Attack On Titan: Dreams

"I've decided... I don't need or want anything from you when this is all over."

His stomach drops.

The words are, for some reason, crushing, and they hurt, and he doesn't understand why, because he should be happy, because this effectively erases the problem and enables him to get back to thinking about titans at all hours of the day, like he should be.

He watches as she curls her fists at her side and opens her mouth to speak once more.

"All I want is..." there is hesitation in her tone, and he is on edge, anxiously anticipating her words, afraid of what they are or aren't.

"All I want is for you to be able to look at me again," she says, voice shaking and barely above a whisper, and she blinks, restraining her tears.

"... just like you used to. That's it. That's all I want."

Again, she lifts her gaze to meet his, eyes shining with a mix of fear and sadness and controlled hope.

It all makes his heart ache with a new kind of pain he has never felt before.

"Mikasa..." he trails off, realizing that her name is his one word vocabulary at the moment, because it is all he can muster from the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions that his mind and body cannot process.

But even while caught up in his inner turmoil, he knows he could very easily put this whole thing to rest if he just agreed - if he just reassured her that he could do as she wished.

... but he could not.

Because it dawns on him that he would never be able to look at her the same way again. There was no way he could forget the words she had spoken, or unfeel the warmth of her kiss, or forget the hurricane of brand new thoughts and feelings her actions had spurred within him.

His silence speaks what he cannot, and she tears her gaze away from his, and nods at the floor.

"Thanks for checking on me," she says politely, not evening lifting her head to look at him, before turning and walking away.

His body flinches, noting that the urge to follow her has now apparently become a reflex. But he stubbornly remains grounded and in place, purely out of fear, and the knowledge that nothing good could follow if he did chase after her.

Eren watches her back as she leaves, and as she turns the corner, he is filled with an overwhelming mix of shame, guilt, and regret.

He blinks, and his aching limbs are carrying him forward, palms and knees scraping against the moist grass. He looks up, and all else is shrouded in a thick, grey mist all but the path to the body lying stationary just a few feet away from him.

His eyes grow wide, heart jumping into his throat in recognition when he sights tell tale raven hair and pale skin. In an instant, he is scampering frantically across the grass towards the still figure, heart drumming in his ears.

"Mikasa!" he cries hoarsely as he reaches her. She is on her side, eyes closed, cape partially draped over her upper body. He slides an arm around her back, hoists her up so that she is half-resting on his lap, and her head limply lolls back, further contributing to the nausea he is beginning to feel.

"Oy, Mikasa," he repeats shakily, urgency dripping from every syllable of her name as he gently jostles her in his arms, hoping against all hope that he is not too late.

He peels her cape back from her torso, and is immediately greeted with the horrifying sight of vibrant crimson, soaking up the bottom half of her white button down shirt. His eyes widen in horror, already beginning to burn from the sting of oncoming tears. He presses his mouth into a thin line and swallows, bringing a shaking hand to hover over the reddened, wet cloth - but he does not press his fingers to it, and instead snaps his head up to look at her face, and places a hand on her cheek.

"Hey! HEY! Now's not the time to sleep!" he barks, though his voice is already beginning to tremble as he leans in and lightly pats at her face with his palm.

'I'm too late I'm too late I'm too late I'm '

When her eyes flutter open to meet his, he is certain he has never felt more relieved in his entire life.

"Mikasa!" he exclaims. Her weary blue-greys blink up at him and breathe new life into him, sparking a rush of adrenaline.

"Stay with me, alright? I'm gonna get you out of here," he says with determination, before he lifts his hand from her cheek and to his mouth, about to bite into it when she grabs his wrist.

He freezes and is instantly irritated because they are on limited time, and she is, for whatever reason, wasting it away with her defiance.

But then, her grip tightens and cuts into his racing thoughts, and he finally really looks at her only to watch her shake her head.

His shock at the silent command lasts for only a split second, because he bares his teeth and snatches his wrist from her grasp, clutching at her sleeve to get a better grip of her in his arms, emerald greens blazing down at her with crazed and foolish determination all the while.

"I'm not losing you," he growls defiantly, before whipping his head up to look around the field.

Their surroundings are completely shrouded in fog, with next to no visibility within a five-foot radius, and it is eerily dead silent. The lack of anything but mist makes it feel as though it is just the two of them, alone, for miles and miles.

"ARMIN?! LEVI?! JEAN?!" he cries out. "Where the FUCK are you?! Mikasa is "

Suddenly, her hand is on his cheek, thumb partially resting on the corner of his mouth, and she is forcibly redirecting his face and his gaze towards her.

"Eren."

He wants to snap at her, but the calmness in her voice, and the warmth of her skin on his, seem to put him under some sort of spell, as they reach inside and douse the fires that are raging within him.

She pulls her hand from his face and reaches to the one he has resting on her arm, and closes her fingers over the back of his hand, placing their linked clasp right above where the blood begins on her shirt. Her grip is somehow still warm and dry despite their cool and damp surroundings, and it is marginally comforting but not enough. Though his heart rate has slowed at observing and falling in line with her gentle and collected movements, he registers that he is now shaking and not at all from the cold.

"You're... giving up?" he questions quietly, in disbelief.

She offers no reply to his question, and instead stares up at him, and the weight of her gaze is heavy so scrutinizing, it feels as though she is trying to reach into his brain, or memorize his face, with the intensity of her gape. But he cannot be too sure of what she is thinking, as he was never very good at reading people - and now that he thinks of it, nor had he ever really tried to deconstruct her in such a way. He was always too busy staring off elsewhere, far beyond anything, or anyone in his immediate surroundings - including her.

But now, all he can do is stare down at her and wonder what is going through her mind at a time like this - and he is mystified even further when there is an unexpected crack in her stoicism, the corners of her lips quirking upward into a small smile.

"You're going to do it," she rasps softly. "You're going to save them. You're going to win."

He frowns.

The words and her soft expression are meant to comfort and reassure him, but they do just the opposite, because they sound and look like the beginnings of a goodbye that he has absolutely no desire to entertain.

"We!" he snaps at the fading woman in his arms.

She does not even flinch.

"We're going to win," he insists, the hand under hers latching onto her shirt and fisting the cloth there.

He wants her to say "okay" and mean it, but she maintains her silence, pity and knowing in her tired eyes.

" We... " he repeats weakly, insistently, defeatedly, a lump beginning to form in his throat. He swallows it down, releases her shirt and turns his palm into hers, closing his fingers around her hand to return the clasp.

"We can't do this without you," he says as he shakes his head, and his voice is trembling, although he means for the words to come out steady and even.

She maintains her smile.

"You can. You all know what you're doing, and you ... you've gotten so strong," she says, and he can feel his eyes begin to sear and water yet again. "Stronger than me, even."

What a joke.

At least in his mind, it is a joke, because even if she did actually believe it, it simply wasn't true, and would never be true.

Even now, while she is teetering on the brink of death, she is the one comforting him even now, broken and half gone, she is still the stronger one.

He is about to object and tell her just that, when her eyes begin to droop closed, and the action causes a paralyzing panic to ripple through him and shake him to his core.

"Hey," he whispers sharply, and there is a crack in the lone syllable as he shudders, a new kind of fear gripping at him.

He squeezes her hand hard, and her eyes flutter open once more, bringing him only mild relief, because he knows now, for certain, he is going to lose her.

He can feel his eyes widen at the stark realization, feel them veil with tears, because the thought is scary and so surreal that he is still somewhat in denial and disbelief.

Because it wasn't supposed to be this way.

They were supposed to take back their home, together.

His teeth gnash together as he fights hard against the urge to cry, and the strain and sorrow must be evident on his face because her brow is now arched in concern, and he can't take it, he can't look at her like this, and think of her like this, and he doesn't want her to see him like this. So, he pulls her into his arms, and buries his face in her neck, in her warmth, in her scent a clever way of hiding from her while remaining close.

They lay still for a moment, and he can feel her grip at the side of his shirt in an attempt to return the gentle hold, and he squeezes his eyes closed tightly to stop the deluge of tears that threatens to pour out.

In the silence, safe from the weight of her gaze, he is able to gather his thoughts. He acknowledges he cannot do much else for her now, but to make her last moments as pleasant as possible.

Gathering his strength and biting back the urge to break, he speaks.

"When this is all over," he begins, mouth at her ear, voice low and hoarse, "let's go back to Shiganshina. I'll rebuild our house. Would you like that?"

He almost regrets the masochistic game of make-believe, as he knows it will likely leave him insane with what-ifs long after she has passed, but he remains determined to stay the course, and for once be strong for her.