It's colder than he remembers in his room these days, cold enough for the mirror to fog when he opens his window in the morning. The sunlight spilling in doesn't hang in his retinas like it used to. Auruo doesn't touch his fingers to the warm stone sill anymore, doesn't look down at the courtyard either. To do so would be to invite the strange tumor to rise in his throat again, the one that aches and scalds when he swallows it down.
Auruo stares at his reflection from his perch at the edge of his bed, a cold glaucoma icing his pupils from the mist in the mirror. His face holds the same lines it always has, familiar carvings and notches around his mouth and eyes, drawn in hideous form like a child's finger painting. He thinks there are a few new creases in the flesh, but it isn't like he keeps tally. The folds beneath his eyes look more pronounced if nothing else. They're bruised and blotchy, dyed in mottled patches of blackberry foam.
His eyes – he doesn't look at those. The mirror doesn't let him, and neither do his hands. He could raise them to swipe at the moisture like he would have done a long time ago, but he doesn't. He doesn't want to see them. His pupils gape in the darkness of his room; they're too large, too deep. He doesn't want to fall into them. He's fallen too far already, his strings cut with crooked daggers, and he should have died when he fell the first time, should have died that day, should have died a stain on the face of the earth, should have died when he looked down into wide eyes and saw nothing, no brown or gold, only desolate, vacuous black—
There are hands gripping him suddenly – a sharp prick in his arm. It's growing quiet. They've stopped the thing in his room that was making such a racket. His throat aches when he swallows, the flesh raw and agitated. Warmth spreads through his fingertips until he flinches away from them. He thinks for a split second they've placed his hands on the windowsill, but he's lying on his back now, staring into the same brown eyes that are always there these days.
"It's okay, Auruo," Hanji murmurs, her voice soft and soothing. She places her hand on his forehead, smoothes wheat-blond hair from his eyes. He doesn't know when he stopped disliking her. He remembers that he used to. He used to say things about her before, bad things. Auruo remembers an elbow crashing against his ribs, once, a sharp pain. There were other things too, things that aren't clear enough to read. His brain is much too numb.
He thinks Hanji might have said something else, but her words are floating so far above him; a vague grey haze of cigarette smoke, dissipating too rapidly for him to grasp.
He sees two black forms behind Hanji as his eyes begin to close; a sharp green, and two pinpricks of onyx, too dark in the shadows of his room. He thinks they might be familiar.
The thought is swallowed by the black maw behind his eyes, and Auruo remembers nothing more.
He's a mess.
Levi would hold him down in scalding water for something like this; it's unsightly. His uniform is caked in blood and the bones of his hands are sticking out from the flesh at cruel angles. The tendons are broken, fraying and ripped. Aurora borealis erupts across the backs of his eyelids when he tries to move them, so he doesn't. His head is crushingly heavy, nauseatingly light.
He doesn't remember where he is.
It takes a long time to stand up. He laughs, high pitched and giddy, when he sees the imprint of his body beneath him on the ground. It's bright red where his torso and head were cradled by the uneven ground, and the thin lines of blood leading to where his hands must have been form a figure in the grass; a morbid snow angel.
He can't stop laughing. He's lost so much blood. He's lost so much.
He's lost—
"Petra?" The name forms somewhere in the back of his throat, slides thick and heavy across his tongue. Where the fuck is Petra. He laughs again when he thinks the swear word – fuck. Petra would reprimand him for that kind of foul mouthed talk. His mother too. His mother. Auruo misses his mother. Petra should meet his mother. Petra should be a mother. Petra should—
There. There, against that tree. Lounging around, when they had a mission to do! Auruo didn't know the mission anymore, but he knew it was important. They were important people, important soldiers.
He stumbles forward, the ground rising up to meet him. His face blooms with a jolt of jagged, raw pain. It hurts so badly that he laughs again, laughs hard. He wants to curl up and fall asleep, but he has to get to Petra.
She's so important to him. So important. Auruo loves Petra. He wants to tell her, so he does.
"Hey Petra… I love you." His words are slurred around the weight of another laugh. He doesn't know if she understood him. He didn't understand himself, and he wills his tongue to start working again. His entire body is numb, and it takes him far too long to stand up. He worries Petra will have left him behind to get on with the mission, but she's still there, curled around the tree in the same uncomfortable arch. She's so beautiful.
His body hits the tree beside hers, lightning bolts shooting up the nerves in his arms. It's a few minutes before he can speak again; until his jaw stops spasming. His teeth are chattering hard. "Petra…" There are black dots in his vision, swirling colours. He wonders if Petra can see them too. He tries to say her name again, but no sound comes out. He should have bitten his tongue by now.
He thinks Petra is sleeping with her eyes open. She doesn't move at all. Her mouth is open, a couple of her teeth moving in the breeze. They hang from veins in her mouth, catching the light like tinsel stars. Her face is smeared and blurry. Her eyes are wide open. Auruo doesn't know why, but he starts to cry. He doesn't want to cry. He wants to go to sleep, too. God, he's so tired.
His vision fails him. He can't see Petra anymore, so he lays his head against the tree trunk again. He's dizzy, but he can still feel her body beside him. He hears the sound of something flying above them; he knows it's Levi, recognizes the sound of his landing – so much softer than anyone else could ever mimic. Auruo remembers, vacantly, that he's tried.
He regrets that Levi is seeing them so filthy. He won't want them after this. He can get cleaner soldiers, better soldiers. He opens his mouth to try and explain things to his corporal, to apologize, but…
The urge to sleep is strong; much too strong for him to fight.
Auruo mumbles good night to Petra, and closes his eyes.
A man comes to see him every day. He's so small, Auruo thinks – much too small to be a member of Survey Corps.
He says his name, but Auruo can't quite make it out. He says they know each other, but Auruo thinks he's mistaken. He would remember somebody so tiny, after all.
"They're dead, Auruo." The man says it with finality; like he expects Auruo to understand what it is he's going on about. His voice is harsh like his words, eyes serrated and almost expectant. Auruo doesn't pay him much attention anymore. He doesn't know who they are, but he feels sorry for the man, to have lost them. Auruo's lost friends in the line of duty too, but nobody close, luckily enough; nobody that he would bother telling somebody else about.
He doesn't know why the man is here, but he doesn't mind him. Despite his words, Auruo feels comfortable in his presence.
Sometimes, though, his meaningless words spark a dull ache in the pit of his stomach, like grazing a half-healed scar. Some days, he can't look the man in the eyes. Some days, he makes Hanji come and take him away for saying such things. Some days, he thinks the man is implying that it's somehow his fault.
"It's no use," Hanji murmurs to him. "You shouldn't do this to yourself." She says his name, but Auruo can't hear her. It's like someone has run a blackboard eraser over her sentence – diluting the man's name until it's illegible.
"He's just… not all there," Hanji says softly. Auruo doesn't know who she's talking about. "The trauma… it's too difficult for him to remember—"
"Don't you fucking tell me to give up," the man hisses. His dark eyes sear, harsh and menacing when they look back at Auruo. There's something painfully sharp in his gaze, something burning down in the depths. "He's the only one left."
The man turns to Auruo, and suddenly, he's screaming things. Names. Auruo feels a tugging feeling of dread in his stomach. He doesn't want to hear this. He doesn't know why, but he doesn't want to hear it. The man has never screamed before, and for some reason, Auruo didn't think he could. He doesn't know who the names belong to, but he doesn't like to hear them. To hear them is to hear someone thumping down the stairs; someone being ripped in two. The thought angers him. He doesn't like to think about it. He doesn't like to think. He doesn't like this at all; it rattles something shelved deep within him, threatens to rip it wide open.
"Stop." The word isn't as loud as the man's, but it makes him pause. Auruo's hands are at his ears, squeezing them tightly. They're trembling, and he doesn't know why the man's words weigh so much in his mind. They're just names. Meaningless. They're dead. They're dead and gone and the man needs to know that.
But the man's lips are twitching to life – a dark smile with dark intentions that Auruo doesn't want to acknowledge. His lips part around that smile, and he says it. "Petra."
No – not that. Anything but that. Not her. Not that. Not her. Not her. Why, why did it have to be her? Why not him, why not Auruo, who has always been prepared to die? Why couldn't he have gone in her stead, god, why her, why did it do this to him, dear god, why wasn't it him who was squashed like some filthy insect? Why was it her that had to leave, why was it him who had to live, why couldn't he have hit the ground at less of an angle, why did that monstrous thing bowl him instead of smiting him down, oh god, why—
"Petra, Petra, Petra, Petra—!"
"SHUT UP!" He doesn't know what's happening, and the next thing he notices are his hands are wrapped around Levi's neck, crushing his windpipe – stopping the chanting that threatens to sever his mind from his grasp. Levi struggles hard, but Auruo's hands possess strength he never knew he had. He's too strong, and he can hear Hanji screaming.
Auruo starts to laugh. There are tears running down his face, and he's laughing. He remembers now, and he doesn't want to remember. "Why couldn't you just let them die?" He squeezes harder, relishing the cyanotic tinge to Levi's parted lips. "They're dead, dead, dead, dead!" His screams chime sweetly, a childish sing song. "They're gone, they're dead, they're dead, they're dead, she's dead—" He realizes a moment later that he's wrestled his way out from under Auruo's hands, but it doesn't matter. He's stopped saying that name – her name. Auruo chokes on a laugh, running his nails down the skin of his face.
He remembers for a split second the smell of maple syrup in soft golden hair; warm eyes the colour of caramel toffee. He remembers a voice, and a laugh, and he remembers—
Another prick. Hanji's given him more of that shit she gives him when she wants the noise to stop, the thing in his room making sounds like a dying animal, the thing that's been him from the start. He knows why he won't go near that damn window, the one he used to watch Petra practice from, her skin slick with the sweat of her exertion. God. He's laughing again—a slurred, euthanized sound, like a cat on an operating table.
He doesn't see the horror in Levi's eyes – the fear. Auruo curls against himself, touching his fingers to his temples in a groggy press. It won't be long now before he forgets her for the second time, and he craves the release.
He slumps against the wall, smiling.
His eyes drift closed again.
"What the hell is your problem?"
He's glaring at her with everything he's got, and Petra's eyes burn when they look back at him. He's never been so angry, and he's drunk, so it's not like that makes things any easier. They stare at one another for a long time. The air is thick and heavy, and god, does her gaze make his body ache.
"You're my problem." Her words slice him. He's sure his expression wavers, but that doesn't stop her. "You didn't have to say things like that in front of the Corporal." She shakes her head, cheeks red and eyes shining. "God, you act like such a child, Auruo! You're not some little kid. Why can't you stop acting like one?"
He laughs, the sound bitter even to him. "But of course, I should've known. You only care because I embarrassed you in front of your beloved Corporal." He rolls his eyes, tone dripping in disgust; a thin veneer for the raw anger underneath. "You're so fucking predictable, Petra." The words come out slurred. His eyes are dark and his hands are trembling, and he's too drunk to even remember what he said to Levi.
What he does remember, what he never quite gets drunk enough to forget, is the way she stares when she thinks nobody sees her; the way her eyes stick to the Corporal, that worship him silently. Eyes that burn much differently than they burn now, with something much stronger than anger. He hates it. He hates feeling this way. He would hate Levi, too, if the man hadn't done so much for him.
The fact that he can't hate Levi almost makes it worse. Maybe, if he did, he wouldn't need to hate himself quite so much instead.
"I don't know why you keep trying. If he was interested in fucking weak little girls, I think he'd have done you by now, babe."
When she punches him – and he knew she would – it doesn't sting near as much as the sight of brimming tears in her eyes. It stops him, coils an iceberg in his stomach. He knows Petra cries, his room is right next to hers, but she'd never once done it in front of him.
He hadn't meant to make her cry, and the knowledge that he did raises a lump in his throat. His hands tremble almost too hard for him to control them, but he reaches for her shoulder anyway. "Petra—"
She jerks away, scalded, eyes thick with emotion. Her lips are trembling, at least until she bites into the lower one, covering her tears with one fisted hand. He can't summon the audacity to apologize, but he wants to. He feels the words building in his throat, the ones he's tried desperately not to say. His fingers brush over a velvet form in his pocket, gripping it with building tenacity.
When he looks up again, Petra's already gone. She's started off toward the barracks, and Auruo feels his stomach clench much tighter than the fist she punched him with.
"God damn it!" He takes the little box out of his pocket and hurls it on the ground. The ring inside of it bounces out, tumbling a few inches away, and Auruo curses as he sets off after Petra in the direction of the barracks. He doesn't let himself cry until his door slams shut, and he makes sure that his face is pressed tight into his pillow; the horrible sound of her through his wall is loud enough.
When he wakes up, the box is lying quietly next to him on his night stand. He doesn't know who found it, or more importantly, how they knew to put it there.
He'd been passed out far too long to notice a small man slip inside his room, or lay the ring and its freshly polished box where he knew the owner would find them.
The man comes to see him every day. He's too small, Auruo thinks – much too small to be a member of Survey Corps.
He doesn't say his name, but Auruo thinks he's met him before – in some other life; in some other time.
It's a quiet life, but he doesn't complain – only stares at his face in the mirror. It holds the same lines it always has, familiar carvings and notches around his mouth and eyes, drawn in hideous form like a child's finger painting. He thinks there are a few new creases in the flesh, but it isn't like he keeps tally. He wonders offhandedly when they'll give him his next mission, but they never do.
He doesn't think to wonder why he doesn't approach the windowsill to let the sunlight touch his skin, or why the smell of maple syrup wafting from the mess hall in the morning makes his eyes overflow.