do. I told you that I would.
[His friend is shaken. Eren's forgotten how to be one. There's some dull ache in the back of his heart, but he doesn't know what to do with it. If it's really been four years (didn't that witch say ten?) since they last met in this reality, then Maruki must have thought he was well and truly gone.
[Surprise. Hell won't end for Eren. For someone like him, it shouldn't. He's accepted that.]
Maruki. [There's nothing to his voice, really. It's vacancy is more sincere than it used to be. He doesn't sound like he's trying to hold anything back; there's nothing there.]
Answer me. How long has it been?
no subject
He has lived countless realities in which Rumi's eyes turned toward his, lifelike once more but entirely blank. She never remembers him. She never will remember him. There is no world that fixes such a simple fact of life, no world in which he would ever alter his greatest regret even if given the chance.
Everyone says that when you leave this reality, you forget. Maruki refuses to believe it. Has never once cottoned to the idea. Those who forget do so because their wills are weak. His is strong, strong enough to call forth a god. He will never forget, never. The same should go for others, but it isn't a given. Even Eren, even the one other person with as much power over the fabric of reality as him–
But it's what Maruki fears more than anything, and thus, what he's resigned himself to. Being forgotten, being alone.
Eren remembers him.
There's no life in his voice when he confirms it, but he remembers him. Says his name, empty, but present.
Maruki's throat tightens with a relief so total that it unnerves him. How exactly is he supposed to take it when his bone-deep fears are allayed all at once? He feels weightless, adrift. He has to inhale before he speaks, and it shudders. ]
A little more than two weeks. For me, I mean. Not for you. Clearly.
[ A beat, and he tries to smile. Can't feel his own face to feel how effective it is. It might be starting to crumble instead, for all he knows. ]
You came back. How long...?
no subject
[It's only been two weeks.
[Eren feels an anxious tug in his chest. One of the more disquieting things about Visium is that he is loved here - loved in new, frightening, overwhelming ways. The less he deserves, the more he receives; even back home, he couldn't escape it.
[It's not easy. Two weeks here, a handful of years there - time has been taken, and Eren can't figure out how much, to what level his anger should rise.
[His right fist clenches at his side, unfurls, clenches again.]
Eh...
[He looks away from Maruki, scratching idly at the back of his ear.]
That's hard to tell you. I was...fifteen when I got here, and I died when I was nineteen. That only feels like a little while ago.
1/2 i'm going to throw up
[ It isn't shock, or surprise, or anything of the sort. Maruki knew Eren would die. He's known that since nearly the beginning of their friendship. Eren's future couldn't be changed; he would return to see it through, and he would die, and that would be that.
So will Akechi. So will Venat. The three people in Somnius he loves most will all return to their deaths, and Maruki has power over all reality, yet there's nothing he can do to stop or change that.
It might bother him more if he wasn't already convinced that their souls and memories persist beyond death, beyond realities. There are those he's meant to meet, to befriend, to let into his beleaguered heart, and he will see them again.
Eren has already died, and he's seeing him again now.
He does smile this time. Wide, and with a choked out, wet laugh as he tips his head back to turn his face toward the sun. Two weeks, four years. Departure, return. Death, rebirth. Or hell. Either way: this fucking place. ]
no subject
[ And because he knows that this Eren won't, Maruki goes to him instead. Picks his way across the half-destroyed floor of Eyn Sof, the singed and tattered edges of the rug where they sat every day to eat their lunch. Crosses the shell of his office to meet Eren head-on, because he cannot be stopped, neither of them can ever be stopped, and wraps him up in a hug so fierce that it could bend reality all on its own. ]
no subject
[Still. Maruki and Eren, the two-headed God, were pulled apart. It's profoundly wrong. Eren feels it in every mangled bone.
[His hand finds the nape of Maruki's neck, firmly grasping. His other arm claps around the man's back, pulling him in close, tight.]
I promised you.
cw suicidal ideation? i guess?? listen they're both worryfrog
[ There's a permanent, persistent twinge at the base of his neck now. Has been ever since he blinked out and in of existence with a wealth of visions suddenly crowding his mind; an unfamiliar persona evolved out of his own magnified willpower, consuming him, absorbing him, stabbing him through his nape so he could finally let go.
Another coincidence between them. He hadn't even had a chance to tell Eren before war, before–
It feels so stupid. Two weeks is nothing, in the grand scheme of things. But he doesn't need to make Eren understand why it felt so viciously cruel; he gets it, they both get it. And he places his hand right where it needs to be to quell a new ache that he doesn't yet know.
Maruki grips him impossibly tighter, doesn't pull away. Doesn't care who stumbles across his shuttered office and sees him clinging to his newly returned friend. His voice is muffled into Eren's broad shoulder. ]
I'm sorry you had to come back. To life, I mean, not to me.
[ Eren has spent months in Somnius acting as if he's already dead. He's even told Maruki, at times, to pretend that he is. He never has. He won't now, either. But he can recognize a desire fulfilled and then ripped away again, plain as day. ]
no subject
We already knew. [His voice remains less than dull, even as fingers strain around flesh and fabric.] This place is Hell.
It's what I expected.
no subject
Next time you leave, it'll be because we've broken free. And then you won't come back. You'll be done.
[ It's the only comfort he can offer his friend.
It sits heavily for a long moment, and then Maruki grinds his face into his shoulder, the frames of his glasses digging into his face. He can feel the humid fog on them, hear the strain in his own voice. He doesn't care.
Eren told him once that he could cry, if he wanted to. He wasn't able at the time. Now he isn't able to stop himself, but it's still subtle, soft. ]
I missed you so much. You have no idea.
no subject
[Four years ago - two weeks ago - it would have made him cry too. He can almost imagine it, the two of them, crying alongside each other.
[He never has seen his friend in a state like this.
[Eren loves. He hates, but he also loves. His love is violent, all-consuming, destructive, and steadfast. It never ebbs. It exists for so few, so massive that it blocks out the sun.
[Eren loves. It never was beaten out of him. There's no reason left to hide from it. The world has already been devoured.
[Eren is taller than Maruki now. He turns his nose into the man's hair and closes his eyes. Fingers trail over shuddering shoulders.]
I'm sorry.
If you'd left first, I'd be furious.
no subject
Well, I wasn't furious. I was just–
[ It feels so stupid. Two weeks is nothing, in the grand scheme of things. He knows this.
But he has spent every single day since the afternoon that he let Rumi go building a life that ensures he never experiences loss again. He did it once, and that was enough. It shattered his heart and set him on a course for total perfection, total solitude. He couldn't ever do it again, and in the end, it was easy to do: Isolate, create distance, let no one in.
Coming to Somnius threw a wrench into things, but his desire to leave and to allow others to return to their own realities should they so choose ought to have inured him to the pain. He lost a few friends before this. There was some sadness, at first, but it faded easily with the knowledge that they were better off no longer trapped in a false reality. He really did think that was a foolproof safeguard.
Six, seven years since Rumi, and this is the first loss he's experienced.
It's stupid. It is. He knows it. But it shredded through him slowly, and it was never in anger. Only the pure misery of grief. ]
It doesn't matter.
[ He shakes his head, thumps a weak fist against Eren's back. ]
Don't apologize, though. I know you had nothing to do with it. You wouldn't have left like that if you had any choice in the matter. It's just... this place.
no subject
[At last, Eren releases his grip, pulling back to set a hand on either one of Maruki's shoulders instead. He looks his friend in the eye. Foggy lenses block the path; Eren takes it upon himself to push them up into Maruki's hair. Who wants to cry with glass in front of their face?]
Tell me how it felt. [Eren doubts he told anyone else.]
no subject
He isn't a crier like Eren is. Was. There are no loud, gasping sobs to be had here. When Maruki does allow himself to cry, it's a quiet, slow thing. His eyes well up just enough for tears to get caught on his lashes when he blinks; they don't spill. ]
I know you lost a lot of people here that you cared deeply for, but that was the first time it happened for me.
[ His eyes drift from Eren's face to the half-ruined office around them, fuzzy in his poor vision. Here, of all places, being made to try to explain how grief feels to the person who has been mired in it for so much of his young life. ]
I've never had a best friend before.
[ Rumi, maybe, when they were in high school, but it so quickly became something else that it hardly counted. Since then, nothing, no one. ]
I felt alone.
[ He wasn't. He knows that he wasn't. That doesn't change how it felt. ]
no subject
[He remembers having to continue living. He remembers how impossible that felt. When Mikasa disappeared, he questioned every day how he managed to make himself breathe. It was worse than Hell.
[He also remembers thinking that if Maruki ever left Visium without him, he'd burn it straight to the ground.
[Of course he felt alone. Eren squeezes his shoulders. He's hurt a lot of people, abandoned them. The grief and betrayal they felt is perhaps what's more difficult to live with than anything, but Eren doesn't fear that here. He knows he is forgiven without having to ask. Because he and Maruki were not designed for one reality alone. Despite everything, that terrible grief, Maruki must have still known that it wouldn't be the last time...
[Still. To know that this man, whom Eren adores more than almost anyone, was in so much pain - it's gut-wrenching.]
You aren't anymore.
[He makes promises he can't or won't keep all the time, but he knows he can make this one. He likes to keep them when he can. He really does.]
It's over now. All that's left is this Hell.
I see realities through to their end.
[I'm here. I'm sorry. I won't leave you again.]
no subject
I see realities through to their end. ]
I know. I know, we both do.
[ Another laugh, but this one doesn't struggle for breath like the others. Still teary, but with true mirth behind it. He hears exactly what Eren is saying, and he's so goddamn relieved.
Maruki rubs at his eyes again, doesn't bother with his glasses just yet. Just in case. Heaves a huge inhale, tries to collect himself; there will be time later, he hopes, to tell Eren more.
For now, he just wants to hear him. Start committing this new voice to memory. ]
Did you remember? When you went back?
no subject
My head is a mess.
Everything I remember feels like it happened all at once.
Thinking now...even as a a child, I remembered you. But that doesn't make sense...[His tone really hasn't changed much, but Maruki wouldn't be imagining it if Eren sounded more or less resigned to this.]
no subject
Eren's hands drop away, and Maruki replaces them with his own over his friend's shoulders. When did he get so tall? Only a couple inches more than him, but still. He can't call him shrimpy anymore.
But back then– ]
That did happen here. There was a period of time where we were occasional younger, or different versions of ourselves. I spent a lot of time with you as a kid.
[ It's all plainly, gently stated. He can only imagine a fraction of what Eren is feeling now, infinite futures and realities and pasts and memories jumbled into one mind. He will be nothing but patient with the person who has always deserved his help the most. ]
I can help you sort a lot of things out. We'll take it slow. There's time.
no subject
I don't think...there's much left of me anymore. [Stated as simple fact - not so loaded with emotion as it might have been had he'd said it before it was really true. He took on a burden that one mind simply can't. He wasn't meant to survive that. The goal has been reached, and what's leftover is...slurry. Once you sort it out, what else is there?]
no subject
He hears the truth in Eren's words, but he also knows they come from a different reality, with a different set of circumstances.
And now he's here, with Maruki. Change is as inevitable as they are. ]
Maybe. Maybe not. You won't know until you find out. And please don't take this as me spontaneously developing an ego, but...
[ His hands rub up and down Eren's upper arms, soothing. ]
You've got an expert in the field at your side. You haven't had someone around to help you or let you simply be, Eren.
[ His eyes are dry again, smile entirely genuine and radiantly warm. ]
If you don't trust your own mind, trust me. I never let you down before.
no subject
[He mutters the words between them as if trying to decipher them. He doesn't seem to understand.
[Quieter; he really doesn't.]
What good will that do?
no subject
[ He holds a preemptive hand up between them, stops a protest before it starts. ]
I know you're different now. I know. But that doesn't change what I'm telling you.
[ And then, the hand replaced on his shoulder, firm and grounding. Maruki expects this to take a long time. Maybe the whole rest of the time that they have together in Somnius. It doesn't matter. His patience is eternal, as is his stubbornness, and his conviction is pure. Eren might as well be looking at the sun. ]
I helped you before, and I'll help you again. Just watch me.
no subject
[When was the last time he could just be? He can't remember. He's not sure if there ever was a time at all.
[Dull eyes stare at Maruki's, which are warm enough for the both of them; the sun, yes. What Eren's searching for is unclear even to him.]
You did. I remember.
[But it is different. He's not the same. Hope is well and truly gone. There's no point in even being angry anymore. He hasn't felt it yet, really.]
I don't...know where to begin.
god the amount of cryruki you're getting
[ Heat rises up behind his eyes again before he can stop it, and they shine as he grins, shakes his head, jostles Eren. ]
That's okay. Eren. I don't expect you to.
[ He can't make Eren understand anything at the moment. He can only be here for him as the slurry of his mind slowly sifts and settles, as much as it ever will.
It's an honor, really. He can't make Eren understand that, either. ]
You don't need to do anything. Just– come rest. [ A beat, and a slightly sheepish, watery laugh. ] When you're done seeing everyone else, I mean. I don't presume I take precedence.
no subject
[He thumbs Maruki's tears away with no fanfare, then knocks his glasses back onto his nose. It might seem like a playful gesture - really, it's an awkward, aimless one.]
I'd like to be with you for a while.
no subject
I'd like that, too. Ah, have you gone back to the farm yet...?
[ Is it chill to go there? Or is it more machiya hours? ]
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
I literally never get to use this icon
(no subject)
lmao girl u couldn't PAY me to go back to working doordash u know the miles that put on my cart?
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
cw: use of the word "pulp"
(no subject)
1/3 idk how long this will take I'm cookin enjoy
2/3
3/3
(no subject)
1/2
2/2