Blood trickles out of the gaping wound and Eren looks at Mikasa with this expression of pain – not from the fatal hurt inflicted upon him, but by the emotions that are running frantic in his fading heartbeat.
His mind is spinning with fragments of thoughts and conclusions that may or may not be right, but he finds that in that moment, as his life continues to slip out of his fingertips at an alarming rate, none of that really matters. All that really means anything is this abstract sensation in his chest that he knows isn't actually there, but just feels so real that it might as well be.
In all honesty, Eren Jaeger isn't even sure how to separate the truth from a lie anymore.
He hesitantly raises his gaze to meet the one of the woman hovering over him. And even though Eren's always been an incredibly articulate sort of fellow, he finds that the only word he can manage is a strangled, "Why?"
The woman blinks at the innocence of the question, before tilting his head in mild thought. (The gesture looks too pure, too void of any sinful fault, this can't be right, this shouldn't be right, this is a nightmare, a horrible, horrible nightmare—) "Well, I didn't mean to be so messy—that's for sure. This'll be a lot of work to clean up, but it wouldn't have been this bad if you hadn't squirmed around so much."
Eren isn't sure if he wants to laugh at the misconception of his single question or if he wants to cry.
"No," he croaks, "Not that." He knows what he has to say – how he has to explain his true curiosity – but he finds that doing so would take more emotional strength than what he currently has. "I mean—"
And suddenly, his murderer's eyes brighten with a vague understanding of the situation. "Oh. You actually thought that I loved you." She says the words like an elementary school child realizing that she's done something wrong and the purity of the reaction only twists Eren's heart more. Mikasa is still looking at him with this childlike stare, as though she's waiting for him to either affirm or reject her statement, waiting for him to tell her if she's right or wrong.
Despite the recent betrayal, Eren finds that he can't refuse the woman before him of her silent request and manages a small whimper of affirmation.
He isn't sure why he expects some kind of shift in the stoic expression on her features but he definitely doesn't receive one. Instead, she stands up from his fallen form, avoiding his stare as she allows herself to hum a silent syllable of praise.
"I told you from the beginning that I never loved you. When I first met you, I told you that there was something about you that was magnetized me toward you, that there was something about you that I wanted to hold onto and never let go of, but when we started spending more and more time together, I told you that I wasn't capable of love. I told you that; you just never believed me."
Eren wants to believe that there's some distortion of the truth taking place in Mikasa's words, but there's something inside of him insisting that this is the first piece of reality he's registered in a long time, so he has no choice but to accept it.
It doesn't stop the painful clenching of his heart or the stinging tears running down his cheeks though.
Despite the reaction that he's received, Mikasa continues on with his explanation nonchalantly. "I'm not exactly sure what it was that you did to get on Levi's bad side, but the guy took me in when no one else would, so I suppose that that's where my loyalties lie. I was asked to target you, to get all the information that I needed from you, and then dispose of you before you would realize what I was up to." She pauses to pull out her phone in order to grimace at the screen. "A few days late, actually, but I suppose that it doesn't really matter since I got the job done."
Eren finds himself too weak to do anything but continue staring at the assassin before him in pure despair. When Mikasa had first approached him all those months ago, he was attracted to her solemn downward gaze and the glitter in her rare smiles and the way that she would hold him when he said that he didn't want to be held even though he really did. Every day, he had woken up to a gentle voice lightly whispering into the shell of his ear and the feather-like touches of the woman lying beside him. Every day, he would wait for approximately two minutes after his shift, before a familiar red scarf would break through the dull black and white with two cups of steaming hot tea and he would smile and she would smile and they would walk around the park before sitting on the edge of the lake in order to watch the sunset. Every day, Eren would think about the days before he met Mikasa: back when he was painfully confused about anything and everything and could only view the world as a huge expanse of tangible nothingness that would never spring to life at the touch of his fingertips because he had no meaning, held no purpose. But when Mikasa stumbled into his life, something magical entered with her, and every day felt like a new start, a new life, a new beginning and he could run and jump and fly to and fro and see the vibrant colors hidden within the monotony of his day-to-day life because she was the color, is the color, she's everything, his everything, he needs her, he loves—
No.
Now that the truth has been exposed, Eren is sure that everything that he had started to think was true was nothing more than a lie spoken through the lips of the Devil himself.
Except Mikasa can't be the Devil, because Mikasa is everything and anything that Eren isn't: she's the light of the stars and the tide of the sea and the breeze that ruffles his hair on a sunny day.
Mikasa isn't evil. Mikasa is too good to be evil. This is all a mistake: some cruel nightmare inflicted upon him for drinking too much coffee again. In a few minutes, he's going to wake up to a whispered promise of eternity and familiar arms around his waist. In a few minutes, the empty feeling in his chest will disappear to be replaced with a sensation of pleasant floating.
In a few minutes, everything will be okay again.
"Stop staring at me like that," she grimaces, shifting her gaze once more to stare at the graffitied wall of the alley. "You're starting to make me feel uncomfortable, Eren."
The young man freezes at her words.
"If it makes you feel better, you weren't all that bad, you know? I really liked the feeling of you on top of me. You have a serious talent with those fingers of yours. It's a shame that I had to kill you, really."
The words do nothing but make the tears dart faster down Eren's cheeks and when he tries to choke back a sob, all that comes up is a glob of blood that only adds to the stains on his formerly white shirt. He feels that he should at least try to make an attempt at something intelligible – something meaningful that Mikasa might be able to remember him by – but the only thing that he can manage is a horribly clichéd, "I-I loved you. No, I love you."
However, the words succeed in catching Mikasa offguard, and her eyes quickly flash back to meet the fading gaze of the man before her. "What? You're not thinking straight. I just stabbed you, and in a matter of minutes, I would've killed you."
"That doesn't matter," Eren mutters. And he takes a dry swallow as his vision begins to become spotted. White fills every dimension of his sight and suddenly, the pain in his torso has begun to fade. This realization makes it clear to him that his time is almost running out, and that scares him, because he's never said anything like this to anyone before and he only has a few seconds to think of a way to do it properly.
But Eren has never been a quick thinker, so the words that slip through his lips are rushed and genuine—words that come from the very depths of his fading heart.
"Love isn't something that's meant to be logical. It stems from something that no one can ever control because emotions are something that no one can control. Love is when you want to spend every waking moment of your life with someone because they mean something to you; because they've made a significant difference in your life and you can only hope that you've done the same thing for them. When you love someone, you want to shield them from all the cruel aspects of the world because you know that someone as perfect as them doesn't deserve all of that pain and suffering." He pauses for a moment to stagger for air, only succeeding in accentuating the stinging of his lungs. When he begins again, his voice is quieter – nonexistent, almost – and Mikasa finds himself leaning forward in order to hear every last piece of it. "Love is forgiveness no matter how great and detrimental the sin."
Silence echoes throughout the alleyway as the young woman tries to process the words, before she whispers, "I'm sorry. I don't deserve your love."
Eren allows a hoarse chuckle to reverberate throughout their empty space. "That's okay. Because the more you insist that you're not worthy of it, the more the feeling grows."
Keeping his eyes open has become a burden now, so Eren tentatively allows his eyes to shut. He supposes that he's said all that he needs to say, and perhaps dying young is better than dying old in the long run.
The last thing he registers is someone pulling his corpse of a body to their chest in a tight embrace as they press their lips to his forehead in a long, meaningful kiss.
"Thank you."
Target #56312, Eren Jaeger: eliminated.
"Levi, he told me that he loved me."
The older man blinks at the sudden comment, before warily turning his attention towards his subordinate, "So?"
"He told me that he loved me, and no one's ever told me that before."
For a moment, Levi debates on how he should respond to this innocent confession. However, he figures that it would be best to make sure that his most trusted assassin remains tied to the world of harsh reality. "Does it really matter now? He's dead and there's no coming back."
"Levi, do you love me?"
"No," he responds instantly, "People like us – we're not capable of love. It's such a useless, tiresome emotion, Mikasa. Don't concern yourself with it."
Mikasa stops to think about the passion in Eren's dying voice and the feeling of his body moving in synchronization with hers and the electricity that passed between their lips and the pure honesty in his final words.
"I suppose that you're right."
It's the first time that Mikasa has ever lied to her senior.
A/N: Hey there, everyone! This is a gift for iiair on tumblr since I was her eremika secret santa this year. I guess it's a little weird receiving something all angsty for Christmas, but I was having trouble coming up with something to write for you, so I ended up just editing and finishing something that I had started on previously and never completed. I hope that you enjoyed reading. c: