"She takes her first step down the dark corridor.
She could smell dust and damp and mustiness.
The cat padded along beside her.
'And why was that?' asked the cat, although it sounded barely interested.
'Because,' she said, 'when you're scared but you still do it anyway, that's brave.'"
—Neil Gaiman, Coraline
Eren wakes up to the sight of two pairs of eyes hovering over him worriedly. He blinks, disoriented, until his memory catches up with him and he becomes alert instantly.
"What are you doing?" he says, sitting up. Levi and Jean—the real Levi and Jean, with eyes instead of buttons—exchange worried looks and move back to give him space.
"Eren, are you feeling okay?" Jean asks.
"Yeah, why?" Eren asks, wincing as pain flares up in his shoulders. He flushes, remembering why his shoulders sting so much, but luckily (or unluckily) Levi and Jean simply assume the warmth in his cheeks is from fever. Jean puts the back of his hand on Eren's forehead.
"He's kind of warm," he says softly to Levi.
"He's always kind of warm," Levi replies.
"Quit talking about me like I'm not here," Eren snaps. "Why are you guys so freaked out over my health all of a sudden anyway?"
"We just got back from our date," Jean says. "We figured you wouldn't wait up, since we ran so late."
"What time is it?" Eren asks.
"Just after twelve," Levi says. "We were concerned when we came home and found you asleep."
"It's the middle of the night," Eren says. "That's not concerning."
"It is if we find you passed out and sweating on the middle of the floor in the living room," Jean counters. "Are you sure you're feeling okay? We think you might be coming down with something."
Eren frowns. "On the floor?" he asks, confused. The Others have never sent him back like that before, not once. He usually ends up on the bed, or, on one occasion, the sofa.
"On the floor," Levi confirms. "The Doll was just sitting on your chest, watching you. It was freaking us out, so we locked it in a kitchen drawer."
Irritation surges in Eren's stomach but he's too tired and preoccupied to worry about getting Little Me out right now.
"I'm fine, guys," he says. "Today was just kind of a weird day for me." He swings his legs out over the side of the bed and stands up, wincing a little. His skin feels clammy and a little sticky, both from sweat and other fluids that he doesn't really care to think about right now. "I'm going to go take a shower. You're probably tired, though, so you can go to sleep. I think I'm going to crash in the guest room tonight."
"What? Why?" Jean asks. Eren shrugs.
"Well, if I'm sick like you think I am, I wouldn't want to get you two sick as well," he says. They look like they're about to protest, so he turns away and busies himself with pulling a new set of pajamas out of his dresser. "It's fine, guys. We made the guest room comfortable specifically for this purpose, remember?"
"Yeah, but that was for in case we got into a fight and needed some space," Levi says. "Not so we could quarantine you if you got sick."
Eren shrugs and gives them a helpless smile as he walks out of the room.
"Stubborn bastard," he hears Jean mutter, and he scoffs. If they knew what he'd just done, they wouldn't want him anywhere near their bed, either. The thought sobers him up instantly and wipes the smile right off his face, and he showers quickly, wanting to be asleep already so he doesn't have to dwell on his thoughts.
He barely dries himself off before putting on his pajamas, so the flannel pants and soft t-shirt stick uncomfortably to his damp skin as he heads to the guest room. He doesn't look into his bedroom as he passes; the idea of looking either of his boyfriends in the eyes right now is not appealing in the slightest.
When he gets to the guest room, the first thing he notices, after flicking on the light, is that the bed is messed up, as if someone was sleeping in it and then left quickly, with no time to make it.
Shit.
"Mikasa," Eren breathes, his eyes wide with horror. In all the excitement of everything that happened earlier, he completely forgot about her. It's late as hell but Eren checks his phone anyway. Sure enough, he has three missed calls and fourteen texts from Mikasa, with the latest being from only fifteen minutes ago. Eren bites his lip and sends her a text.
Eren: hey r u still awake?
It's a long shot—or at least, it would be with anyone else. He's only a little bit surprised when she texts back immediately.
Mikasa: Call me.
Eren winces. She used proper punctuation and capitalization, which means she must be really mad. But even though he's tired as hell and wants nothing more than to be asleep, he knows she'll only get even angrier if he doesn't obey. He calls her, and she picks up on the first ring.
"You'd better have a good way to explain yourself," she says as soon as the call connects. Eren winces again and runs a hand through his hair.
"I don't even know how," he says. "I can't remember the last time we got into a fight like that."
"The fight was the stupidest thing I've ever witnessed," she says, "but I was talking about you ignoring me all day."
"Today was just an off day," Eren says. His voice cracks in the middle of his sentence and his eyes start stinging, and he rubs at them furiously, refusing to cry again. Mikasa is silent for a moment.
"Eren, what happened?" she asks, her voice stony. Eren can imagine the expression that's probably on her face—her jaw is probably clenched, and her eyes are probably cold and flashing with fury—and he lets out a slightly watery chuckle. "Did those idiots do something to you? Do I need to come back there?"
"No, nothing like that," Eren says. His voice gets quiet and he glances at the door to make sure it's closed and locked. "Mikasa," he whispers, "I think I cheated on them."
Another silence. "Explain," Mikasa says again. "You guys already aren't monogamous. If you're thinking about adding someone else to the relationship-"
"Mikasa," Eren says sharply, and she immediately falls silent. "They went out today—well, I convinced them to go out. And while they were gone…."
"They don't know about this, do they," Mikasa says. It's not a question.
"No," Eren admits, his voice choked with tears. "And they just got home and they think I'm sick because I passed out on the floor—I'm not actually sick, so don't freak out—but they're both super tired and they tried to take care of me and Mikasa, I don't deserve it and I don't know what to do."
He's crying by the time he finishes, tears running down his cheeks like tiny rivers. His lip quivers, a sign that sobbing can't be far behind, and he bites it to prevent any sounds from escaping his mouth.
"Eren, do you need me to come over?" Mikasa asks. She sounds a little helpless, and Eren remembers, suddenly, that she never has any idea what to do when people are crying. He huffs out something that might pass as a humorless laugh.
"No," he says. "It's late, and I kind of just want to be asleep."
"Eren, you should talk to them," Mikasa says. "I'm not a marriage counselor and I have no idea what to do right now."
"We're not married," Eren says sullenly. He sniffs, wipes his cheeks, says, "You aren't angry at me?"
"Oh no, I'm fucking pissed," Mikasa says. "You cheated on your boyfriends, Eren, and then you called me crying about it." She sighs, and her tone softens. "Look, I know that you probably feel guilty as hell right now, but nothing I say or do is going to help. You can't ask me to cover this up, either. If they ask, I'm going to tell them."
"I wouldn't have asked you to kee my secrets for me," Eren says. "I just needed to tell someone, I guess."
"You know who you really need to tell?"
"Jean and Levi?" Eren mumbles.
"Jean and Levi. They don't deserve this, Eren."
"I know," Eren says, his voice cracking again as a fresh wave of tears fills his eyes. Mikasa sighs again.
"Go to sleep, Eren," she says gently. "You're always more emotional late at night. You can call me tomorrow if you need to, okay?"
"Okay," Eren says. "Mikasa? Thank you."
"Don't thank me for this, Eren," she says softly. "Levi's my cousin, and Jean is one of my closest friends. I love you, but if you hurt them, I don't know how I'll be able to choose a side."
"Who says there will be sides?" Eren asks. Mikasa scoffs.
"There are already sides, Eren," she says. "We're just the only ones who know about them."
She hangs up then, and after resisting the urge to throw his phone at the wall, Eren cries himself to sleep for the second night in a row.
The next morning, Eren wakes up pretty early considering how tired he was the day before and how late he went to bed. The sun is still low in the sky when he opens his eyes. He tries to go back to sleep but he can't, so he ends up watching through the cracks in the blinds as the sky lightens.
His phone will be dead soon, if it hasn't died already, so he doesn't even bother using it to check how early it is. There's no clock in the room, so he keeps track of the time by listening to the sounds in the apartment.
Voices, footsteps, the shower, the coffeemaker, they all form the soundtrack to a daily morning routine that Eren normally sleeps through. He's tempted to get up and join it, for once, but in the end, he burrows deeper into the blanket and closes his eyes. He can't go back to sleep, though, and he can't block out the sounds of life going on around him.
Levi leaves around seven in the morning. There's a pause between the front door opening and the front door closing, and Eren imagines Jean walking him to the front door and kissing him as he leaves. The thought sends a pang of hurt through his chest.
Hours pass. Eren's gets up once to pee but then he gets right back into bed and closes his eyes again. He read once, somewhere, that other senses are enhanced when one is turned off, and he likes to imagine that with his eyes closed he can hear more than he'd normally be able to.
He hears Jean in the kitchen, hears the pause in his movements, the creaking of the stairs as he walks up to them. He hears the knob being turned before the door opens, and he hears Jean cross the room and come to a stop at Eren's bedside.
Jean reaches out and runs a hand through Eren's hair, scratching lightly at the nape of his neck, and Eren's eyes open of their own accord. He notices that Jean's bottom lip looks a little swollen, and he wonders if it's from his nervous habit of biting his lip.
"Hi," Jean says softly.
"Hi," Eren says. "What time is it?"
"Just after eleven," Jean says. "Do you maybe want to get up now?"
"Not really," Eren says, pulling the blankets up to his chin. Jean frowns in disapproval.
"Eren, are you sure you're feeling alright?" he asks. Eren looks up at him in silence for a while, remembering the conversation he had with Mikasa before bed last night.
"No," he says. He doesn't cry this time—he doesn't think he has any tears left. Jean, to his credit, only nods.
"Okay," he says. "What do you feel? Sick?"
"No," Eren says. "I just don't feel like getting out of bed right now."
"Because you're comfortable or because you don't feel like moving at all?" Jean asks.
"Don't feel like moving," Eren mumbles.
"Ah, jeez," Jean mutters to himself. He sighs and rubs at his eyes. "Alright, come on. Get up and go shower, or brush your teeth at least, then meet me downstairs."
"What?" Eren says.
"You heard me." Jean pats Eren's leg through the comforter. "Half the day is gone already. You can't spend all day in bed."
"Yes I fucking can," Eren says, annoyed.
"Eren, seriously," Jean says. "Get up. You know you're just going to feel even shittier if you waste a whole day doing nothing."
Jean is absolutely right, but Eren doesn't want to give him the satisfaction of saying so. He pulls the comforter up to cover his head. Jean rips it away, and Eren groans loudly.
"Why do you have to torture me like this?" he exclaims dramatically. "Can't you just go back to the kitchen and leave me here alone?"
"Housewife jokes," Jean says. "Real classy. Fuck you, Jaeger, I'm not doing this because I get off on being sadistic."
"Could have fooled me," Eren mumbles.
"I'm doing this because I'm genuinely worried about you and I don't want to leave you sulking in your own body odor and depression all day."
"Body odor?" Eren says. He surreptitiously sniffs his arm. "Fuck off, I showered last night." Jean narrows his eyes suddenly and leans in, uncomfortably close. Eren maintains eye contact and raises an eyebrow, daring him to do whatever it is he's about to do.
"Have you been crying?" Jean asks. Eren blinks in shock.
"What?"
"Your eyes are puffy," Jean says, "and your nose is still a little red. You've been crying, haven't you?"
"It's none of your goddamn business," Eren growls. "For your information, I was high for most of yesterday."
"Yeah, right," Jean says. "Seriously though, Eren, get up. Come on, I'm kind of ahead in most of my classes so I can afford to take today off."
"There goes your perfect attendance award," Eren says, even as he allows Jean to pull him off the bed and push him towards the bedroom.
"Brush your teeth, change your clothes if you want, then come downstairs and eat something, okay?" Jean says. "I can put on a movie or whatever, or we can just sit and stare at each other in complete silence. Whatever you want to do."
"I want to go back to sleep."
"Whatever you want to do besides going back to sleep."
Eren groans again, but he brushes his teeth, splashes his face with cold water, and decides to stay in his pajamas. He finds Jean in the kitchen, and for a moment he leans against the door jamb and simply watches him as he works. It looks like he's making breakfast for Eren, if the oatmeal—which Jean hates with a passion—is any indication. Eren watches as he sprinkles sugar and cinnamon on top of the oatmeal and tosses in a handful of raspberries, and he feels guilt well up in him again. It's not as all-consuming in the light of day as it was just a few hours ago, so Eren is able to swallow it down and walk up to his boyfriend.
"Is that for me?" he asks, even though he knows it is.
"No, it's for those cats that wander around outside," Jean says. "Do you want to eat in here or in the living room?"
The little door is in the living room. Eren bites his lip.
"The study has a TV, right?" he asks.
"Yeah, do you want to eat in there?" Jean says. Eren nods, a little sheepish for reasons he doesn't quite understand. Jean only smiles softly and grabs the bowl of oatmeal. "Okay, then. Grab those mugs on your way, will you?"
Eren carefully lifts the two mugs of steaming hot chocolate from the counter and follows Jean into the study, where he flops into the single armchair and sighs.
"Here, I'll trade you," Jean says. He hands Eren the bowl and takes the mugs, then places them on the desk, where they'll be within arm's reach for both of them. He then sits carefully in his desk chair—Eren's never sat in it before, but he's heard enough of Jean's complaining to know that one of the wheels is loose and unpredictable—and queues up Netflix.
Eren takes a bite of his oatmeal and watches Jean with quiet fascination. He's talking as he scrolls through Netflix's questionable selection of movies, but they both know it's background noise for Eren. Still, it's comforting and he keeps it up until the movie's started, for which Eren's thankful. It's comfortable, this domesticity, and it's rare enough that he doesn't want to do anything that might cause it to end.
He finishes his oatmeal in record time and quickly starts on his hot chocolate. It's a recipe that Jean refuses to share with anyone, claiming that it's been passed down from generation to generation in his family. Eren and Levi are pretty sure it's just Swiss Miss with a few melted pieces of chocolate in it, but it's good enough that neither calls him out on it.
Halfway through the movie, Jean abandons his rolling chair and settles himself in Eren's lap, sitting sideways with his legs thrown carelessly over the arm of the chair and his head resting on Eren's shoulder. Eren buries his face in Jean's soft hair and holds him close, and tries not to remember the way Other Jean's face looked when Eren was fucking him.
"Hey, Jean," he says a few hours later, when he's helping Jean throw together some lunch. "Why do people make bad decisions?"
Jean looks up from the cucumber he's slicing—he keeps cutting it even though he's not watching what he's doing, and Eren nearly has a heart attack when the knife slips and nearly cuts off Jean's finger. He gives Eren a strange look.
"What brought that on?" he asks. "Have you been making bad decisions lately?"
"I think so," Eren says. "Actually, yeah. I'm kind of having a crisis about it."
"I'm sure it's not that bad, whatever it is," Jean says. He puts the cucumber slices on a plate, then deftly slices a lemon in half and squeezes the juice over them. "Things have a habit of working out for you. To answer your question, though, I'm not sure why people make bad decisions. Why does anyone do anything?"
"You have to have some type of answer besides that," Eren insists.
"Hmm, I don't know," Jean says. "I guess people make bad decisions because they seem like good ones at the time. You know, hindsight is 20/20 but most people are completely blind when it comes to foresight."
"Wow," Eren says. "That was surprisingly wise, Jean."
"It's been known to happen," Jean says. "Now get your ass over here and help me with these sandwiches."
Much as hates it, he has to admit that Jean was right when he said that Eren would've felt worse if he stayed in bed all day. Even though he didn't do anything except eat and watch movies today, he at least got up and moved around. He even helped Jean make lunch, something which he was surprised to find he enjoyed—not because he doesn't like Jean, but because cooking is far from his favorite pastime.
He and Jean are in the living room when Levi comes home, a little earlier than he normally does. Jean goes to greet him but Eren is too comfortable on the sofa to move. Levi will understand, having pulled the same excuse on multiple occasions before.
Eren closes his eyes and listens to Jean and Levi in the kitchen. Their voices are distinct but the words are muffled through the walls, but he doesn't mind. He doesn't really care about what they're talking about anyway.
A light suddenly turns on; he can see the glow through his eyelids. He makes a face and cracks open an eye, thinking that Jean had come back and is shining his phone into Eren's face, but Jean isn't there. Trepidation drops into his stomach like a load of lead, and he takes in a shuddery breath. He looks over at the little door, and his eyes widen at the sight of the purple glow shining through the cracks that outline the doorframe.
"What," Eren gasps. He stumbles to his feet and to the door, his movements jerky with impatience and confusion, and just a touch of anxiety, too. The door has never done this before, and especially not when Jean and Levi are home. He wonders, absently, whether there will be an Other Eren in that world if he brings his boyfriends with him this time. Thankful that he hadn't locked the door after using it last night, he opens it, digging his fingers in between the door and the door jamb since he doesn't have the key to pull on.
The glow disappears as soon as the door opens, revealing nothing but the cracked, crumbling bricks he saw when he first opened the door. Levi comes in before Eren can do much as shut the door.
"Hey, Eren, come take your doll. I found it in the kitchen and it nearly gave me a heart attack." He looks up from the doll in his hands and immediately closes his eyes with a groan. "Eren, are you fucking kidding me right now?"
"What's wrong?" Jean asks, coming up behind Levi. He finds Eren crouched in front of the open door. "Oh my god, Eren, really?"
And Eren gets defensive, like he always does when they double team him.
"What?" he says. "I'm not allowed to have the door open?"
"Eren, we talked about this," Jean says, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"No, we argued about this," Eren replies, standing up and clenching his hands into fists at his sides. "And I got the really fucking short end of the stick."
"Eren, there are literally rats coming into the apartment through that door," Levi says. "Have you lost your damn mind?"
"Fuck off, Levi," Eren snaps. Jean's eyes widen while Levi's narrow, and Eren scoffs. "What, you can talk like that to us but we can't talk like that to you?"
"What the hell is your problem?" Jean says. "You've been acting like an ass ever since we got here."
"I never wanted to move here in the first place," Eren says. "And you knew that, and you made me come with you anyway."
"No one said you had to come with us," Jean says, and Eren's mouth drops open in shock.
"Okay, enough," Levi says. "Jesus Christ, are we really having this argument again?"
"Well, I wouldn't say it's the same one," Jean says. "Apparently Eren never wanted to move here at all, which is news to me."
"Maybe it wouldn't be if you weren't so fucking busy all the time," Eren spits. "You guys have both been ignoring me since we got to this place and I'm sick of it!"
"Woah, wait," Levi says.
"Ignoring you?" Jean repeats incredulously. "Eren, I'm in fucking college! I have things I need to do."
"And I can't control my work schedule," Levi says. "You think I want to be working overtime every fucking night?"
Eren growls in frustration, angry tears pricking at his eyes. He's half tempted to let them fall, if only to make Jean, who's a terrible sympathy crier, cry as well.
"I work too, you know," he says. "Everyone thinks that writers are lazy but I've been so fucking stressed out lately and you haven't even noticed!"
"The only thing we noticed is you acting like a whiny bitch," Levi says. "Eren, act your fucking age. You can't have everything you want all the time."
"We don't even know what you want," Jean says exasperatedly. "You don't talk to us anymore!"
"I would if you were there to listen," Eren says, scowling. Jean throws his hands up into the air and Levi blinks incredulously.
"Are you serious?" he says. "Jean is here with you every day."
"Jean is locked in his study every day," Eren growls. Anger burns in his gut, hot and writhing, making him see red. He's aware that he's about to lose his temper, but he feels detached, like an uninvolved observer in his own body, and he couldn't have stopped himself even if he wanted to.
"Eren, you're being unreasonable," Levi says.
"I can't believe you went snooping for the key," Jean adds. "After we specifically asked you not to."
"Asked me?" Eren exclaims. Something inside of him snaps and he finally releases all of the fury that had been building up in him for who knows how long. "You didn't ask me, you douchebag, you fucking told me! You're always treating me like I'm a child who doesn't know the difference between a condom and a water balloon and I'm so fucking done with it!"
"Eren-" Levi starts.
"Levi, shut the fuck up," Eren snarls. "You're even worse than he is. You don't even know what the hell is happening most days because you're never fucking home! I'm a goddamn adult and I can make my own decisions, and it would be nice if you'd trust my judgement every once in a while."
"Trust your judgement? Like when you tried to convince us that leaving the door open was a good idea even when there were actual rats getting into the apartment?" Jean says, his tone like acid. "Yeah, great fucking idea, Eren. You may be an adult, but you're acting like such a brat right now."
"I'm older than you," Eren spits. "And I actually contribute to our income instead of spending thousands every year on classes that are never going to lead anywhere, unlike you."
"You went to college, too, you fucking hypocrite," Levi says, his eyes narrowed into slits.
"I went to college to get a degree in a field that makes money," Eren says, "not so I could become some housewife whore who pays for his place in the house with sex and food and paints in his spare time!"
He watches in satisfaction as Jean's eyes widen, filling first with shock, then hurt.
"Eren, that was way too fucking far!" Levi says.
"I'm not lying, though," Eren says bitterly. "He's useless."
"Eren!" Levi snaps. "Get the fuck out."
"Are you serious," Eren says, scoffing incredulously through the tears streaming down his cheeks. "My name's on the lease, so I don't have to go anywhere. Why don't you leave, since you're so good at that already. I'm surprised you even know where anything in this house is, considering you spend so much time at work."
Levi lets out a frustrated growl and curls his hands like he wants to strangle Eren.
"What the hell is your problem?" Jean shouts, his voice choked with tears "Why are you being such a fucking asshole?"
"Why are you still here?" Eren counters. "Why are either of you still here? I don't need you here if all you're going to do is ignore me!"
"Eren, shut up before I break your neck," Levi says.
"That's just like you," Eren sneers. "You have the emotional depth of a dead fish, you neurotic clean freak. Go ahead, beat me up, see where the hell that lands you."
"You know what," Levi says coldly. His tone is like ice but Eren can see the hurt in his eyes, and it fills him with vindictive pleasure. "Fine. Jean, let's go."
"What?" Jean says. Levi takes his hand, his expression stony as he glares at Eren.
"We're leaving," he says. "I'm not going to sit here and take this, and neither are you."
Eren doesn't watch them as they walk out of the house, but he flinches when Levi slams the front door shut, so hard that the deadbolt breaks and the door creaks open again, hanging by its hinges. He falls to his knees, his vision so blurry with tears that he can barely see anything.
"God damn it!" he shouts, slamming his fist down onto the floor. A shuddery sob rips its way out of his throat, the first of many, and Eren curls up into a ball on the floor and sobs until his chest hurts and his throat is raw.
It's cold here, so close to the open front door, but he doesn't move. His eyes are open and glassy and unseeing, still sticky and puffy from tears. He doesn't know how long it's been since Jean and Levi left, and he's not sure he wants to know. Movement in the corner of his eye catches his attention, and he watches disinterestedly as the three cats pad up to him on silent paws.
The brown one, the one that was the most sympathetic to him back in the Other world, nudges Eren's hand with his nose. The yellow cat hisses in displeasure when Eren doesn't even twitch.
"Not now. I'm having a crisis," Eren mumbles. The phrasing brings back memories of his conversation with Mikasa last night and he briefly debates calling her, but he's sure Levi and Jean would have called her by now, too. Besides, what would he even say to her? She'd already made it clear that she thinks Eren is in the wrong, but she doesn't know everything. She probably wouldn't even give Eren a chance to explain what's been going on.
Eren moans and closes his eyes, and manages to ignore, for a while, the cats attempt to get him up. Eventually one of them bites him in the ear, hard enough that he yelps and jerks back.
"What the fuck," he snarls. The cats hiss and back away from him when he pulls himself to his feet, and when he steps towards them threateningly they turn and flee further into the house. He sighs in exasperation and doesn't bother going after them. Now that he's up, though, he might as well get comfortable. Flopping onto the couch, he curls up into a ball, squeezes his eyes shut, and tries to go to sleep.
He blinks to wakefulness what feels like seconds later, but must be hours judging by how dark it is outside the windows. His phone is dead and he gets that familiar jolt of anxiety at the thought of missing any calls, but then he remembers that the only three people who ever call him are all pissed off at him. He doesn't bother plugging his phone into its charger.
It's freezing in the living room. He realizes he's starving, but he doesn't feel like making food for himself right now. He doesn't feel like doing anything except going back to sleep, this time in his own bed. But as he's pulling himself off the couch to leave the room, the little door starts to glow purple.
He exhales steadily and slowly sits back down. Little Me is still on the floor where Levi dropped it; its mismatched button eyes gleam in the door's light. Eren doesn't bother asking it what he should do, this time. His only choices are to go upstairs and never leave his room, or go to the Other world. At least there he can get some food.
He crawls through the tunnel with none of the excitement he normally feels. Everything hurts, a deep, dull, emotional ache that he knows can't be healed easily. The tunnel glows a little brighter than it normally does, as if it can sense his emotions and is trying to cheer him up. He appreciates the effort, even though it's wasted on him.
When he gets to the Other world, he makes a quick stop in the bathroom to wash his face instead of going straight to the kitchen. He studies himself in the mirror, frowning at his puffy, red-rimmed eyes and the redness in his cheeks and cursing himself for being such an ugly, obvious crier. There's nothing he can do about that now, though, so he splashes cold water on his face and goes out to meet his Other boyfriends.
Other Jean is, predictably, standing at the stove, stirring what looks like a pot of soup, but this time Other Levi is there, too. They both look up and smile at him in tandem when he enters. Eren remembers how devastated Jean and Levi looked and wonders if its right that he's essentially ignoring them and replacing them temporarily with smiling, button-eyed versions of them, but he pushes the guilt away and focuses on the bitterness that's still simmering in his belly.
"Good morning," Other Jean says when Eren takes a seat at the kitchen table. "Food should be done soon. Would you be a doll and set the table, please?"
"Sure," Eren says. He sighs and resolves to focus on the present instead of dwelling on the past, and then he gets up and goes to the cabinets to find bowls and spoons. Soon the table is set and the food is distributed, and Eren's seated at the table with Other Jean on one side of him and Other Levi on the other. The soup—chicken noodle, his favorite—is delicious, but Eren can't enjoy it like he usually would. Other Jean and Other Levi exchange worried looks.
"Eren, are you alright?" Other Levi asks. "You seem a little down."
"'M fine," Eren mumbles, tilting his head so his fringe falls into his face. But Other Jean gently tips his face up and looks into his eyes. His lips thin with displeasure.
"You've been crying, haven't you?" he asks. Other Levi gasps.
"Crying?" he says worriedly. "Why? Eren, what happened?"
"I just got into a fight with Jean and Levi," Eren admits. His voice cracks; he clears it before he continues. "It's not a big deal."
"Not a big deal?" Other Levi repeats. "Eren, they made you cry."
"Are they so emotionally dead that they'd do this to you for no reason?" Other Jean says.
"Guys, it's fine," Eren says.
"What did you fight about?"
"Locking the door that leads to this place," Eren admits.
"I bet you told them that you wanted it open, though, right? Do they just not trust your judgement?" Other Levi asks.
"That's so messed up," Other Jean asks. "They can't treat you like a child."
Eren narrows his eyes a little. That sounds suspiciously like what he'd said to Jean and Levi.
"We'd never do that to you," Other Levi says. "Would we, Jean?"
"Of course not," Other Jean says. "We value you here, Eren. We love you."
"You do like it here, don't you?" Other Levi asks.
"I love it here," Eren is quick to assure them. "You have no idea how much it's helped me to have somewhere I can escape to."
"Good," Other Levi says. He and Other Jean smile at each other, and Other Jean gets up and goes to the drawer that holds all those useless keys. He returns with a small package, artfully wrapped in white paper and tied with a silver bow. Eren frowns bemusedly as he opens it, carefully undoing the ribbon and tugging the paper away from the box. Inside, he finds two black buttons and a needle that's already been threaded.
"What?" he gasps. He's confused, though way in the back of his mind he knows exactly what they're asking of him.
"Black is traditional, though obviously the two of us broke that tradition," Other Levi says, smiling serenely.
"If you'd prefer blue, we could do that, too," Other Jean says. As he speaks, his button eyes flash and briefly turn royal blue.
"Or goldenrod," Other Levi says. Flash! and his buttons turn yellow.
"Or," Other Jean says, as Eren looks down at the buttons on the table in horror, "we could match your eye colors." The black is replaced with familiar shades of green and golden brown, and Eren's breath hitches.
"No way!" he shouts, shoving the buttons away from himself. "I'm not letting you sew buttons into my eyes!"
"But we need a yes if you want to stay here," Other Jean says, catching the buttons before they can fall from the table. "We promise you won't even feel a thing."
Eren is stuck on the first thing he said. "Stay?" he says.
"You can stay here with us," Other Levi says. "Forever. Doesn't that sound amazing? We'll cook for you, and walk with you, and you'll never be bored or ignored again."
Eren has to admit that the thought is tempting, but the thought of those buttons—of that needle—anywhere near his eyes makes him want to cry.
"I-I… I need to sleep on it," he stammers. The table screeches across the floor when he shoots to his feet. Other Jean and Other Levi follow him as he backs away, towards the stairs. "I'm super tired right now." He doesn't add a fake yawn, though the urge is there. Other Levi smiles and links his arm with Other Jean's.
"Of course," he says. "This is a big decision."
"We trust you'll make the right choice," Other Jean says. "Sweet dreams, Eren."
"Goodnight," Eren says weakly, before turning and bolting up the stairs. He throws himself into the guest room, then locks the door and shoves the dresser in front of it for good measure. That done, he stumbles towards the bed and leans heavily against it, willing his knees to not give out. Fear fills him, and he makes sure the window is locked, too, before he crawls into bed and pulls the blanket over his head. It's eerily similar to what he did this morning when Jean tried to get him out of bed, but the circumstances couldn't be more different. If Other Jean appeared suddenly and tried to yank the blanket off of him, Eren is sure he's scream.
"Come on, Eren," he whispers. "Go to sleep. Sleep, sleep, please." And then: "God, I have to fix this."
The last things he sees before he succumbs to sleep are Jean and Levi's hurt, tear-stained faces.
"I have to fix this," he whispers.
When he wakes up, he is groggy. The blanket is still pulled over his head, forming a cocoon of heat all around him, and when he pulls it aside the cool air outside the blanket causes him to shiver. He's in the guest room, for some reason, except this guest room… has a clock.
And all at once, his memories come flooding back, and he gasps in shock. The dresser is still pushed in front of the door, and he looks at it in dismay.
"I'm still here," he whispers to himself in horror. "No, no, no, no no no no! I'm not supposed to still be here!"
He stumbles out of bed and over to the dresser, where the clock sits. It's one of those old-fashioned alarm clocks, with Roman numerals marking each segment on the face and two silver bells sitting on top of its round body, but neither of the hands are moving. The time is stuck at 3:17, and he wonders if that's AM or PM. Then he remembers that time doesn't work here like it does in his world, so the whole clock thing is kind of irrelevant anyway.
The dresser is suspiciously quiet as Eren pushes it back into place. In fact, the air itself feels suffocating and muffled, with an atmosphere akin to the type that he remembers from his mother's funeral. It makes him shiver and fills him with trepidation.
All of a sudden, he's hit with an intense desire to be home. He wants to be back in his own guest room, with its unmade bed and its lack of clocks, but the only way back home, now, is through the little door, which The Others are probably guarding. He doesn't imagine that they're too happy about him rejecting the button eyes they presented him with. As he exits the room and starts cautiously down the stairs, he wonders why they didn't just force him to take the buttons. There's two of them, and while Eren is formidable in a fight, Other Jean and Other Levi could easily overpower him if they worked together. Unless they actually couldn't, which would be another difference between them and the real Levi and Jean.
The house looks different, somehow. Eren pauses at the foot of the stairs and looks around, wondering why the house looks so unfamiliar, but the longer he stares the more sure he becomes that nothing's changed. Then it hits him: it's the shadows. The whole house looks darker, somehow, as if the shadows are creeping along the walls and floors and leeching the color out of everything. Eren shudders again and heads towards the living room.
Inside, he finds that the house isn't the only thing that's grown darker. Other Jean is seated on the couch with Other Levi in his lap, and both of them look up as he approaches. Eren is filled with anxiety at the sight of them; they look much more dangerous than before. No longer as warm and inviting as they first appeared, now their edges are sharper, their smirks more bitter, their button eyes more vicious.
"Eren," Other Levi greets. "Good morning."
"Why am I still here?" Eren asks. "I thought the only way for me to stay here forever was to sew buttons into my eyes."
"Our offer still stands, if you're changing your mind."
"Absolutely not," Eren says, backing away a step before he can catch himself. "I'm just curious, that's all."
"Careful, Eren," Other Jean says darkly. "You know what they say about curiosity and the cat, don't you?"
Other Levi smiles widely. "But to answer your question, you're right. You have to sew the buttons into your eyes in order to stay here forever. We simply extended your stay by a day." He shrugs, like it's no big deal, and Eren clenches his hands into fists, the nails digging painfully into his palms.
"I want to go home," he says.
"But, love, you are home," Other Levi says. Eren takes another step away from him.
"This isn't my home," Eren says. "I hate it here."
"Is that any way to talk to your boyfriend?" Other Levi huffs.
"You're not my boyfriend," Eren says. "I want to be with the real Jean and Levi, not some doll-faced imposters."
"Eren!" Other Levi exclaims, scandalized. "Apologize at once! That was unnecessary."
Eren crosses his arms, lifts his chin, and musters up his most defiant gare. "No," he says. Other Levi stands, pulling Other Jean up with him. They glare right back at Eren.
"I'll give you to the count of three," Other Levi says. Eren scoffs.
"So much for not treating me like a child," he says.
"One," Other Jean says. Eren narrows his eyes.
"Two." Uncrossing his arms, Eren purposefully turns his back to the Others and spots the little door. He heads towards it, but before he reaches it-
"Three!"
-something sharp and insanely strong grabs him around the arm and drags him away. Eren gasps and twists around to face whatever's got him. He recoils. Other Jean and Other Levi have changed. They're skeletally thin and abnormally tall, much paler than they were a moment ago, and more sharp-featured than normal, and Eren is terrified.
"Let me go!" he shouts, digging his heels into the floor, but Other Levi drags him along as easily as if he weighs nothing. He watches in wide-eyed terror as they take him down the hallway outside, towards the dead end that has a long mirror hanging on the wall.
Other Levi pushes him into the mirror and Eren closes his eyes shut reflexively, anticipating the pain of the glass shattering over his back, but to his surprise that doesn't happen. He goes through the mirror, with the same amount of resistance that a hot knife encounters when going through butter, and before he knows it he's through, falling to a hard stone floor with a grunt of pain.
"You may come out," Other Levi says, "when you've learned to be a loving boyfriend."
He disappears through the wall before Eren can react. By the time he jumps to his feet and makes it to the wall, Other Levi is gone and all that's left is slightly discolored stone. Eren touches the wall gingerly, as if that'll make it any less real that he's trapped in a mirror.
"Oh, fuck," he says. His heartbeat speeds up but he forces himself to remain calm and not freak out. He turns to lean against the wall, checking out the room he's in.
It's small, though at the same time larger than what he expected a secret mirror room to be, with walls and a floor made from smooth, dark stone. He can't see the ceiling because of how dark—or maybe how high—it is. In the corner he finds a bed, old and rusty. He walks a little closer curiously, until he sees that something round and lumpy is glowing underneath the blanket, and then he changes direction and heads to the opposite corner.
He's expecting the stone to be cool when he leans against it and slides down to the floor, but surprisingly it's actually warm. So warm, in fact, that Eren would swear the room was heated were it not for the lack of vents.
Oh god, he thinks, I'm going to die here, aren't I? He shivers, from fear rather than cold, and pulls his knees to his chest so he can rest his folded arms on them. He buries his head in his arms and tries not to have a panic attack.
The hours pass like molasses. He counts the seconds to keep track of the time, though after the second hour he gives up. It grows hot in the room; instead of absorbing his body heat, the stone seems to reflect it back into the room, until it feels like Eren is sitting in a sauna. Half asleep, he wonders, with a sense of vague amusement, if this is what it feels like for all the pies and cakes and brownies that Jean bake in their oven at home.
He giggles deliriously at the thought. "I'm a pie," he says. He sounds loopy, like he's drunk or high or both, but he sobers instantly when he hears something that's not him. It's a voice, a quiet, otherworldly hiss that sends an icy chill of fear down his spine.
"Hush," it says, "and shush, for the Beldam might be listening."
Immediately afterwards, another voice says, "Don't be so dramatic. He's not going to know what a Beldam is."
Eren is confused but stays still, not wanting to draw attention to himself even though he's clearly already been spotted.
"Who's there?" he calls, sounding braver than he feels. He doesn't know what to focus on, until movement over on the bed catches his eye. The blanket falls aside and reveals a mass of pale, glowing, ghostly limbs that Eren recoils from, but in another moment it becomes clear that the ghostly mass is actually multiple ghosts. Four, to be precise.
The first thing he notices is their eyes—each of the ghosts has buttons for eyes—and the second thing he notices is that they're all children.
"Who are you?" he asks.
"We don't 'member our names," the smallest ghosts sighs mournfully. "But I remember my true mommy."
"He's not going to know what that means," another ghost says. She's different than the others, and not just because she appears to be the oldest. She's not as translucent as the other three, and while they haven't stopped floating restlessly around Eren, this ghost girl has stayed more or less in the same spot. And she looks annoyed.
"Hey," Eren says to get her attention. "Who are you guys? What are you doing here?"
"We were like you once," the girl sighs. "My name is…." She frowns, squeezing her eyes shut and tugging at her blue-tinted hair. She gasps. "Coraline! I'm Coraline."
"What about them?" Eren asks, gesturing to the other ghosts. They seem content to float around without paying much attention to Eren and Coraline.
"They don't remember their names," Coraline says sadly. "They'd forgotten them by the time I came here."
"How did you come here? What happened to you?" Eren asks.
Coraline's face darkens. "She happened," she says. "The Beldam. The Other Mother."
"Other Mother? Is she like the Other Boyfriends?"
Coraline looks at him curiously. "You're an adult," she realizes. "We were children. We lived in this house with our parents and we were unhappy."
"She spied on our lives through the little doll's eyes," one of the ghost children aye suddenly.
Another chimes in: "And she saw that we weren't happy."
"So she lured us away with treasures and treats-"
"-and games to play."
"But still we wanted more."
The ghost children clasp their hands and rise up, looming larger and larger over Eren and Coraline.
"So we let her sew the buttons," they say in unison. Eren shivers despite how hot he is.
"And then," Coraline says quietly, "she ate up our lives."
The other three ghost children shudder and moan, and return to their bed. The blanket comes up to cover them and their glow is muted. Eren looks at Coraline.
"But I've never heard of an Other Mother," he says.
"You are an adult," Coraline says again. "You don't live with your mother, do you?"
"No," Eren says. "I live with my boyfriends. It sounds like this Beldam is a shapeshifter, though. Which one of them is the Beldam?"
"I don't know," Coraline says. "But it will eat your soul if you aren't careful. Do not let her sew the buttons."
"I won't," Eren says. "I'll try."
He sinks back down to the hot stone floor, sweaty and terrified, and Coraline sinks down to sit next to him. Her glow is comforting, and so is her presence. At least he's not alone anymore.
Eren doesn't know how long it's been when something changes. He's leaning against the wall that the mirror is hanging on, hoping in vain that he'll somehow fall through the other side. He's so dehydrated, all his water sweat out ages ago, that at this point he's considering trying to pee just to have something to drink. Coraline has long since disappeared, too, and Eren is worried that the heat and the isolation will make him go crazy.
"Pie," he mumbles. "Pie rhymes with die." He chuckles, a low, humorless sound that turns into a strangled yelp when something suddenly grabs him under the arms and pulls him back through the mirror.
Once on the other side, he falls to the ground and lays there, gasping for air. Other Armin hovers over him worriedly.
"Get up!" he hisses. "We don't have much time. They'll be back soon."
He pulls Eren to his feet and drapes his arm over his shoulder, supporting him as they stumble back into the living room. The little door is unguarded and it fills Eren with dread, like the suspiciously empty corridor right before the boss battle in a video game.
He struggles, but he's so weak that Other Armin drags him along easily. The living room door swings shut with a resounding bang! and Eren half expects to turn around and see Other Jean or Other Levi standing there, but he and Other Armin are still alone in the room. The little door resists a little when Other Armin tugs on it, but it eventually opens. Eren peers inside; the tunnel, once so beautiful and inviting, looks dead now, drab and dreary and filled with cobwebs.
"I'll hold them off," Other Armin says. "They're too powerful for me to beat them on my own, but I can buy you some time."
Eren reaches out and grabs his sleeve. "Come with me," he pleads. Other Armin smiles sadly.
"I can't," he says. "The magic of this place is what sustains me."
He pushes Eren into the tunnel, but Eren resists him.
"Wait-" he says.
"If you're smart, you won't come back," Other Armin says urgently. "Lock the door and hide the key somewhere no one will ever find it. The door is useless without the key."
"Armin, they'll hurt you," Eren says. He looks at Other Armin with wide, terrified eyes.
"Yes," Other Armin sighs. "But they made me. At least this way they won't get you."
And he slams the door shut, just as the living room door bursts open. Eren gets one glimpse of the Others' monstrous forms, their faces twisted with rage, and its enough to get him moving. He turns and crawls through the tunnel as fast as he can.
Behind him, he hears an unholy screech. Something heavy slams into the door and shakes the entire tunnel, and Eren stumbles but keeps moving.
"Don't leave us!" the Others screech. "Don't leave us! Don't leave us! We'll die without you!"
The end of the tunnel comes into view and Eren throws himself through it, landing heavily on the floor with a grunt. He scrambles to his feet and shuts the door, then rushes to the kitchen to find the key. He locks the little door, then backs away from it, panting.
He's sweaty, exhausted, and bruised, his eyes are wide, and his chest is heaving, but he feels a surge of triumph run through him. He survived. He escaped!
But Other Armin didn't. Eren has to hope that Other Armin is smart enough to evade Other Jean and Other Levi, because he really doesn't need the stress of worrying about him right now. He has other, more important things to dwell on.
The first thing he does is go to the kitchen and drain an entire water bottle. It's kind of weird that neither of his boyfriends have come to see what's going on, but he supposed they might not be back yet. His phone is still plugged into its charger next to the toaster oven and he checks it. It's just after three in the morning, which is about the time he left to go to the Other world, except it's an entire day later. Eren chokes on his water.
"What?" he gasps. Jean, he remembers. Levi. His real boyfriends. He drops his water bottle on the ground and dashes out of the kitchen, skidding and slamming into the wall in his haste to get to the stairs. He throws himself up them and bursts into his empty bedroom. "No," he whispers brokenly, his heart sinking. The bed is unmade and there are clothes strewn around on the floor. They never came home. "Oh god, no."
His knees buckle and he just barely catches himself on the edge of the bed before he falls. Crawling up the bed takes much too much effort, and he's so tired by the time he makes it to the headboard. He flops down on his stomach and buries his face in a pillow, curling around it and hugging it tight. He would've stewed in his own misery for who knows how long were it not for the rough tongue that scrapes across his arm. He jolts, and looks up into a pair of irritated, slit-pupiled blue eyes.
"I fucked up," he tells the cat, his voice hoarse with barely suppressed tears. "I fucked up so bad, and they didn't come home last night, and I don't know where they are or what I'm going to do now." He lets out a dry sob, and the cat swats him on the head with one paw. "Ow! What?" he snaps. The cat hisses at him and jumps off the bed, dashing to where the other two cats are waiting for her by the door. She yowls angrily at him when he doesn't immediately follow.
With a groan, he pulls himself up and wanders after them. They lead him to the guest room, and to his surprise he finds that the bed has been made. Alert now, he watches intently as the brown cat drags something out from under the pillow.
"Jean's phone," Eren mumbles, confused. "But… if his phone is here, where are he and Levi?"
The cat moves aside so Eren can take the phone. He deftly unlocks it, having figured out Jean's password ages ago, and goes immediately to the messages. The most recent conversation is one with Levi, and he grows more and more confused as he reads it.
Jean: you wont believe what i found
Levi: I think I can guess. I found one too
Jean: im kinda freaked out
Jean: like is this someones idea of a joke?
Levi: If it is, it's not very funny
Levi: I put mine in the kitchen with Eren's
Jean: i will too when i get home
Levi: Any sign of him?
Jean: no, its like he just disappeared
Jean: what if he never comes back?
Levi: He wouldn't do that to us
Levi: We'll find him Jean, don't worry
Eren stops reading after that, not willing to read whatever else they wrote about him. He has a hunch that he knows what they found, but the thought makes dread pool in his stomach. It's with a sort of detached anxiety that he walks back to the kitchen, the cats at his heels. He goes to the drawer that holds all the keys and tugs it open slowly, anticipation making him hesitant.
Inside, he finds the familiar Eren doll with its mismatched eyes and its guileless smile, and he curls his lip in disgust. Remembering what the ghost children told him about how the Beldam spies through the doll's eyes, he takes The Doll out and places it face down on the countertop. Then, he pulls the drawer the rest of the way open, fast, like ripping off a Band-Aid. His eyes widen with horror.
"Fuck," he whispers.
Way in the back of the drawer, he finds two more dolls, two that are achingly familiar even though he's never seen them before. One has storm grey button eyes and a tiny little frown, and the other has a shaggy, dual-colored undercut and a cocky smirk. Levi and Jean. They've been taken by the Others.
"No, no, no!" Eren exclaims angrily. "This wasn't supposed to happen! I got out, I have the key; I won!"
His hands clench into fists around the dolls, and he throws them across the kitchen with a wordless shout of anger. The cats back away from him warily, their fur bristling as he paces back and forth across the room, running his hands through his hair frantically. His foot knocks into one of the dolls as he passes by, sending it spinning across the floor, and in a sudden fit of rage he scoops all three up and storms into the living room.
One match and a flick of the gas switch is all it takes to start a fire, and Eren tosses the dolls in with savage pleasure. He imagines he can hear them screaming as they curl and blacken and burn, though of course they never have said anything to him before. And now they never will.
The cats come to sit by him.
"I have to go after them," he says. The yellow tom meows lowly; a warning. Eren ignores him and gets to his feet, sending a glare towards the little door as he walks out of the room. He makes sure he has the key before he heads upstairs. He'll give himself ten minutes to pee, change his clothes, and pack a bag, and maybe eat something if he has the time.
And then, well. Then he's going to save his boyfriends.