[Thorfinn has many questions. Eren can't blame him. His tone remains even, dull; he recites with no attachment to his words.]
I died, but my heart is still beating. I'm not sure what that makes me now. My wish hasn't changed. [The power to destroy my enemies. Eren came to regret it almost instantly - wondered if Vaeros was, in part, to blame for the future he feared so greatly.
[It doesn't matter anymore. The reality has changed, and the enemy has changed. He will succeed.]
I'm sure that's no surprise to you.
And no, I didn't forget you. [Quieter, just marginally:] I told you that I wouldn't.
[ Eren says I died like it's nothing, like it doesn't matter. Thorfinn's eyebrows knit together. He's finally close to angry. Death is death, after all. Knowing it happens to everyone doesn't make it mean nothing.
He can't imagine death means nothing, especially Eren's death, because he loves Eren. Thorfinn can sometimes admit that the senseless death that happens in war still matters. The dead are still dead, some of them robbed of life too soon, some of them (like his father) denied the Valhalla they longed for. ]
How can you say it like you don't care? I knew you would die if you went home! And you knew too! And I…
[ Thorfinn doesn't have words for mourned. Eren hasn't been gone all that long, and Thorfinn does not know how to mourn, how to grieve. All he knows how to do is get pissed off, turn violence on others, find revenge.
He couldn't do any of that with Eren gone. He just ran away from everyone until Maruki sought him out.
Of course he's not really surprised that Eren's wish never changed. Eren seems strange and distant now, but isn't he Eren? Hadn't he come here to find Thorfinn now that he was back?
Thorfinn has never been very free with his affection, not even with Eren. He had been denied touch for most of his life, aside from fighting. It isn't that he doesn't want to.
So he crosses the distance between them, even if he can't bridge the rift as easily, and reaches for Eren like they had before the war, like they had before Eren's war. Eren is so much taller now and Thorfinn can't even resent it. As long as he's actually here, it doesn't matter.
He buries his face against Eren's chest — broader, stronger maybe, than it was before. ]
I don't want you to be dead.
cw: suicidal ideation (have that link and this icon as a little treat for lyns <3)
[Even once Eren realized himself - after the Labyrinth, when he lived that terrible future - he never could tell Thorfinn. For everyone he's known - in his true reality, in this reality - there's only ever been one person that he felt truly understood.
[Some sins are impossible to live with. The weight is too great. It wasn't a matter of wanting to die. It was the impossibility of continuing to live. He feels it now. His mind is a dizzying slurry of lifetimes' worth of memories. He wasn't meant to continue on. He wants to rest. He still wants to rest.
[Thorfinn closes the distance, and Eren still can't tell him that dying had been part of his plan. Now isn't the time. Thorfinn reaches for him.
[Thorfinn doesn't reach for anyone. Eren wraps his arms tight around him, overcome at the sudden permission to touch. He clutches the back of the boys head, holding him firmly to his chest. He's so much smaller than Eren now. Eren's always felt protective.
[There are no words of comfort for something like this, really. Eren is dead. Nothing can change that now, and he doesn't want anything to. What he can say, at least:]
While I'm here, you don't have to worry about that.
I'm not finished here. I won't leave again until that choice is mine to make.
[ Thorfinn suppresses so much of his own memory — accidentally, the way trauma works, not through some insane orchestration like someone — in order to keep going. It could really break him, the weight of it all, and he's never going to carry anything like what Eren does.
This place has had the opposite effect, though. He's emotionally much stronger after being here, after making connections to other people — Eren, Loki, Maruki, Dolph — who treated him as a person.
He hits one closed fist against Eren's chest, but there's no weight to it. There could be; Thorfinn is anything but weak. But he's not fighting, just…nudging. ]
Maruki said you'd come back. I thought he was just saying it to try to make me feel better. People tell themselves lies like that.
[ He's heard the way that people talk when they've lost things, when they've lost people, homes, everything, anything. His own self-talk isn't much better, convincing himself he was strong enough to take on Askeladd long before he was. Maybe technically he could be now, if he'd learn to think amidst a fight. If only he'd learn to stop getting pissed off whenever that bastard pushes his buttons. ]
You don't have to lie to me, too. You don't have to tell me you'll stay. It's not up to us.
[ Just like death and war, he thinks. He's used to being used, though he won't see it that way. He's used to a lack of agency, choices made only to survive. He thought this place was different, maybe, but look how that turned out. ]
[Of course Maruki would spend Eren's time away comforting those that had lost him. Maruki's own loss was massive. Knowing his friend, he doubts he was given the same treatment, or that he asked for it.
[But he vouched for Eren's return, and he was right. Eren is right too. He knows that he is. He wouldn't have returned for no reason - he's convinced himself quite easily that that was his own choice too. He has unfinished business.
[It isn't time to rest yet.]
Maruki said that I'd come back, and he was right. You just said so yourself. [He murmurs this between them.]
You should trust, now, that he knew. For the same reasons he did, trust that I do. There's a lot you don't know, Thorfinn.
[ Thorfinn isn't sure what he believes. He hasn't heard of anyone disappearing and coming back years later, so…in a way, that lends credence to what Maruki had said then and Eren says now.
But if he could choose to be here, why can't they all choose to leave?
Thorfinn doesn't entirely want to leave, but that's not really the point. He has to go home and finish what he started, even though the taste of revenge is no longer a good one. ]
There's a lot lots of people don't know.
[ He's a little defensive, but he doesn't seek out information the way some people do. He doesn't care about all of that. That's for smart people. He knows he's not all that smart, but it doesn't matter. He's a capable warrior, and what else would there ever be? ]
But I believe you. I guess. That you won't leave unless you want to. Tell me before you do.
[ He would never ask Eren to stay, even if he wants to. He can't go that far. But he can at least ask for a damn warning. ]
[It will all depend on so much. Whatever actions he ends up taking against those in charge, at this point, he'll guarantee that his loved ones are safe, but there's no guaranteeing that this reality will stay intact. He's not quite ready to pass that information along. He doesn't think Thorfinn would understand what he's trying to do. They made a promise to defeat Vaeros together, yes, and that can still be true, but there are very few that Eren has entrusted with deeper intentions. All that being said, there's no scenario in which Thorfinn wouldn't be informed that something would be about to happen.]
I will. [Voice quiet, steady. He pulls away enough to look at Thorfinn, arms still around him.]
For the time being...you don't have to worry about that.
[ Thorfinn could probably never understand all of Eren's goals, the things he had done and why he'd done them. Thorfinn didn't have anything to protect until coming here, and who would agree with decimating the entire world anyway? As for Somnius, Thorfinn hesitates to make this place disappear if it means that people who are alive here would be dead again.
Dolph. Eren. They can't be the only ones.
But he can't stay here, either. Though something in him feels twisted up when he thinks about Askeladd dying, that's still the only thing he has ever lived for. He promised not to let go of that revenge, and he hasn't, even half-knowing that on the other side of it is hollow and blank.
But defeating Vaeros, getting answers? Of course he still wants that. ]
Okay.
[ He holds on for a moment longer, but he's never been the clingy type. He doesn't know how to channel his grief and his anger and his loneliness into anything. So he lets go and shoves a little, something easier to do, not quite playful. ]
[Eren is shoved. It makes him want to pick Thorfinn up and carry him inside.
[He doesn't. He doesn't mess around like that anymore. Things are taken too seriously. He's forgotten how to act like a friend, a partner, someone worth calling family.
[He steps away and tucks his hands into the pockets of his coat, looking down at Thorfinn.]
Kanoa asked me the same question. I don't have to explain that legs grow to you, do I?
[ Thorfinn notices there's some difference in Eren. He chalks it up to four years passing, to war. He knows how war can change things.
(He has no idea what happened to Eren, how off he is.) ]
I know legs grow! Whatever. In four years I'll be taller than you anyway.
[ He sounds like a petulant child about it. He's longed to be tall like his father, refusing to accept that he can't be. But ultimately it's a deflection from everything else, from Eren's disappearance, from his reappearance and his changed demeanour. ]
I will be. [Quiet; tired, maybe. He turns back to Thorfinn and takes his hand - fiddles with the fingers.
[He leans in to take a kiss - seems to remember halfway through what kissing someone he loves feels like, then takes Thorfinn's face in both of his hands and deepens that kiss.
[Eren's love never dies, never diminishes. It only grows more terrible.
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no subject
I died, but my heart is still beating. I'm not sure what that makes me now. My wish hasn't changed. [The power to destroy my enemies. Eren came to regret it almost instantly - wondered if Vaeros was, in part, to blame for the future he feared so greatly.
[It doesn't matter anymore. The reality has changed, and the enemy has changed. He will succeed.]
I'm sure that's no surprise to you.
And no, I didn't forget you. [Quieter, just marginally:] I told you that I wouldn't.
no subject
He can't imagine death means nothing, especially Eren's death, because he loves Eren. Thorfinn can sometimes admit that the senseless death that happens in war still matters. The dead are still dead, some of them robbed of life too soon, some of them (like his father) denied the Valhalla they longed for. ]
How can you say it like you don't care? I knew you would die if you went home! And you knew too! And I…
[ Thorfinn doesn't have words for mourned. Eren hasn't been gone all that long, and Thorfinn does not know how to mourn, how to grieve. All he knows how to do is get pissed off, turn violence on others, find revenge.
He couldn't do any of that with Eren gone. He just ran away from everyone until Maruki sought him out.
Of course he's not really surprised that Eren's wish never changed. Eren seems strange and distant now, but isn't he Eren? Hadn't he come here to find Thorfinn now that he was back?
Thorfinn has never been very free with his affection, not even with Eren. He had been denied touch for most of his life, aside from fighting. It isn't that he doesn't want to.
So he crosses the distance between them, even if he can't bridge the rift as easily, and reaches for Eren like they had before the war, like they had before Eren's war. Eren is so much taller now and Thorfinn can't even resent it. As long as he's actually here, it doesn't matter.
He buries his face against Eren's chest — broader, stronger maybe, than it was before. ]
I don't want you to be dead.
cw: suicidal ideation (have that link and this icon as a little treat for lyns <3)
[Some sins are impossible to live with. The weight is too great. It wasn't a matter of wanting to die. It was the impossibility of continuing to live. He feels it now. His mind is a dizzying slurry of lifetimes' worth of memories. He wasn't meant to continue on. He wants to rest. He still wants to rest.
[Thorfinn closes the distance, and Eren still can't tell him that dying had been part of his plan. Now isn't the time. Thorfinn reaches for him.
[Thorfinn doesn't reach for anyone. Eren wraps his arms tight around him, overcome at the sudden permission to touch. He clutches the back of the boys head, holding him firmly to his chest. He's so much smaller than Eren now. Eren's always felt protective.
[There are no words of comfort for something like this, really. Eren is dead. Nothing can change that now, and he doesn't want anything to. What he can say, at least:]
While I'm here, you don't have to worry about that.
I'm not finished here. I won't leave again until that choice is mine to make.
ahhhh ererei bits just for meeeeee
This place has had the opposite effect, though. He's emotionally much stronger after being here, after making connections to other people — Eren, Loki, Maruki, Dolph — who treated him as a person.
He hits one closed fist against Eren's chest, but there's no weight to it. There could be; Thorfinn is anything but weak. But he's not fighting, just…nudging. ]
Maruki said you'd come back. I thought he was just saying it to try to make me feel better. People tell themselves lies like that.
[ He's heard the way that people talk when they've lost things, when they've lost people, homes, everything, anything. His own self-talk isn't much better, convincing himself he was strong enough to take on Askeladd long before he was. Maybe technically he could be now, if he'd learn to think amidst a fight. If only he'd learn to stop getting pissed off whenever that bastard pushes his buttons. ]
You don't have to lie to me, too. You don't have to tell me you'll stay. It's not up to us.
[ Just like death and war, he thinks. He's used to being used, though he won't see it that way. He's used to a lack of agency, choices made only to survive. He thought this place was different, maybe, but look how that turned out. ]
It's enough that you're here today.
no subject
[But he vouched for Eren's return, and he was right. Eren is right too. He knows that he is. He wouldn't have returned for no reason - he's convinced himself quite easily that that was his own choice too. He has unfinished business.
[It isn't time to rest yet.]
Maruki said that I'd come back, and he was right. You just said so yourself. [He murmurs this between them.]
You should trust, now, that he knew. For the same reasons he did, trust that I do. There's a lot you don't know, Thorfinn.
I will decide when it's time to go.
no subject
But if he could choose to be here, why can't they all choose to leave?
Thorfinn doesn't entirely want to leave, but that's not really the point. He has to go home and finish what he started, even though the taste of revenge is no longer a good one. ]
There's a lot lots of people don't know.
[ He's a little defensive, but he doesn't seek out information the way some people do. He doesn't care about all of that. That's for smart people. He knows he's not all that smart, but it doesn't matter. He's a capable warrior, and what else would there ever be? ]
But I believe you. I guess. That you won't leave unless you want to. Tell me before you do.
[ He would never ask Eren to stay, even if he wants to. He can't go that far. But he can at least ask for a damn warning. ]
no subject
I will. [Voice quiet, steady. He pulls away enough to look at Thorfinn, arms still around him.]
For the time being...you don't have to worry about that.
no subject
Dolph. Eren. They can't be the only ones.
But he can't stay here, either. Though something in him feels twisted up when he thinks about Askeladd dying, that's still the only thing he has ever lived for. He promised not to let go of that revenge, and he hasn't, even half-knowing that on the other side of it is hollow and blank.
But defeating Vaeros, getting answers? Of course he still wants that. ]
Okay.
[ He holds on for a moment longer, but he's never been the clingy type. He doesn't know how to channel his grief and his anger and his loneliness into anything. So he lets go and shoves a little, something easier to do, not quite playful. ]
Why do you keep getting taller.
no subject
[He doesn't. He doesn't mess around like that anymore. Things are taken too seriously. He's forgotten how to act like a friend, a partner, someone worth calling family.
[He steps away and tucks his hands into the pockets of his coat, looking down at Thorfinn.]
Kanoa asked me the same question. I don't have to explain that legs grow to you, do I?
no subject
(He has no idea what happened to Eren, how off he is.) ]
I know legs grow! Whatever. In four years I'll be taller than you anyway.
[ He sounds like a petulant child about it. He's longed to be tall like his father, refusing to accept that he can't be. But ultimately it's a deflection from everything else, from Eren's disappearance, from his reappearance and his changed demeanour. ]
no subject
Thorfinn...
[He turns back to face the man.]
I'll have to go for a while. I'll see you later, won't I?
no subject
Yeah. As long as we're both still here, you'll see me.
hehe we can wrap on yours <3
[He leans in to take a kiss - seems to remember halfway through what kissing someone he loves feels like, then takes Thorfinn's face in both of his hands and deepens that kiss.
[Eren's love never dies, never diminishes. It only grows more terrible.
[When they break:]
Tonight, then.