I see fire and I see ice:
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
He lets his fingertips thrum against her bare skin gently. He allows his hands to trace patterns on her arms, down the curve of her breast, to the flesh in which her heart lingers underneath. It's beating softly, and his eyes close. She's curled up beside him, her blonde hair a mess, but the scowl is gone from her face and there's just serenity.
She is just with the world. Nothing more, and nothing less.
He smiles, cupping her cheek and brushing away the tears from her face. They're dried tear tracks now, and she shivers underneath his touch, but she's still breathing, he can feel this, and so he remains with her.
Annie.
Annie.
Annie.
He hasn't met her in a long time. So for now, he lets her rest, and watches her sleep. He runs his hands through her mess of blonde tangles. He doesn't even remember his name, but he remembers her, and he latches onto this. Only memories remain. He feels blistered, and burned, and he coughs lightly. There's something important he should remember, but he wants to stay here, so he lets himself forget. There's a faint smile touching her face, and his thumb goes against her cold flesh and rests there. She's beautiful. Even still. With her body frozen to the touch, and her eyelids glued shut with frost. Her breaths come out in smoke, and he rests his hand above her breast, feeling the faint thundering of her heart, and he is at peace once more.
"Armin," he hears him.
He lifts his head from the pillow. Annie's legs are tangled with his, and he doesn't dare let go of her arm. He's afraid of the heat that's suddenly sparking to life from beside the bed, and the heat within him, so he latches onto her. She is his anchor, and he loves her so much that it hurts. It sends tremors up and down his spine because he loves her so harshly, so roughly, so desperately. He wants to claw at her until it's just them left.
"Armin!" the voice repeats, this time more urgently.
His happiness turns to ashes in his mouth.
He screams. It's sharp, and short, and it sounds like a whimper.
Eren is calling him. Eren –
Annie is ice, and he is on fire, he knows this, and he doesn't want to wake back up.
She is still blissfully unaware, still sleeping in an endless abyss of nothing. He presses a fleeting kiss to her thin cheeks, his nimble hands holding her chin, and he turns to the fire that is behind him.
His name is Armin, but he doesn't want to remember that.
He just wants to remember her. As she is now, not cold and faint and dead
just like him -
They're all crying. His body feels crisp, and it stings his soul so badly he wants to scream, (but he can't) and he thinks he is in hell.
The fire calls to him, so he touches Annie's face one more time, because he doesn't have a choice.
And then he lets the flames engulf him, in the very same way that Annie did with ice.
I see fire and I see ice -