notes
contains blood and gore. is also posted on ao3 under the penname ryugazaki. based off of a headcanon. posted on tumblr as well. my url is professoreren. let me know what you think. concrit is highly appreciated.
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[ human ]
There is a very thin line between human and monster, and Eren's not sure where people draw it.
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monster
He's not sure how to describe the word monster-the first thing that comes to mind is a hulking thing with a hunger that never fades and hands that never stop reaching, with blood staining its lips and its fingers and its teeth, disgusting teeth that greet him when the red-ringed lips pull back into a smile. He imagines something that is never content, something that keeps killing even though it has no need to, something that has no conscience.
He realizes numbly that this could describe him, too.
But he tells himself he's not like them, that he kills to fight for humanity, that he most definitely does have justified reasons-
(And that's why he has to convince even himself.)
And with sick disgust, he is amazed by these monsters.
He marvels at the titan's power; at the ability to grow fifteen meters of flesh from nowhere, at the flesh that patches itself up again, and then he feels strong and powerful and burning, like he's something that rises again and again out of the smoke, bleeding and battered but not quite broken.
And he likes this power-a strength the ensures humanity's victory-he likes the freedom it gives him. But he's done he always feels unbelievably sore, like there's a weight on his chest that he can't lift and a blackness in his brain that clouds his judgment, swirling like black fog, like he's trying to cling to something but it's slipping from his fingers, bit by bit and then he'll have nothing left to hold on to -
But he'll rise from that, too.
hope
His squad members are proud of him and it stirs a happiness in his gut. Their trust is a fragile thing but the bridge builds itself again, and he sees the shame on their faces when they admit they did not hesitate to turn on him-not that he blames them.
Petra has wide amber eyes as she pulls him into a hug, and she reminds him of his mother in the firm but gentle way she scolds him. For once, she does not smile, but that is because the smile is in her eyes.
He vows he'll make them proud, he vows he'll exterminate all the titans so that their children will not live the life he has.
He promises not to disappoint them and the idea of Petra smiling at him, pride glowing in her eyes like his mother would have, makes him giddy with excitement.
unbroken
The fascination overpowers the pain. He's in his room, pressed against the wall with the door closed and chained. The smell of the basement clouds his lungs, and he snaps his eyes shut, dragging the blade against his arm in a deep gash that makes him gasp. His chest heaves as he keeps pressing and dragging until he sees a flash of bone white, and he's light headed, dark spots swimming in front of his eyes-
And then the blood is melting in again, the muscle is weaving itself over, the skin sewing itself back together until his arm is good as new. The memory of the pain sears itself into his skin, makes tears spring to his eyes as his sweat-cloaked clothes cling to him.
He does this every night, gritting his teeth and chewing his lips until they bleed, but every time, it patches itself back up. He wears no scars.
But that does not mean he is unbroken.
god
He is just a child and a child cannot play god, even a child that has beaten the odds so many times they seem to have given up-but only on him.
"It wasn't your fault," the Corporal hisses and a vein rises near his neck, pulsing angrily because Eren knows this is a topic that is sensitive and yet he presses it anyway.
"It was," he says dumbly, and he's not sure what he's trying to achieve with this, "if only I had-"
He hears it all over again; the sickening crunch as the titan bites his mother in half, the sickening crunch as Petra's body shatters on impact and the sickening crunch as all the promises he built up collapse like a house of cards.
The Corporal's gaze shuts him up, and not because it's angry but because it's so tired and lonely and he's sick of the melancholy that appears before fading away. Rivaille stands up and grabs Eren's arm in a rough movement that grazes a spot which Eren has cut open so many times before, so many times that it makes him flinch and cry out. On instinct, he yanks his arm back.
If the Corporal notices this, he doesn't say. He feels as if it's bleeding again, as if the wound has opened up again (how ironic, he thinks, was it ever really open to begin with?).
"Jaeger, you're fifteen. You're hope, not God." And his words ring with a finality that breaks itself into pieces and cuts him up again and again and again, and this time, the scars do not heal.
He and Rivaille have the blood of their teammates on their hands, just as a god has the blood of everyone who's ever died.
child
He's no longer fascinated, only angry that his wounds won't show, that the scars fade before they even exist, that the bones he breaks himself will mend in under an hour, that his scars and weaknesses do not show so everyone assumes they do not exist.
He's even angrier that his body will weave itself back together and his squad mates and his mother will not.
He leaves dinner early tonight, under the assumption that someone will not notice. Someone does.
He locks himself in the basement, and he lets out a sigh as he grabs the blade. Maybe he'll cut off a limb this time, see if it grows back, see if he really is a lizard, see how long the pain will last and maybe if he keeps cutting and cutting it won't grow back and then -
And then there is a clanging as the door swings open and strong arms are wrestling the blade from him and hurling it against the wall where it hits the stone floor with a weak, blunt thud.
And Eren breaks down after this, because the scars are on his heart, not his body. He cries with a regret and guilt so strong it wracks his shoulders, and Rivaille pulls him into a hug and holds him and rubs his back in a subtle attempt to soothe him, but he's mourning too.
Rivaille isn't sure how long this lasts-maybe ten minutes, but Eren's stopped crying even though his shoulders still tremble and a sigh escapes his lips because Eren is still just a child, and a child shouldn't have to carry the weight of an entire race.
He just hugs him tighter, because they're both so broken but by tomorrow they'll have healed themselves and maybe that's what hurts the most-they don't allow themselves to be human. They cannot afford to.
brother
Mikasa knows but will not admit the changes in his attitude.
He's quieter than before-still rash and hard-headed, but his mouth opens rarely and his eyes have a dull sheen where they used to glimmer like mermaid scales. Mikasa knows him better than, perhaps, he knows himself and yet there is a curtain shrouding him, something she cannot break through. Maybe he is still healing, but he can't heal alone.
So she pierces the curtain one day when he's sitting beside her back at the headquarters, with his arms pulled around himself like chains. He's staring off into something, and she knows he's not staring, but remembering; blaming.
She pulls his hand to hers gently, and she almost feels like crying because it's cold and Eren is usually so warm. His head snaps around and his eyes fix with hers, and then she knows he sees something because his eyes widen and then he's blinking rapidly.
She says nothing, only rubs his hand gently until it's warm, until he feels like her best friend, her brother again. He gave her a home once and she feels obliged to do the same.
So she just holds his hands, hands that are limp and cold and then warm and shaking and gripping hers for dear life.
soldier
A soldier must be willing to sacrifice anything and anything if they are to bring forth change. Eren tells himself this every time he goes into a battle, every time he fears strong jaws clasping around him and severing his limbs.
He tells himself this as he watches his classmates die, one by one, like insignificant flies. He tells himself this was their choice, their choice as they go down with eyes wide and pained, with limbs missing and chewed up, with bodies shattered and some with no bodies at all. This world is cruel and merciless and if he is to be a soldier he must change himself, then the world.
So he hardens himself, coats himself with a layer of steel that cracks and shatters and burns him yet protects him all the same. Something dawns on him-they knew. He thinks of this every day-they knew, they knew they could-and would-die at any given moment, they knew were sacrifices for the greater good and yet they went anyway.
It tightens his chest and brings forth a dryness to his lips, something cold and self-loathing that mingles with the tingling sensation on his arms that never seems to have quite gone away.
And it sickens him that they dare call him humanity's hope because he isn't like them, he isn't a soldier, he isn't willing to sacrifice anything at all and in fact the thought of sacrificing anything; anyone-Mikasa, Armin, the Corporal-sends fingers of fear dancing up his spine.
(There is a voice in the back of his head that whispers, selfish.)
hunter
He dreams, sometimes.
They're always about the same thing, of the titans rushing at him and the excited roar he makes as he kills them, as he makes them suffer again and again and again.
He wants it desperately, this feeling of being a hunter instead of them, the contentment as the titan's actually suffer for once, as they cry and are swiped aside as insignificant flies just as his teammates were.
In his dreams he is a hunter, he is feared and respected and he kills, he always kills, and he's always proud of his handiwork-who knew red could be such a lovely color-and how the other soldiers respect him.
And he is disgusted the think that a part of him, hungry and ravenous and impatient wants to see the soldiers fearing him too, wants to see their blood on his fingers, wants to rip their limbs off like they're tin soldiers, wants to hear them scream and beg and plead for their worthless little lives -
He always wakes from these dreams drenched in his own ice-cold sweat.
animal
Eren is hard-headed and rash but he is not entirely ignorant. He sees the way the newer recruits-and even his surviving classmates-look at him with fear clouding their eyes as they shuffle out of his way, as if he's a bomb that will explode at any given moment.
His steel wall melds with himself and he tries not to think of the rumors, of the rumors that hold words like animal and beast and unreliable and monster. Monster-the minute it leaves his lips in a throaty whisper, a burning spreads from his mouth to his head and a sharpness embeds itself into his skull. He is nothing like them.
So a new group of recruits is ignorant enough to brush past him saying a word like titan and then he loses it. He grabs them and in a movement that sends (sick excitement) jolts up his spine, he throws them into the ground. They crash against the tables, skidding backwards, eyes not unlike the eyes of his teammates before they were killed.
He's aware his chest is heaving, vaguely aware of the blackness that begins to cloud his version, aware of the sudden need to bite his hand and the fear-tinged silence as everyone stares at him.
"You know nothing about me," he growls to them, and it is a wild feral growl like a titan's cry that sends them scrambling further back on the cold stone. He advances towards them, like a hunter playing with its prey when-
Cold and warm fingers grasp the back of his collar and Eren flies into a wall, letting out a sharp cry of pain as his skull hits stone. He falls to the ground, fingers touching his arms gingerly where he's almost sure bruises will be tomorrow. Spots swim in front of his eyes and he blinks a few times, dazed before a figure finally forms.
The Corporal turns and fixes him with a steely gaze. "You know nothing about yourself."
He picks up the new recruits and sends them on their way, frantically tripping over their feet in a desperate attempt to leave. And Eren feels his fingers clenching together, feels his fists closing as his fingers claw at his hands hard enough to draw blood. Tears gather at the corners of his eyes and he pulls himself up along with whatever dignity he has left.
He leaves, and when he makes it back to the basement he allows himself to cry. Ever since that night, Rivaille confiscates his blades, but Eren presses fingers into his arms, wondering if he can use his fingers and nails to claw his skin out, to rip through it until he finds the bone and this time he won't close his eyes, he'll force himself to watch and it makes his head spin with anticipation -
The basement door swings open and Eren draws his fingers back slowly. A growl dies in the back of his throat. Rivaille approaches him and does not sit next to him, only stands before him. Meager light from a lantern sends shadows dancing across his features and Eren promises not to look away, promises not to back down from this.
"You lost it there," he says plainly, and his voice is smooth and even. Eren feels his heart pulsing desperately and the hurt must be apparent on his face because Rivaille raises a brow.
Eren wants to believe-desperately needs to believe-that Rivaille is not scared of him, not like everyone else is, that he still sees him as he did before. His eyes plead with the Corporal.
"I know," he answers finally, and he feels like crying again, "but I couldn't take it. I didn't ask for this." He wraps his arms tightly around himself and his eyes take on a blank look and he wants Rivaille to feel sorry for him, he wants Rivaille to hate himself just as he does, he wants and doesn't want his pity. "I wish I was human."
He realizes that being a titan isn't the only reason he hates himself.
It doesn't take long for Rivaille to answer. "You are."
Eren's eyes flash up with an intensity that shocks him, only his self-loathing stronger than the hate he feels for the Corporal now.
"Then why are you treating me like an animal?" he spits scathingly, springing up with clenched fists and his arms are shaking, shaking like he's struggling to control himself.
"Because you are that, too." The Corporal turns. "There is a difference between an animal and a beast."
beast
"Jaeger."
Eren thinks he hears something, but he thinks otherwise and sees soldiers scurrying around his feet fifteen metres below him with strings attached to their backs-wait, that's the maneuver gear-and they look like marionettes to him and he briefly wonders what it would be like to pull a string and throw them into the ground and hear a sickening wet thump as they hit the ground like a wet rag and -
"Jaeger." More urgently this time, he hears a voice, right into his ear and there is a weight on his shoulder he never felt before. He turns and sees the Corporal there, blades drawn but not at him. He pats Eren's neck. "Good. I'd thought I'd lost you."
You have, Eren finds himself thinking and the thought almost makes him laugh, you already have, right from the beginning.
The little ant-like soldiers are screaming for Rivaille to get down because it's dangerous and Mikasa fixes them with a gaze that makes them fall silent. Her scarf is like a river of blood, spilling over her neck and down her back and he thinks that red is a beautiful color on Mikasa -
(And it's even prettier when it's staining her lips and her fingers and her clothes and her blades.)
"You know what to do." Eren knows Rivaille isn't here to give him orders but to reassure him, because even his trust is wavering. No matter, he thinks bitterly, he doesn't need any trust at all.
And then Rivaille leaps of his shoulder and swings through the trees and Eren would be staring in awe if the string didn't suddenly bother him, if they didn't look like puppets being played by a cruel god above.
So he lets out a savage roar and springs through the field, because a titan is in his vision and all he sees is red and he wants to see red, he wants the ugly thing to bleed and he wants to rip its limbs off again and again and rip through its flesh and see if it cries, see if it has a pained look like his teammates, and he wants it to say sorry and he realizes he's smiling as the titan turns towards him and then it goes black and -
"Eren!" There is a shrill scream from Mikasa and he rolls his eyes internally because he's fine, because there's no way he'd let himself be killed like that and -
"Eren, it's dead!" she cries out frantically, and he sees her whipping through the sky, a flash of red against the blue and she's on his shoulder, she looks like an ant and she's screaming - "Oh my god, Eren it's dead, it's not going to get up, it's not moving, please stop -"
And he feels his lips curling into something that looks more like a snarl than a smile and he's thinking, good.
His fingers feel wet and he looks at them, and they're soaked with blood, the blood runs down his fingers and drips off his forearm and oh my god are those entrails -
He looks down at the titan corpse in front of him, feeling lightheaded and sick because a part of him is content. The titan's head is twisted at an unnatural angle that gives him a view of its neck or rather, what remains because the back is completely utterly gone, and he thinks he sees it off to the side. The arms are bent and twisted and the hands are missing, smoke rising from the fingers that are strewn about like a sick joke.
And he feels his stomach churning and he wants to close his eyes and wake up from this nightmare, because its stomach is open and he sees blood and bits of gristle and flesh and entrails and internal organs in it, but not quite a lot because the rest is on his hands.
He looks at his hands, then at the soldiers who stare at him as if he's the enemy, not the titan, and he hears Mikasa letting out a soft cry as a sharp pain erupts in his neck.
The last thing he thinks is, no, Corporal, you are wrong - there is no difference between an animal and a beast.
mistake
He awakens in a bed softer than the one in the basement, and he blinks slowly before things come into focus. He tries to sit up, tries to rub his eyes and is horrified to find that he can't, that there are chains that bite into his wrist and his ankles and pull him down and he panics.
The Corporal walks in, and behind him, Commander Irvin. He feels his vision swimming, feels his mind lapsing into something until Rivaille speaks -
"Are you awake, brat?"
Eren's gaze sharpens and he stares back with silent defiance, but he knows better than to open his mouth and inside, he's shaking, because why did they chain him what did he do -
"Eren Jaeger," the Commander brushes Rivaille aside, "humanity's last hope." Eren feels a bitter laughter bubbling in his throat because the name seems more like an insult now. "How are you feeling?"
He opens his mouth to answer but his throat is dry and he coughs, the coughs strong enough to wrack his body. He barely manages to croak out, "Fine," in response.
The Commander hums under his breath. "That's good." And then he jumps to business. "Do you remember losing control of yourself?"
(losing
control.)
He remembers Mikasa's scream in his ear, the blood and other things on his fingers, the titan (or what remained of it) in front of him and suddenly he feels sick to his stomach, like he wants to throw up and forget -
"N-No sir," he sputters, and his heart is fluttering against his chest in an urgent need to escape and he realize he's scared, scared because his life is quite literally in the hands of the men in front of him. "Not really, I mean," he admits, "I just remember killing a few titans and then -"
Commander Irvin fixes him with a ice-cold gaze. "Do you remember ripping it apart?"
Eren chokes, feels bile rising and burning in his throat and he swallows it in a desperate attempt to push it down. There is an aching in his head, a horrible aching and he just wants them to leave him alone so he can close his eyes and go sleep.
A shiver runs through his body as he realizes he can, that if the chains would just let him bleed he would transform then and crush them and he would be free-
"Eren." He jumps a little and feels his shoulders shake as he looks up into Rivaille's eyes. "Answer him." The coldness of his tone stings a little, and he knows then that he is a monster in everyone's eyes, perhaps even Mikasa.
"A little," he says finally, and he doesn't quite see what was wrong-he killed a titan, big dealabout it. He feels, not hears the murmur that rustles through the Commander's body as he realizes perhaps it is a mistake, perhaps Eren is unstable, perhaps -
He just wants to close his eyes and sleep and then awaken at home with his mother and his father and Mikasa and Armin.
human
His execution is in a week.
He feels numb, really, an itch in his fingers and a hunger in his gut that cannot be fulfilled by soup and bread. A need has consumed his mind and it's all he thinks about-what if, what if, what if. He loathes the Corporal for taking his blades when he needs it the most and he spends his time in the musty basement, chained to a bed.
They are treating him like a thing and he realizes that titans aren't the real monsters.
The new recruits are the ones who give him lunch, slipping through the doors and looking at him as if he's a caged beast who will break the chains and lunge for their necks at any given moment. With shaking hands, they slip the plate in front of him and he's not hungry, not hungry for that anyway.
And suddenly he feels sick to his stomach, like he wants to throw everything up because he's thinking of insides and blood and how slick it is on his fingers and suddenly it's slipping, he let go of the thing he was holding for so long -
He is hungry but the hunger is not in his stomach, it's the need to rip something open with his teeth or his hands and watch it scream and writhe and suffer underneath him. He fixes the recruits with a gaze that reminds them of a hungry titan and they leave without a word, slamming the door behind them.
His flesh is hot to the touch, burning, as if it's trying to rip free of the chains and while his skin burns the need burns him from the inside out until it's in his eyes, eyes that are green and blue and voracious and never content.
He take a deep breath that shakes his body and his clothes are slick with his sweat, his hair stuck to his forehead and he wonders if he can reach low enough to bite his arms and -
Then arms are wrapped around him, and the person holding him is shaking and he hears muffled sobs as their embrace only tightens.
Mikasa nestles her face into his shoulder, shoulders shaking as she manages to choke out a few words: "My fault, my fault... I should have stopped you, I should have distracted them, I should have taken responsibility -"
He doesn't want to look at Mikasa's face because he's sure her expression will kill him. Armin settles on the bed beside him, holding his hands like he did when he transformed the first time, except the first time it was a miracle and this time it's more like a curse.
It's not fair for them, it's not fair for them to lose their friend and it's not fair for Mikasa to lose the only family she has left and sometimes he just wants to slap her because she's blaming herself for something she had absolutely nothing to do with.
And Eren can't even hug them back, he can't comfort them because his hands are chained to the bed and it hurts his back to sit up.
"It's not your fault," he manages to say, and he squeezes Armin's hand tighter, "it's not your fault."
But he doesn't know who to through the blame on, the blame that is quick to leap and cling to someone else. He throws it on humanity because they are the real monsters; if the titans didn't kill them they'd kill themselves. He sees visions of it in his mind while Mikasa sobs and Armin shakes, of people bathed in blood, of people with smiles bigger than the titans, of people who kill without batting an eyelash.
This is inexcusable to him because these are people who have a conscience, these are people who know what they are doing and he would rather be titan than human. They are monstrous and merciless and cruel, these humans.
.
It's a hot day, the day he chooses for them. His wrists are bound and they no longer sting, only a coldness where the skin has been rubbed raw. He blinks and the world in front of him shifts as the sun burns him slowly.
The Corporal stands in front of him, with a blade in his hands and Eren wonders if it's the same blade he wrestled out of his arms long ago. He hears footsteps on the dirt as Commander Irvin approaches him, slow steady footsteps.
"Eren Jaeger," and the words are fading in and out, in and out as all he can see is red on the edges of everything, he hears something about 'losing control' and he wonders if control is something he ever had in the first place.
The recruits are surrounding him, he sees them perched on wooden stands and the more elite fighters are around him, and he hopes Mikasa isn't here, he hopes Armin isn't, he hopes they forgive him for not being able to stay and -
The blades glint in the sun like moons. He is drawn to them. There is a soft blast as the smoke signal goes off, and if he remembers correctly that is the smoke signal for a deviant. He can taste the irony as strongly as he tastes the blood.
"I have a question for you," Rivaille says, and his voice is deceivingly smooth and low and calm. The one who saves him is also the one who kills him-this is the only thing on Eren's mind as he stares back at the Corporal. "Are you human, or monster?"
Nobody else seems to hear; like it's a sick inside joke between the both of them. And Eren feels angry, he wants to hurt the Corporal and see humanity's strongest soldier on the ground like a rag doll, except he knows the Corporal never asked for this and he'd rather Rivaille kill him than someone he barely knows.
He doesn't know how to answer because to Eren, human and monster are the same thing. He looks at Rivaille with a glazed look over his eyes and it's a look Rivaille has seen many times before, the look of an animal admitting defeat.
"Am I human now?" Eren rasps, and the words burn something in his throat, something that makes his head spin and his shoulders slacken. "I guess anyone is human when they're being slaughtered like pigs."
Rivaille is silent for a minute, the silence thick and heavy and suffocating. "You've always been," he answers simply, because unlike Eren, for him human and monster are not just written in black and white.
"Who do you think the enemy is?" he murmurs, and the words send a chill down Eren's spine. "What does the word monster mean?"
He's not sure how to describe the word monster-the first thing that comes to mind is a hulking thing with a hunger that never fades, a thing with whirling, spinning blades in its hands and blood on its clothes and its lips and its smile. He imagines something that kills and kills and kills its "enemies", a thing that turns and twists and betrays itself without a batting an eyelash, something disgusting that kills without need, something with a conscience stained with rusting red -
(he realizes numbly that this could describe him, too.)
He lifts his head and spits at Rivaille's feet.
"You."
[ end ]