A Ground Made of Ice
It's the most pained scream he's ever heard. And he's heard many in his days. The first painful screams he remembers are of his parents being murdered while he hides, cramped under his bed. His parents had tucked him in to go to sleep. He's falling asleep to their faint voices from their living room when he hears the glass of the windows shattering. His first instinct is to see what's happening, but he hides instead. A man drags him out from under his bed. He lets out his first agonized scream as he's dragged into the world of crime at the age of five.
He watches his enemies die before him by his own hand. Some of them scream and cry while others go silently.
He watches his comrades die. He watches as the titans rip them apart limb by limb and they scream and beg for it to stop.
But this is by far the worst scream he's heard yet. She stares at him for a moment, her eyes moving to her brother, and then back to him. She takes a step back, nearly tripping. And then she's screaming. She falls down onto her knees, her hands tightly gripping the ground. There's no doubt they're bleeding from all of the small, sharp pebbles.
He walks past her to one of the carts. He sees Armin leaning down next to her, attempting to calm her down, but she continues to scream with sobs wracking violently through her body. He gently lays Eren in one of the few empty carts. He looks peaceful, like he's sleeping, rather than—
Rivaille takes a deep breath; he will not lose the composure he's spent years upon years building up in front of everyone. But it's hard. Somewhere along the line, Eren had become important to him.
He frowns when he hears a titan's roar not far off from where he's currently at. It's obviously Eren's. He kills the last of the titans in the area before moving onwards to Eren. Actually getting to him is a challenge. There are at least eight titans surrounding the hardly breathing titan form of Eren, who's collapsed at this point and isn't making any sort of effort at fighting or even standing.
Rivaille manages though. The titans' steam is thick around him as he finally cuts the nape of Eren's titan's neck. There's not much damage to Eren's actual form, he notices as he pulls him from the titan. A few cuts and bruises, but nothing serious.
Until Rivaille realizes. Eren's not breathing. His hand presses over his heart, but there's no beat. His body still burns to the touch, but Rivaille is sure it's because he only pulled him out moments ago.
He sits there for what seems like an eternity, staring down at Eren's face. He's never going to see his turquoise eyes again, is he? When the thought hits him, he almost laughs at how he sounds. He stands up, holding Eren—no, Eren's body—close to him, and hurries back to the formation. They should be near the walls at this point. Maybe they've gone in, assuming the worst for both Rivaille and Eren.
But they're at the wall when he returns. Eren's body is cold to the touch now. And that's when she begins to scream.
They have a funeral for him.
Since Eren's death, Mikasa has gotten closer to Rivaille than before. She nearly clings to him. It makes her mad that she does this, but she's not entirely sure what to do.
Eren's gone. And she has no family. And Rivaille understands that.
He understands that almost too well.
It makes her sick to think about.
Her eyes are focused forwards, where a man is going on and on about this and that about death. She's paying no attention to what the man says. She's upset. She's angry. Angry at those around her who are crying at Eren's death. They have no right. They all wanted him dead. They got what they wanted.
She feels the hot tears escaping and rolling down her face, dropping off of her chin and landing on her lap. Rivaille squeezes her hand. It's okay.
It's not okay, though. It never will be okay.
Eren is what's kept Mikasa steady. He is her ground, and now it's been pulled out from under her, leaving her falling pointlessly though the air. Rivaille is trying to catch her as he knows most of what she's feeling. But she refuses to be caught.
She squeezes his hand as a response. She glances at him. It's the first time she's ever seen him without his usual composure. There's no stony look as he watches what's going on ahead of him. He's almost in tears, even.
Rivaille doesn't understand one thing, and that's why she doesn't want to be caught. He's had someone catch him before, but he never lost them.
He doesn't know what it's like to lose the catcher.
Mikasa doesn't want him to know, of course. It's terrible.
But having someone else properly catch her is too risky. She might lose them, too.
She would rather continue falling than sitting at her catcher's funeral like she is now.
She's using Rivaille to slow the fall. He's the ice. She lands for a moment to catch her breath and watches the ice crack and continues the fall. And she'll do this over and over, never once letting him be a proper ground for her stand on. She'll do this until she dies.
Because Eren is the only family she has left. And he's gone.
I feel like this is kind of all over, but I still like how it turned out so I'm not going to play around with it more than I already have. As far as formatting goes, it starts out in the present with Rivaille simply thinking about his past. It's important, but we don't need a full flashback of it. He's simply reminded by Mikasa's screaming. Then we have the flashback. Then it's the present again, this time in Mikasa's point of view. I don't really have much else to say at this point. So I hope you all liked it!