Continued from the last chapter…

(3)


He hadn't been able to eat or sleep for almost two days now. All he could think of were those guys… And he grabbed the small trashcan, vomiting once more. He refused to let anyone come see him, and he refused to leave the little hospital room. The nurse was trying to be helpful and cheery, but it just made him feel worse. He wanted to remain curled up in his little ball of solitude underneath the thin blanket and never emerge.

It wasn't fair, dammit! What had he done to deserve this? All he'd wanted to do was walk to the little bakery and buy himself and Eren and Mikasa some cookies.

Fucking cookies!

Chocolate cake had been ruined for him years ago- when his parents died. Now he'd never eat another cookie again. Last night, when the nurse had brought him the two oatmeal cookies- trying to cheer him up, he guessed- he'd thrown them at her. The woman sent in after her was older and fatter and much less nice, but he preferred it that way.

"Good afternoon!" He cringed against the high-pitched voice. She was nothing but rainbows and butterflies and he hated her for it. "Your friends are still asking to see you. Don't you think you should tell them you're okay?"

"No." He tucked the blanket around him head a little tighter and buried his face into the pillow. Something in him just wished he could smother himself, but the moment he needed another breath, he tilted his head just enough to get it. How could he face Eren and Mikasa? Or Jean? If he couldn't even look at them, how in the world was he supposed to lie and tell them that he was perfectly alright?

"You can't hide under that blanket forever, you know." He could hear her rustling around in the room, but he didn't bother to find out what she was doing. It didn't matter. She didn't matter.

But what did matter?

He didn't have an answer for that. Not yet. He knew that, for now, all he could do was try to block everything out. He just wanted to forget, to pretend he was hurting for another reason. Bolting upright, he bent and grabbed the little trashcan. His vomit was thin and watery; it burned the back of his throat.

The nurse appeared before him once he was finished. There was a glass of water in her hand. He accepted it, but didn't look up at her and didn't show any sort of gratitude. His grandfather would have been ashamed by his horrible behavior, but that thought only made him ache even more.

Moving to curl back up in his ball facing the plain wall, he was stopped by a hand on his shoulder and a commotion outside of his room. The door was cracked- intentionally, of course- and he could see out into the hall. It was Jean. The nurse dropped her hand from his shoulder and moved over to the door just as Jean reached the other side.

"I'm sorry, but you can't come in here." Armin could hear the regret in her soft voice, still high-pitched, but somehow, not as annoying. He glimpsed Jean looking over her head, staring straight at him, though Armin would not meet his eyes. Instead, he grabbed the blanket and covered himself entirely as he lay back down.

"Armin!" Jean called. "Tell her to let me in!"

"Go away." Armin was aware that Jean probably hadn't been able to hear the low request, but he didn't repeat himself. Before yesterday, he considered Jean a friend, and thought that, just maybe, Jean might have thought of him as a friend too. Now, though, he was certain Jean only pitied him like Eren and Mikasa. They were kind enough to hide it and pretend like they didn't, but Jean was too honest for that.

"I'm not going anywhere!" Jean shouted. "Move, lady!" He could hear the scuffle, but didn't pull the blanket down to look. He just wanted Jean to give up and go away. "Armin, you selfish son-of-a-bitch! Tell her to let me in here!"

That had surprised him. Selfish? He'd never really thought of himself that way. But maybe- maybe he was selfish. After all, the only person in the world he had focused on for the last day and a half had been himself. He blamed the cookies. He blamed those guys. He blamed himself. His pain wasn't going away, though, and he knew it wouldn't for a very long time. Was it really so selfish of him to pity himself- at least for a little while?

"I don't want to talk to you, Jean!" Armin shouted, cringing hard against the tears that burned his eyes and constricted his throat. "Go away!" He'd tried to sound angry or mean, but his voice cracked at the very end, and he sobbed into the pillow by his face.

Why? Why him? Why yesterday, of all days? Why did Jean have to pick that fight with them? He'd just made everything worse! But he couldn't really blame Jean, now could he? He'd only been trying to help. But those men…

Again, Armin had to vomit. He flopped over and half sat up as his hand brought the small can close to his face. There was almost nothing for him to vomit up this time. He dry-heaved a half-dozen times before he could just relax. Tossing the blanket back over his head, he didn't bother to roll over and face the wall or even curl up into the ball again.

He was so tired… All he wanted to do was sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, though, he'd see their cold eyes and dark intentions. He'd feel the impact of the brick wall on his face. Their hands were tearing at his clothes again, or throwing hard punches, or grabbing him… He shuddered, though his eyes were carefully trained on the dark wood paneling. He'd fallen asleep only once, and woke in the middle of one of the worst nightmares of his life: what they'd done to him- done all over again.

There was a hand on his shoulder. He looked up, though the thin gray blanket didn't allow him to see who it was. He knew the weight and size of that hand couldn't have been that of the nurse's, though. It hurt. Not physically, but emotionally.

Jean had been nice to him. He'd beat up those guys the first time. He'd carried him to the hospital yesterday. It didn't feel right to hate him, but he did. He hated everything Jean represented: strength, honesty, courage. He was weak. He was a coward. He was pathetic.

"I…" He tensed when he heard Jean's voice again. The hand on his shoulder vanished and he curled up once more, trying to hide inside of himself. "Armin…"

"Please go away." He wasn't sure if his whisper was heard. The room was very quiet for a long moment. He didn't even hear the nurse shuffling things around.

"No." The word had a solid note to it. With a heavy sigh, Armin squeezed his eyes shut.

Again, he could see them: the leader catching him by the wrist as he walked down the street. His nose had been buried in a book. He'd had no warning. Snatched into the alley, the book fell from his hands. He'd tried to fight them off- he'd tried his hardest- but with all six of them grabbing him and shoving him, punching, kicking, pinching, and tearing, he wasn't able to even free one hand or foot.

"I… I know…" Jean was struggling with his words- a first, as far as Armin knew. "Look, I know what those fucking assholes did to you, and I'm really sorry about that, but they won't do it again. I swear. I made sure of it this time." The anger and passion in his words were enough to distract Armin, if just for a single moment. He opened his eyes and looked up at where he was certain Jean was standing on the other side of the blanket. He felt fingertips graze over his arm as the blanket gathered and was pulled away.

"Stop." His voice was still soft, though without any particular inflection. His request denied, the blanket slipped away from his head. Jean was standing in front of him, shirtless, with one arm in a sling. "What…?"

Jean sighed. "Don't worry about it." Armin sat up slowly, allowing the grimace that revealed how much pain even that simple action caused. A deep wrinkle formed over Jean's nose, between his eyebrows. "Are you…"

"No," Armin muttered, looking down at the white sheets. "I'm not okay. Not even close." It was his turn to be honest. He'd lied for so many long years. It was rare for him to ever be really "okay". But he put on a brave face and he forced himself through the day, bearing the torture that was physical training.

Jean reached up with his right hand and scratched at the shaggy undercut on the back of his head. Armin glanced back up, watching as he let his hand fall. A strange look of some sort of determination crossed Jean's features for a moment. He took a few steps to his left, then crawled onto the foot of Armin's bed, relaxing with his back to the wall.

"I'm really not either." It was strange to hear that sort of confession come from someone who was constantly boasting about his abilities. Jean was picking at the edge of the sling holding his left arm in place.

"What happened to your arm?" Armin asked. He thought it was a safe question, maybe one that would distract him for a moment.

"The leader guy stabbed me." Images of the knife used to threaten him even as he was held into place against the rough brick wall consumed him for a moment. "I… I killed him, I think."

Armin's head snapped up to look at Jean. There was a darkness to his expression: something in the way his eyes were narrowed, how his eyebrows were pulled together over his nose, the grimace-come-frown that had etched itself like a permanent scar over Jean's lips.

Was he really dead? Did Jean really do that? But… why? And then, Armin found he didn't care. The leader of the street gang had caused all of this pain- he deserved to die. He hadn't felt that way about anyone before, but now…

"Thank you."

Jean's eyes widened, his eyebrows lifted, and his mouth fell open into a slack-jawed stare. Armin tucked his chin to his chest, lowering his gaze to the space between them on the bed. "Don't… don't mention it."

Armin's eyes leveled onto Jean once more. "You can't tell me that you killed the bastard that did this to me and then tell me not to mention it. It doesn't work like that, Jean." He just opened and closed his mouth a few times, looking for a way to respond to Armin's words. Armin stared at the mattress again. "Please, just let me be grateful…"

"Okay." Jean took a deep breath and exhaled in a loud huff. When Armin looked back up at him, he was holding his left shoulder. He could see the thin line of black stitches that crossed Jean's shoulder diagonally. His fingers were digging into the skin on the outside of his arm. Jean stared at him for a moment, then smirked with a short chuckle. "You look like shit."

Armin felt some of the weight lift from his shoulders. He cracked a half of a smile. "You don't look any better." Truthfully, Armin didn't know what he looked like. He hadn't seen a mirror since the morning before all this had started. Jean really didn't look so bad, just a little on the tired side, and bearing a few bruises like the one on his cheek below his eye and a few on his bare chest and back Armin had spotted earlier.

Jean shrugged his right shoulder. "Yeah, well, at least we don't have to worry about going back to training for a while, right?" Armin nodded once. The dull, aching throb that had started when he'd sat up began to travel up his spine and become sharper, like someone was stabbing him again and again. Jean must have noticed. "Lay down."

He did not complain, simply curled into a ball on his side once more, though rather than staring down the wall, he was glancing up at Jean every few seconds, alternating with longer moments of staring at the blanket he'd wrapped around his shoulders. "Who else knows what happened?"

"I don't know." Armin sighed a little at Jean's answer. "Eren and Mikasa didn't find out much, but they probably guessed well enough. Marco knows I was stabbed, but he doesn't know why I got into that fight in the first place."

"I don't want their pity," Armin whispered. Unwanted images of the leader's crooked nose hovering over his face and the hands gripping his hips made him shudder for a moment.

"I'm sorry." Jean's voice was soft, almost childlike in the tone. It was different enough to distract Armin from the images that were beginning to overwhelm him. Jean hadn't apologized for anything, to his limited knowledge, the entire time they'd been in training together. He was always cocky, boasting about his skills with the 3DM gear. Other than Marco, Armin had never really seen Jean speak with anyone seriously.

Armin couldn't say that it wasn't his fault or that it was okay or that he didn't blame him. None of those things were true. Logically, it really wasn't Jean's fault and he didn't deserve any blame, but Armin didn't have it in him to think about things logically right now. Part of him wanted to yell and scream at Jean with everything he had, but he didn't have the energy for it. Instead, he yawned and continued the struggle to keep his eyes open.

"Why don't you just go to sleep?" Jean asked. He sat up, no longer resting against the wall.

"Nightmares." His whispered reply received no comment for a very on moment. He and Jean were both silent, contemplative, as they each stared at their own piece of the white sheets. Armin was fighting the unwanted memories with his hatred of cookies and chocolate cake, only sparing Jean a glance when the older boy shifted his weight on the bed.

It wasn't long before Armin couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. He had struggled for too long, and without the energy necessary to stay awake or even move much, sleep came despite his wish that it didn't. There was no telling how long he was really able to sleep before he the images came back to haunt him.

He could hear himself begging, the echo of his voice bouncing off of the close walls in the maze of alleys they'd drug him through. Attempting to fight them off was getting him nowhere. Then the knife had appeared, just a threat, and then it was pressed to the side of his throat, and it suddenly became very, very real. Every bit of fight he'd had left faded, sort of drained away and fizzled out into a silent acceptance of what was happening to him. Their hands were everywhere- bruising and pinching, tearing at his clothes. They mocked him, calling him names not unlike the children who had bullied him before the Fall.

He could feel the cold brick wall scraping over his skin. The icy wind sliced straight through him. Hot, searing pain replaced the chill as he struggled for a moment more. Warm tears fell over his cheeks. The man's wet, stinking breath hit the back of his neck as he panted from the exertion.

Just before the worst of it began, Armin felt it fade and shimmer away. The sensations, previously so strong and real- as if it were all happening again- vanished. The conflicting variations of hot and cold settled into a steady and much more pleasant warmth. He could feel someone's heartbeat- his own?- and it calmed him.


Just a quick word from the author:

Don't think any of this was easy for me to write. It's pretty fucking hard, actually.