Let this be our prayer

Chapter 2


You know the one moment where you spend too much time on a fiction world, and then you think what would it truly be like when you live in that world?

Eren found himself in the boat exactly.

He blames Armin entirely.

Apparently there was this book series in their school library that the blonde had read, and Eren just had to read it. Like, it was way better than the week he spent checking out nothing but Marvel comics.

So, now the brunet finds himself cooped up in his room several hours a day. His mother knows he spends his time reading, and his father can only assume he's jerking off.

You might think that, but no. He spends his time reading something not exactly educational, but he's not exploring how long he can last with his hand either.

The character in the books are so different and it truly feels like they are real people. The kind of shit that they go through, and they still have their heads held up, shit, Eren would have given up a long time ago.

"Eren! Put your book down! Jean came to pick you up!" His mother called up through the stair case.

Reluctantly, the brunet put his book down, grabbed his phone, wallet and gave himself one last look in the mirror before heading downstairs.

His mother and another young man were casually talking when he got downstairs.

"Hey, Jean. Sorry you had to wait." Eren rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

The blonde chuckled softly, getting up and bringing his partner into a loving embrace, "It's alright, baby. I know you really like that book Ar gave you."

Eren blushed lightly, "Yeah. Real good book."

Jean snickered, pulling back and taking his boyfriend's hand, intertwining their fingers. Grinning when he met Carla and Grisha's own. "If you'll excuse us. And, I promise to bring Eren back home before ten as always."

The brunet's father nodded approvingly and his mother giggling at how perfect her son's boyfriend was.


Both boys were in Jean's father's car, laughing at some random topic of conversation that came up.

Jean looked over at his boyfriend, "God, I fucking love you."

"Love you too, Jean-bo."

The blonde sighed, "I still hate that my mom let that nickname slip out."

"I love her for it."

"Figures you would. Little shit." He pulled up into Annie's driveway.

Eren unbuckled his seatbelt as he and Jean got out, walking to the front door, "So, who was able to make it tonight?"

"Armin, Bert, Reiner, Isabel, Connie, Sasha and Krista." He knocked on the door, holding onto Eren's hand.

"I really hope Reiner doesn't bring out the alcohol again. Armin throwing up was the worst." The brunet grimaced.

"And I thought Reiner was bad enough."

The door opened and Annie stood in front of them, "Come in. I got all the alcohol away from that idiot." Leave it to Annie to do that.

Both boys laughed as they walked in.


"Come on, I mean, the sappiest couple has to be my cousin and pony-boy over there." Isabel, Eren's younger cousin, was busy having a debate with Connie who thought he and Sasha were way sappier a couple over Eren and Jean.

Sasha pouted, "But Connie and I have cute nicknames and tell them to each other all the time in public."

"Yeah, and Eren told me when Jean sleeps over sometimes, he whispers his favorite nicknames to him before he falls asleep."

The brunet looked down, blushing heavily, causing his partner to grin at him, "Aww, that's real cute of you to do, love."

Isabel pointed at her blushing cousin, "Point proven."

Knowing this would go on a while, Krista, their savior, decided to settle it for now, "How about they play the pocky game?" That ought to keep them quiet.

Nodding, Sasha pulled some out of her bag, handing one to the boys and one to her and Connie, "First one to make the kiss really cute wins."

Everyone else, minus Annie who was watching television, watched them as they nibbled on the pocky.

Connie and Sasha, there's went by quicker. The brunette practically eating all of it, blushed then kissed the boy's cheek softly.

The two boys on the other hand, nibbled on the ends of the treat, kissing each other softly. Jean pulled back and kissed his boyfriend's nose, making him blush.

"Eren and Jean win. Hands down."

For the rest of the time, they simply watched movies.


"You mind if I stay over tonight? My parents are out of town and I don't exactly wanna go home." Jean glanced over at the brunet.

Eren glanced up from his phone, "Sure. I don't mind."

"Thanks love."

The two boys pulled up to Eren's house, getting out of the car and going inside.

Carla glanced over at them from the kitchen, "Welcome back, boys."

Eren walked over to his mother and kissed her cheek, "Hey, mom. Making hot chocolate?"

"Yes, dear. Thought you and Jean would want some with cookies I baked earlier."

"Dad asked you to again?"

"You know it."

The brunet grabbed them some cookies while the blonde got their drinks and both headed upstairs.


After their snack was all eaten, Jean was asleep in Eren's bed while the brunet was quietly typing away on his laptop.

You see, the brunet was completely fascinated with the concept that people could write a story, and turn it into their own little world, and have people actually like it? Well, that was amazing to him.

So for a few years now, Eren had been working on various kinds of stories and posted them online. People respected him for his creativity and the emotions he could lace with them.

Eren was currently in university working towards a writing major. Jean himself was going into music.

"You working on your writing again?"

The brunet jumped when his boyfriend suddenly spoke up. He turned around in his seat and looked at the sleepy blonde, "Yeah. I haven't had much time to since I spent a lot of time reading those books."

Jean sat up, leaning against the headboard, "I noticed. Normally you have me look them over before you publish them. It's been a while since you've written something."

"Yeah, I know. My professors told me that I should try to write more. They said the reading is good, but that I should try with the writing too." Eren saved his document and closed his laptop. He got up and sat next to Jean, cuddling with the blonde.

The two boys covered themselves with the brunet's blanket, falling asleep as they held onto each other.


"Very well done, Eren. You capture my attention immediately in your story. I've never read a story quite like yours. The characters feels so real it's hard to believe they are only a figment of your imagination. The situations they go through are so tied to real life it feels as though I'm there with them as well. Keep up the amazing work." The brunet was grinning with joy as he read his evaluation to his boyfriend and parents.

Carla smiled up at her son, "That's amazing, Eren. I knew you had a knack for this."

His father pat his shoulder, very proud, "Keep up the great work, Eren. I'm proud of you."

Jean kissed his boyfriend's cheek, holding his hand tightly, "You're so talented, love."

Eren blushed heavily at the praise he was getting.

His mother took pity on him seeing Eren so red, "So, what's the name of your story?"

"The story is called a choice with no regrets."

"What's it about, son?" His father set down his newspaper to listen.

"It follows Levi Ackerman, the guy from the book Armin gave me, his two friends, Isabel Magnolia and Farlan Church, through their life in the underground city. What the underground city is that it mainly consists of criminals or people who didn't have their citizenship to live above ground. Levi is the leader of his own gang, they steal goods and gather money. Farlan is his right hand man. He met him when Farlan tried to ambush him and get him to join his own gang when Levi was still on his own. And they later met Isabel when they saved her from three guys."

Jean, who looked very interested, look at his boyfriend in awe, "How did you come up with that?"

"Well, it said several times in the book that Levi wasn't originally from above ground. So, I used whatever information the author wrote down about his life, and turned this into what I think his life was like."

When the author, Armin who oddly enough had the same name as his best friend, implied their corporal lived a life of thievery and was a formal criminal, Eren felt like there was so much more. And seeing as the captain often kept to himself, the brunet decided it would be fun to write his own version.

But for some reason, Eren felt like he had to write this. He didn't know why. He had never even heard of the book before, yet when Armin showed him this, he became so fascinated in their world, that he just had to write his own version of it.

"You should really let me read that sometime, Eren."

"Sure, Jean."


Later that evening, when his boyfriend went back home, his parents went out for their usual date night and Eren decided to get more reading and writing done.

The brunet was currently reading about the female titan arc in the third book. Yes, he went online and purchased all the books, they're that good. Anyway, he was thrown into a mixture of horror, confusion, hurt, relief and betrayal.

They, the Recon corps, had most recently discovered that Annie was indeed the female titan. Many of them wondered how she could have murdered the entire Levi squad and more of the former members. No one knew why she murdered so many people in cold blood, but she needed to be brought down.

Eren felt as though Eren, yes, again the character was oddly named like himself, was having the hardest time with this all.

He still blamed himself for the death of the former special operations squad. His corporal, Levi, told him that he shouldn't blame himself over something like that. He told him back in the forest, to make the choice he would regret the least. He said before they split off, that he himself doesn't know the right choice either. He's been in the Recon corps for five years, and he still questions his reasons, actions, words and choices every day.

It was no wonder Eren admired his captain so much. He was a man with faults, something the people failed to see. They thought of him as a god, when he was really just another mortal. Humanity's strongest was just a title. But it wasn't who he was. He was a man with regrets, faults, feelings, and emotions, everything a normal person would feel. But everyone just made him out to be that opposite. People choose to ignore what they want.

The brunet worked more on the document and before he knew what happened, Eren laid his head down and fell asleep.


"Eren? Eren? Wake up, brat. Shitty glasses wants to run more experiments on you."

The young man groaned as he woke up, only to come face to face with Corporal Levi.

Levi raised a brow at his subordinate, "What brat? Do I have something on my fucking face?"

"U-Um, no sir. Nothing at all."

"Then get up, get dressed and meet me in the hallway when you're finished. We have a lot of shit to do." The captain turned around and walked out, shutting the door behind him.

After pinching himself numerous times to see if he really was awake, the young man changed into his normal outfit.

But wait, shouldn't he be in his room? Not too long ago he was busy writing on his laptop, and now his room looks like one that had never seen electricity.

"Eren. Hurry the fuck up. Shitty glasses will start bitching if he don't get there soon." His captain's voice came through the door, completely annoyed at the young man taking too long.

"Yes, sir!" He opened the door, closing it behind himself as he followed the shorter man.


"You want me to bite down on my hand?" Eren was completely confused as to why the two superiors wanted him to do so.

Levi rubbed his temples, "Because I already fucking told you, brat. You need to turn into a titan. Shitty glasses needs to run some tests on you."

The scientist was quietly standing beside them. They wanted to know what caused Eren's strange behavior. Just yesterday Eren was cooperating just fine with them yesterday. What could have possibly happened over night?

"Look brat, we don't exactly have a lot of time. We have a lot of shit to get in a single day. Every moment that those military dogs don't find us should fucking count."

Hanji placed their hand on the captain's shoulder, "Calm down, Corporal. Maybe the mere fact that we have to hide out now still hasn't set with him. "

Levi glanced back at them, "We don't have enough time for it to settle in. We need to act. This brat needs to turn into a titan as soon as he can. We need to run those tests of yours."

Reluctantly, Hanji nodded. They turned to Eren and gave him a serious expression, "Eren, I understand everything is still new with how we're to live right now. We were once idolized, you were known as Humanity's last hope, now we're criminals for hiding you because of your titan shifting ability. We have to try and put that in the back of our minds and work with whatever we have. You and the rest of the 104th squad are trying the best they can. You have to as well."

Eren looked down at his shaking hands. Titan shifter? Criminals? Humanity's last hope? No. That wasn't him. That was Eren Yeager. His name is Eren Jeager.

The brunet is just a normal university student majoring in writing. He had a loving mother, father, sister and boyfriend. There are no such things as titan shifters in his world. He's not a criminal. Eren doesn't really know Captain Levi and Squad leader Hanji. They're nothing but fictional characters in this book.

This…this isn't real. None of this is real.

Levi had about enough with the brunet's silence and grabbed his shoulders, making the brunet look at him in shock. "Eren, I don't know what the fuck you're thinking in that head of yours, but you are a titan shifter and Humanity's last hope. Everyone one of your friends depend on you, shitty glasses depends on you, hell, even I fucking depend on you to help eliminate the titans. Accept it, this is our reality."

"You aren't real."

"Excuse me?" Levi's eyebrow twitched.

Eren pushed back the captain, making the other's eyes widen, "You are nothing but a made up character in a book Armin gave me weeks ago. None of this is real. I've just been writing too much again. That's it."

He let out a humorless laugh, "Just because my name is scary close to the main character doesn't mean that's really me. I'm not that Eren Yeager. I'm not strong, reckless, determined, and the suicidal bastard that he is. I'm Eren Jeager. University student, insecure, quiet, and hoping that I can get a goddamn book published later on in life. None of this is real!" By this point, he was only trying to convince himself this very realistic dream was nothing but a figment of his imagination.

The two superiors watched in horror as the young titan shifter had a mental breakdown. What was this about university student? Eren was a young man involved in the military. The brunet was a strong young man. Why did he have to break down now? They had so many important matters they had to do, and with a limited time on their hands, they couldn't waste a second.

Levi was quick to grab the brunet before he fell to the ground, holding him tightly, "Eren, I don't know what anyone else has told you, but you're a strong person, the strongest person I've had the fucking pleasure of meeting. You have to beat those inner demons that want you to fall and be useless. You're better than this, Eren. Come on," He grabbed Eren's chin and met the brunet's gaze with his own, "You're strong, Eren. You're no monster, you're a human. No one can fucking take that away from you."

If Eren were to be completely honest with himself, he could have only imagined talking with such an amazing person as Levi. And yet, here this man was, right in front of him, addressing him as someone else completely.

Did Eren Yeager feel this way? He must have with the practiced words the captain seemed to recite. Captain Levi believed in his subordinate so much, and he never once thought of this young man as a monster, just another injured human.

Would the captain still comfort him as Eren Jeager? He'd like to think so. He really would.

Eren gave the captain a very tired smile, making the man panic, "T-Thank you, c-captain." His gaze slowly faded.

Levi shouted for Hanji to hurry the fuck up and come back with their medical kit from the cabin. He looked down at the dazed brunet, close to passing out. "Eren, Eren, fucking stay with me, Eren!" His grip tightened on his subordinate.

The brunet felt his eyes roll back and his eyelids shut. He vaguely heard the captain continuing to shout for help.

Before he completely faded out, his heart about stopped with the captain's next words.

I love you.


Eren was startled awake, covered in a cold sweat, panting and looking around his room. He needed some reassurance that things were as he left them.

He quickly opened his laptop and saw his a choice with no regrets document saved and still as he had it.

The young man sighed heavily as he leaned back in his seat, his arm resting on his forehead, staring up at his ceiling.

"I've seen reading too much again…"


End of chapter 2.

Also, side note because I don't want to talk about this again. The self harm tag, yeah, that doesn't happen at all within the Erejean relationship. You just have to keep reading to understand when that tag becomes important. Thank you for your time.