EVENTYR
disclaimer: you can blame me for none of this because I don't own it.
a/n: not my fault. not my fault. not my fault. ...okay, this is totally my fault.
ratings/warnings: M for content; adult language, multiple pairings, rotating POVs, gritty themes, macabre universe, tears, the inevitable hitting of bases 1 through home plate, utter zombie fail, gross cliché AU comparisons, exploitation of one of my favorite concrete playgrounds, compulsory reference to fairy tales and religious themes, my terrible music choices and abuse of anachronism. batteries included.
CHAPTER ONE
HÄNSEL AND GRETEL
EREN
What did you dream about last night? Armin asked.
Eren shrugged. I didn't.
That's not true. Your brain always dreams. It's part of the REM state.
Well, then—I just didn't remember any of it this time.
He'd been having nightmares.
Armin was worried for him. Eren knew that. He hated it. He wished Armin wouldn't waste his smarts on him because his smarts were valuable and what if one day he just ran out of them? Like the brain runs out of dopamine when you get hooked on phonics?
The leftover lights of skyscrapers and streetlamps danced across the surface of the water as Armin huddled closer to Eren, curled up on the merry-go-round of Playground Puget Sound. It was a nice little sanctuary, tucked away in one of the rusty chariots with a blanket and an mp3 player, surfing the radio waves for anything at all.
Do you think Mikasa is okay?
Mikasa's fine, Armin. We'll go back in a little bit.
The radio had nothing to offer, except for that one AM station that was like a secret gem hiding in all the fuzz and white noise. Leave it here! Armin cried. I love this song...
Eren snorted in judgment. Armin pinched him in recompense. He moved closer, making it easier to share the ear-buds. It was August. August always felt like the death of summer. Cooler nights, the slap of the water on the pilings, the creak of the maritime breeze through the abandoned fairgrounds. The chain-link sagged. Seabirds picked through the garbage. The seats on the skeletal remains of the Ferris wheel whined in the dark, rocking to and fro. And the moonlight sparked off the eyes of the stomping merry-go-round horses.
Well, this place is old, it feels just like a beat-up truck, I turn the engine but the engine doesn't turn...
Armin smelled like a sunny afternoon and sweet messy blond hair. His touch was fever-hot, tempting. Begging to have a knuckle brushed across the apple of a fine cheek, or a few strands of loose hair blown out of the eyes with a teasing huff of breath. There was something disenchanted and weary about him, like he knew some secret joke about the world and was waiting for everyone else to hear the punch line. If August was the death of summer, Armin was the patron saint at the funeral of childhood innocence, and his eyes flashed unafraid in the dark as he tipped his chin forward to meet Eren's kiss.
I'm so alone, and I feel just like somebody else. Man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same...
Twitch of the knees, tangled together. Tiny sigh. Graze of teeth hidden behind soft lips. They kissed in the dark, heads nodding together. Armin's fingers curled right at the nape of Eren's neck and shoulder, and it was comforting like a tousle of the hair. His heart jumped to his throat. God, touch. Feel. Breathe. Smell. Kiss. Taste. Whimper. Sweet nothings. Sound. Flutter of lashes. A peek at the way the otherworldly lights of nighttime made the shadows dance across a friend's face, what a sight. All the senses. A shiver down the spine. Electric. Wasn't it great to feel alive and torture yourself this way, human connection that would only make you feel more alone when it was gone and you were laying there at night with your arms around yourself summoning it all from memory to prove it wasn't all a fantasy.
Mikasa had come with him here before, too. They'd kissed here, too. Held each other in the dark. And it wasn't so bad, anyway—loving two people. Needing two people. When the lonely three was all you'd ever known, it was a deeper sort of bond. You did what you had to, to feel alive.
Did you know the sky is a graveyard of stars? Armin whispered against Eren's shoulder.
You've told me this before, Eren mumbled back, turning the volume down on the secret scratchy station.
The reason we see stars is because they've already died. Armin shrugged, stretching like a cat in the midst of a nap. Isn't that depressing?
You're depressing, Eren countered.
We should go back. Mikasa will be worried.
They climbed through the holes in the chain-link, footsteps gritting on broken-up concrete and gravel. Trees swarmed the streets, hanging low and full of shadows. Somewhere, two cats were fighting. It sounded awful.
Do you think she'll have dinner ready?
She's not a housewife, Eren.
What do you wanna eat?
Oh, man... Brownies. Cookies. Cake. Cream-filled éclairs.
Armin, you won't have any teeth left.
Hey, you're not gonna play that 'MTV Unplugged' tape all night again, are you?
I can't sleep unless the TV is on.
I can read to you instead—
The civil defense sirens started up.
Like one of those ghastly wind-up toys with the clown popping out of the box, it started in the distance with a slow grinding clatta-crank of hidden gears and mechanisms. It hit a pitch ear-ringingly off as the motors stuttered to life, driving the turbines; and then it kicked into the regular emergency drone, blaring through the city one speaker to the other. The eerie waxing and waning tone would only continue to rise in volume, until the decibels seemed to bring the entire city to its quaking knees. ErrrrrrrRRRRRRRrrrrrr... ErrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrr...
Armin spun, a new frantic light in his eyes as he vigilantly sought out Eren's glance. It's not testing day, is it? he whispered on a gasp.
Cold spiders of panic skittered down the staircase of Eren's spine. His heart jumped and then fell, sickeningly. His mouth was dry; Armin's iron grip dug into his wrist.
No, Eren mouthed. It's a Red Warning.
They didn't need a trail of bread crumbs; they knew their way back to Pioneer Square, sprinting through all the right shortcuts from Pike to Skid Row. There was an odd tension in the air, a feel like the tide drawing back into the ocean before a decimating wave. Like animals, scurrying into their dens as the hunter lumbered through checking for moss and listening for the snap of twigs. It was the distinct and disconcerting feel of secret life, over your shoulder, in the corner of your eye, retreating. Locking down.
Eren had gotten used to swinging from fire escape to fire escape with a revolver at the small of his back.
The sirens were deafening by the time they yanked the doors shut and threw down the bolt locks, safe on the cold dusty stairs hidden under Henry's Bail Bonds. Underground was a new shade of dark, in their own private womb of brick and stone and fallen beams; but the lamp Mikasa had was comforting and familiar as she rounded a stone corner and stood in the glow staring at them over her scarlet scarf with her wide, grave eyes.
You guys scared the hell out of me, she chastised, and when her jaw got tight like that, Eren and Armin both knew they were in for a lecture or two, or maybe just an admonitory punch to the shoulder very much like mothers and older sisters used to drag you by the ear to your room.
The sirens seemed muffled and faraway from underground. And while Eren had enjoyed the crisp fresh seaside air, the smell of candles and old furniture and subterranean ruins of the very first downtown was good on the nose.
Mikasa had dinner ready.
Told you, Eren muttered.
Shut up and eat, Armin mumbled.
They sat together under the brick arches by the old haunted city vault, on velvet cushions they'd taken from the couch. Instant coffee, Ritz crackers and salami and cheese. Mikasa peeled an apple to split between the three of them. For afterwards, there was a box of Oreos that weren't too stale yet. They were directly under the public sidewalks of Pioneer Square, purple glass skylights overhead filtering in moonlight and the miserable sickly spill of streetlamps. Once, they'd conducted tours of this place, Emerald City's infamous Underground. Armin's parents had actually operated the tours at a time. So maybe it was like Armin's inherited kingdom, which they'd made into a paradise fit for any family of three teens keeping shelter in what felt sometimes like dressed-up catacombs.
The Red Warning siren whirred to a desolate halt.
Mikasa froze, knife poised over the apple. Armin's fingers laced neatly in his lap as he lifted his eyes to watch the skylights overhead, where you could see the world aboveground in fuzzy smudges of shapes and colors, and hear it most of the time in twisted echoes. Eren bristled, feeling like the last string of a violin, fit to snap if wound any tighter. The fear tasted like metal. Or maybe that was anemia urging him to add more salami to that lone last cracker. God, he wanted to play his music to drown out the awful sounds on the horizon, but Mikasa wouldn't let him. Nothing but silence was enough for her when the warning sirens went off and—
There they were.
Monsters.
Rotten, deformed, blasphemous things, parading around as something humanoid, travesties of the dead whose faces they wore—blatant mockery—heart-wrenching ghouls—because they were really just drooling, twitching Not-Dead on the witless prowl for flesh and blood and bone to eat. They dragged themselves in packs along the sidewalks overhead, maybe too stupid to know three humans hid beneath them or maybe mad and salivating, having picked up on the scent of life and gnashing their broken teeth at the glass skylights because they knew it was down there but couldn't figure out how to get to it.
Definitely a Red Warning.
The Aberrants had come out to play.
to continue soon...
a/n: yup. I did it. I started another chapter-licious fic and idefc, I am so excited. also, anyone who hasn't lived in a place where you've regularly heard the civil defense sirens, Silent Hill has them spot-on. they're more than unsettling.
