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In retrospect, this had probably been a bad idea, thinks Eren as he sprints through the thick foliage, swiping at the branches nicking his face. Small shrubs crunch beneath him as he stumbles forward, keeping one eye on Mikasa’s red scarf at all times.
She swoops in from behind, circling his large form protectively, and while Armin doesn’t get quite as close, his scent remains constant. Hangë had been amazed to learn that Eren’s sense of smell improved while in Titan form. His hearing did as well, which allowed him to pick up on Heichou cursing out the scientist as they hastened along.
Eren agreed that this wasn’t the most appropriate time for the slightly psychotic individual to be laughing madly. It was their idea to travel this far on a research mission after all.
Eren had come out here to test his Titan tracking ability in his shifted form.
Well, it worked. They had found Titans. A Lot of Titans.
“We need to kill them before heading back to camp!” Heichou calls, suddenly right beside Eren’s sea green eye. “Eren, you’re with me! The rest of you, get your asses off the ground and do your job!”
Mikasa glares at the older man for half a second before she’s falling back with the rest of the squad, and Eren feels a spike of panic as his friends’ scents begin to fade. Sensing a weight on his shoulder, he tilts his chin to see Levi perched atop. The man stares straight ahead.
“I know what you’re thinking, brat, but this won’t be like last time. Your safety is the number one propriety. They knew that, and this squad knows it too.” The captain’s voice is firm, absolute, but Eren can still pick up on the hint of… something far-off, going through the man’s mind.
Maybe it was his old squad’s bodies exploding into the trees, helplessly small against huge fists. Screams, as people with dreams and families disappeared into the world quicker than they came. Eren can never be sure what’s on his captain’s mind, but even if the man has become socialized to the memory of his dying squad, Eren still sees it, late at night, when he’s all alone with no one to blame but himself.
The trees whizz past the two soldiers as they gain ground, farther away from the death and destruction they’ve come far too accustom to. Farther away from the little, fond smiles that graced his sister’s lips. From the shinning, hopeful eyes of his best friend, which danced as blue as the ocean was sure to be. From the playful taunting of Connie and the obnoxious actions of Sasha, which always managed to brighten the squad’s mood, if not add unneeded migraines. From Krista's kind, supportive words. From Horse Face’s horse face.
Eren thought he had lost everything when his mother died before him and his father vanished into the unknown… but he hadn’t. The Titans had tried, oh had they tried, to crush everything he held dear, but they couldn’t. Eren wouldn’t let them. Eren would kill every last monster out there that tried to hurt his family, including the bastards he was running away from right now.
A blood-curdling roar explodes from his throat as he pivots, one foot blundering over the other. After colliding with a pine, the shifter is back firmly on his feet and rushing towards the stench of Titan. From the spot on his shoulder, the captain is cursing at him and thwacking the side of Eren’s neck with his blade’s blunt edge, but the boy refuses to turn around.
He won’t leave his family again.
And in the future, when the captain will surely have Eren’s neck for this, the boy will stand his ground. He was supposed to be humanity’s last hope. Well big surprise, his friends made up a portion of that humanity.
Roaring once more, and swatting the Lance Corporal away in warning, Eren propels himself headfirst, tackling the leering 15-meter class Titan that was just about to snatch Connie’s cables to the forest floor. From somewhere above, Hangë shrieks, excited to see her specimen battling, but also not wanting to see the subject that was Eren Jaeger get injured.
Ignoring the protests of his squad mates, Eren punches the 15 meter in the face again, and again, and again. He feels bloodthirsty wrath build up inside but makes sure to keep it in check. He wasn’t about to lose control and go off on his team.
Eren slams his large fist down once more, sufficiently severing the Titan’s head from its body, and then jumps up, landing a well-aimed kick right into an approaching 5 meter’s chest. Out of the corner of his eye he notices another Titan reaching for Armin, who’s currently muttering up in a tree, formulating some great plan no doubt.
If only that didn’t make the blonde boy more distracted than usual.
Forcing an alarmed shriek out in warning, Eren lopes forward. His unhinged jaw wraps around the Titan’s neck, and with a forceful yank the things flesh and muscle tear away.
Armin is just about to shout out a call of gratitude when he realizes the situation that Eren had put himself in. Looking around, the Titan Shifter understands the fear filling Armin’s ocean eyes. By thrusting himself at the Titan reaching for his friend, Eren had landed himself in a semi-circle of 7 meters. Too slow, he kicks out at the teetering Titan’s, but one has already latched onto his thigh. He smacks it off, but like ants, they crawl back on, coming to replace their fallen brethren.
His human body burns, steam swirling around his inner cocoon, but nevertheless the boy keeps sharp, ignoring the gnawing at his legs to instead focus on aiding his team. Trudging forward, Eren wraps his hand around a shivering Jean, pulling his pain-in-the-ass squad member away from gaping mouths and flopping tongues. Juxtaposing the glare he sends Horse Face’s way, Eren gently tips Jean onto a branch high enough that the 7 meters couldn’t reach. Right as the human boy slips from Eren’s open palm, pain ripples up the Titan Shifter’s spin. One of the Titan’s had latched onto his lower back, and in his focus to get his friends to safety Eren hadn’t noticed that his left foot was almost gone, now surely sitting in the pit of one of the creature’s distended bellies.
The world shifts black and white as flashes of his first battle in Trost come to mind. Of him, in his animalistic state getting eaten alive, torn apart like he was no more than a piece of meat worth only as much as the effort it takes to swallow.
If his limp human form wasn’t trapped in a sauna right now, Eren is sure his body would have broken out into the cold sweat that accompanies these sort of living nightmares. But he doesn’t have time to be weak, for as much as his team is shouting at him to get out of there, to run as far as he can while more Titans swarm and Heichou becomes almost overwhelmed himself, Eren can’t abandon his team.
It doesn’t matter that the exhaustion of being in his Titan form for so long is setting in, with him already shifting once earlier that day during Hangë’s intensive experiments. He has to keep going.
As his mind becomes obnubilated with pain, Eren allows his Titan self to take over, his last thought being to obliterate any Titan that gets near his squad before his human consciousness drifts into darkness.
Said squad watches in sick amazement as Eren swivels around, destroying every Titan before they can even think about eating one of them. Mikasa’s eyes are wide and pleading as she sees Eren choose stepping on a 5-meter nearing Krista rather than the little one dangling from his shin.
By the time Eren’s torn knees give out, most of the Titans are dead, with their captain smoothly disposing of the rest. Breaking from their stupor, the squad rushes forward, surrounding their Titan’s teetering body.
“He’s been in that form too long,” mutters Hangë right as their squad mate’s large body crumples to the forest floor.
The captain is behind his neck immediately, blades at the ready to slice the boy out. By one of the Titan’s big fingers stands Jean, who is muttering mindlessly while kicking the digit in frustration. “Stupid Jaeger, never listening, always rushing into things without using his goddamn brain… not like he has one.” Wrinkling his nose and crossing his arms petulantly, Jean glares at where their captain is cutting in, slicing through muscle on the way to the human inside.
“Wow, Jean, it almost sounds like you care,” jokes Connie in a futile attempt to lighten the mood.
Ignoring the idiotic rambling of his subordinates, Levi wraps his hands under the brat’s limp arms, cursing when he feels burning heat rolling off the boy in waves. He yanks back, sending them both gracelessly off the steaming body and onto the dirty forest floor. Disgusting.
Levi grunts as he pushes the boy’s deadweight off of himself and into Armin’s arms, who gasps quietly. Pesky confusion tingles the back of the man’s mind, wondering why his squad’s faces have darkened.
“Is he breathing?” Krista questions with a wavering, almost hesitant tone.
“… Barely.”
And then Levi raises his frame off the ground to glower down at his idiot of a subordinate’s unmoving form. Dark red lines are tattooed onto the boy’s far-too-pale skin and blood in trailing out of his nostril. Without wasting another second, Levi scoops the Titan Shifter into his arms and orders his squad to scramble, to find any one of their horses, no matter what. He is not about to lose humanity’s last hope. He is not about to lose Eren.
His sentiment must be held by the rest of his squad, for within milliseconds they are all gone in the trees, following his order without thought. Only one hesitates, the girl who always hangs around Jaeger. She watches Eren’s injured body dangle from the Lance Corporal’s strong arms. Then stepping forward, she unwraps the neckerchief that constantly hugs her throat and drapes it over Eren’s now convulsing chest. A blink later, and she’s is gone, flying through the canopy, silent tears trickling into the cooling air.
*****
Coming back to reality is like trying to gain release from a Titan’s fist – impossible without the aid of others. Luckily, with Horse Faces’ annoying voice filtering in and out about how much of an idiot he is, and Sasha inquiring about if she can have his rations saying that unconscious people can’t eat, Eren eventually finds himself croaking out a small groan, if only to get everyone to shut-up. Unsurprisingly, however, like so many of the boy’s plans, the action back-fires beautifully. Instead, the camp sparks to life and sharpened swords clatter to the earth.
When Eren wearily struggles his lids open, seven blurry faces dance above his prone form. But… weren’t there eight people on this mission?
Abruptly bolting upright, Eren pitches forward only to be caught by a pair of small, calloused hands.
“What’s the big idea, Jaeger?” Comes the oh-so-familiar growl of his Captain, who is firmly yet gently holding Eren’s trembling form steady.
Eight, Eren’s mind supplies. Heichou must have been standing farther back… Eight.
Relief washes over his stiff muscles and he relaxes into his Captain’s hold, letting weariness flood his bones. Yet, that weariness comes with pain. Soon the Titan’s Shifter is gasping for air while he violently shivers against the older man’s chest.
Eren isn’t completely aware of what happens next, but a warm hand circles his back and rough-skinned fingers ruffle his hair and maybe, Eren thinks, maybe he doesn’t need to be on edge constantly, like a good solider should be. Maybe, for once in a very long time, he can enjoy the false warmth massaging into him and let himself believe he’s safe.
“You guys are okay,” the boy thinks, or maybe mumbles, as he buries deeper into the cozy arms that surround him. Breathing deeply, his eyelids click shut, for once welcoming the darkness without fear.
The squad watches Eren fall into a peaceful slumber in their Captain’s arms, mixed reactions expressed throughout the group.
Hangë squeals, holding back from poking fun at Levi only because their favorite Titan Shifter could use the rest. Jean mutters a “no thanks to you” in the sleeping boy’s direction, which earns him an eye roll from Connie. Armin has taken up the noble task of holding a wild Mikasa back while poor Krista waves her arms around in a placating manner, a cold-sweat drop from her brow. Off to the side, Sasha sets down the ration she was about to eat herself with a pout, knowing her little rage-monster squad mate would need food when he awoke. And Levi, Levi is about to chuck this damn brat to the ground and fly straight into a hoard of Titans because Maria knows killing one-hundred 15-meter man-eating trees is easier than dealing with this shit.
Yet, he doesn’t, instead guiding the boy down onto his bedroll, brushing a strand of hair out of his face, which is slowly but surely gaining color, and placing a palm over his inner wrist, just to confirm a pulse. The peaceful expression Eren wears is so grossly different from the one he held in Titan form when he disobeyed Levi’s orders and charged back into the fray for his friends. It had been a stupid, unplanned move, just like so many things Jaeger did, and he’d be getting the punishment for it later.
For now, though, Levi will let his subordinate rest, surrounded by his squad, people who were willing to die to keep the boy alive, Titan ability or none. People who swung around like crazies, desperate for a horse to appear and take their friend to safety. People who stayed by his bedside throughout the night, pacing around until his dangerously high fever broke.
This world that these kids were forced to grow up in was a dangerous one, one that preys on the weak and swallows all that is good. Humans have every right to run, to survive and leave the rest behind. That’s what most do after all. But not this squad. This squad never backs down… whether that’s a good thing or not. They choose this life because they believe in a better one, partially thanks to burning green eyes that are always there, protectively watching over them. Their own personal symbol of hope, just like the cloaks that billow from their backs.
Sighing at how damn sentimental he’s become, Levi removes his cape and stuffs it under the brat’s thick skull. He doesn’t even ask when his subordinates will get off their lazy asses and actually do something productive around the camp, for he knows none of them are going to budge until Eren awakes for good, with clenched teeth and petulant yet passionate eyes, ready to go back out and save the world.
And for some, stupid, shitty, unknown reason, Levi’s sure they’ll all follow him straight into the fire.