Attack On Titan: Dreams

"You know, I had heard gardening helped people relax."

Armin's voice snaps him out of his reverie, and only then does he register the intensely cheerful crinkle of his own eyes and the wide smile that is splayed on his mouth.

He can feel his face warm as he immediately flips his expression back into an irritated half-scowl.

"Uh, what?" Eren clears his throat, while resuming shoving the rest of the soil back into the hole before him. "Oh, right. Gardening? Yeah, it's fine I guess. I asked Levi to assign me a task and this is all he had left for me to do."

Eren chances a look up at his unwanted company, who is blinking down at him with an arched eyebrow.

"Interesting," the blond nods. "You look like you're in a better mood though. Have you talked to "

"No."

Eren picks up his hand shovel and pats the soil before him flat.

"Oh. So when are you going to "

"I dunno."

"Oh. Alright," Armin says, and Eren can hear the shrug in his tone. And just when he thinks he is safe, the blond continues on and says, "Just a heads up, we have that special ops squad meeting tomorrow, so you're definitely gonna see her."

Eren freezes, his shovel arm falling limp. He sits back on his heels and shakes his head, wiping the sweat off of his brow with his forearm.

"Shit..." he mutters under his breath.

"Yup," the blond says nonchalantly, only further contributing to Eren's irritation. "So do you know how you-"

"No," Eren says, emerald greens shooting a warning glare up into calm, azure blues.

"Well, alright, but you don't even know what I was going to say."

"I'm pretty sure I know what you were going to say."

"Okay, what was it?"

"You were gonna ask if I know how I feel about her or, if I know what I'm gonna say to her when I see her!" he snaps back irritably.

Armin blinks back, completely unfazed.

"I was gonna ask if you knew how you were gonna avoid her, but... yeah, I wanna know the answer to all that, too."

A trap.

Eren frowns, tearing his leer from his best friend and redirecting his gaze to the sky.

Armin was just too good at fishing out information without trying to be. Or maybe he was trying and Eren was just too dumb to ever catch on.

He sighs.

"No," Eren replies curtly. "No, to everything."

"Are you any closer ?"

"No."

He sees Armin nod in his periphery.

"I see... "

Eren scowls at the sky, but the longer his gaze lingers, the more he finds his irritation slowly fading, noting that the sky is just as blue and cloudless as the backdrop of his most recent dream.

And at the recognition, visions of hanging laundry and the pregnant swell of Mikasa's abdomen flicker across his mind, and before he knows it, he is uttering dangerous words.

"I had a dream about her."

Almost immediately, he regrets the confession and curses his loose tongue when he catches a glimpse of the smile that momentarily bursts across Armin's face, before he purses his lips and nods to conceal it.

"Oh?" Armin asks curiously, voice not even attempting conceal interest. "And what happened?"

Eren sets his jaw and shakes his head, turning to dig another hole into the earth.

"Nothing," he grumbles as he stabs into the soil with his hand shovel, concentrating extra hard on the action so that he would have a reason not to look at Armin.

"Ah... so that's why you looked so happy."

"Oh, shut up," Eren huffs, his stabs getting noticeably more violent, as he feels his ears begin to burn.

"You don't have to tell me the details. I'll just assume that it was a... a very good dream," and the suggestion in Armin's voice makes the warmth in his ears spread to his face, and he has to stop digging.

"What the hell, Armin?" he spits, turning to glare up at his best friend incredulously, who seems startled at the reaction. He would expect such behaviour from perhaps Connie, but never Armin, and he has to wonder if he is dreaming, now, too. "It wasn't like that!"

At least this particular dream wasn't "like that".

"Not like what?" Armin blinks, feigning innocence all too well.

Unless his innocence is not feigned and he himself is actually the perverse one, imagining the suggestion in Armin's voice.

Eren glowers, frustrated at Armin's intentional - or unintentional, he's still unsure mind games.

"Not like...!" Eren waves his hands in the air, the shovel still tightly clutched in one, as though hoping wildly gesticulating would help him complete his sentence.

He then lets out a disgruntled sigh, hands dropping to his sides, staring absently ahead at the half-empty sack of bulbs.

"It wasn't anything... perverted . We were just..."

He lifts a hand to scratch at the back of his neck.

"We were... married."

Saying it aloud is a completely different experience, because it is essentially an admission that his mind was indeed capable of conjuring such thoughts, and of viewing her in that way.

He finds that the confession brings no catharsis - only regret, because he has exposed himself fully and revealed a key detail of the extremely private and confusing thoughts that he has not yet worked through, that he is certain Armin would now attempt to analyze.

Now he does not even want to chance a look at Armin's expression, because he can already feel the shit-eating grin radiating off of his best friend's face.

Eren shakes his head, angry with himself for saying anything, and he continues to dig, ignoring the feel of Armin's discerning gaze on his back.

"Okay... so?" Armin presses.

"It was just a stupid dream," Eren replies, stabbing into the soil.

"Well, how did you feel about it?"

He is now more regretful than ever about opening his big mouth.

Already drained from his own inner monologue and having to fend Armin off, he sighs, chucking some earth off of his shovel, and onto the grass.

"I... I didn't hate it, I guess," he all but mumbles with a shrug.

Now he hears Armin sigh, and the sound touches a nerve.

"What?" Eren snaps. He stabs the shovel into the ground so that it is standing on its own, turning to peer at Armin, his irritation at the conversation already at its height.

"Look... I'm standing by what I said yesterday," he says, just now making the decision as the words spill out of his mouth. "I don't have time for this now. You said it yourself, right? We've got a job to do."

He watches as the glimmer of amusement in Armin's eyes fades, and the blond's face is once more neutral as he nods with a small smile.

"Yeah. You're right about that."

As Armin stares on, Eren cannot tell if there is pity in his best friend's azure gaze, or if it is just an imagined construct of his own now incredibly defensive mind. Either way, he cannot stand it, so he looks down and talks to the patch of grass between Armin's boots instead.

"Besides," Eren continues, "After we all just finish what we've set out to do, I'll... I'll have all the time in the world to work this nonsense out with her."

And here was yet another admission, which displayed his willingness to pick the topic back up someday, at some point in time.

He hopes it is enough to fend Armin off, as it is somewhat of a compromise.

But it is silent for too long, and he must look up at Armin who staring down at him with thoughtful blues, eyebrow arched inquisitively.

"Will you, though?" he asks, as their eyes meet.

The three words are jarring, and not at all the reassurance he expected to receive from Armin.

Hadn't Eren just admitted he wouldn't run away from this forever?

Wasn't that enough?

He frowns, because Armin's reply is vague enough to inspire a flurry of objections and questions within him, but before he can even open his mouth to retort and tell him to stop being so cryptic, the boy shifts his stance and says:

"Anyway, gotta get back in to go over expedition plans with Erwin. I'll see you at the meeting tomorrow, though. Have fun gardening!"

Eren's mouth hangs open, and he nods silently, eyes narrowing as the blond waves at him and makes his way back into the castle.

Staring after the receding figure, he blinks, unsure of what has just taken place. He then turns and pulls the shovel from the ground, and resumes his work.

'Will you though?' he recalls the words as he stabs into the soil with a deep frown. 'What the fuck is that even supposed to mean?'

Eren grumbles a slew of expletives under his breath, and the thoughts spinning in his head are both draining and high in volume and he finds himself stabbing the hand shovel into the grass once more, with a growl.

"Dammit Armin..." he mutters to himself.

He sleeps dreamlessly that night.