"It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane."

-Philip K. Dick


.

.

.

Chapter 7: Out Stealing Fire

("Here lies a Winged Beast among Roses." – Armin Arlert, reciting a passage from the poetry novel, 'The Beast Cannot Be Recognized')


.

.

.

It's dark in her cell, the only sliver of light is from the nearly burnt out candle on her desktop across the way from her bed, which she has pushed up against the base of the barred window. She sits on the cobblestone sill with one leg tucked up against her chest, the other freely hanging above the sloping hillside, face against the cold steel of the bars. After mentioning the faces in the forest the day prior, Eren had excused himself and retired early, but Connie graciously walked her back to her prison instead.

She knows there is something terribly, terribly wrong about what she said – about bringing up those four people, the ones that, when she blinks, she sees scattered through the forest. Dead. They're obviously dead. One is suspended from the trees like a ragdoll with the back of his neck split open. Another is diced roughly in half, legs ten yards away from the torso. A third is a girl, her spine smashed and body mangled, pressed up against the trunk where she met her brutal end. And the fourth is a broken, twisted man sprawled out the furthest away from them.

The massacre is sickening. It hurts to think that that could have been her doing.

And then, the cell door slams open.

She doesn't need to face him to know it's Eren who's approaching her, but she doesn't expect him to grapple her by the back of her midriff and reel her inside, pinning her down against the mattress. In the flickering light his eyes burn, wither, and erupt with erinite flames that drown her in an unfamiliar familiarity. She cripples beneath his gaze, her entire body giving in to his omnipotent presence, dangerous and lethal and something so very, very pitiful – yes, she pities him. She doesn't know why.

The old her might.

"Are you angry with me?" she whispers, adjusting her legs so he's not leaning on them so awkwardly and her knees clench either side of his waist. Keeping him in place. Close to where he feels most natural.

He has her pushed down by her shoulders so she can't adjust herself to keep the circulation of her nerves still going under the pressure – but she can easily throw him off if she truly, truly wanted to, if she remembered how to, if she remembered how to be Annie. But if she became Annie again he would have to say yes, have to scream it at her until his lungs gave out, have to demand his answers in punches and his passion in kicks because he will never find the truth in her.

"Everyone else has been giving me the same look – like I'm some kind of monster, like I shouldn't be alive." She gently caresses his cheek and she expects him to pull away, but he just leans into her touch, the inferno blazing behind the film of his eyes doused with a newfound sympathy. "They're all angry at me. So you must be, too."

"I'm not angry with you," he seethes, his every word laced with venom, curdling the emotions dwelling in her chest. "In fact, I absolutely fucking hate you."

Something in her breaks. Her barricades, the walls around her heart, around her mind – they crumble to dust, and the tears slide from the corners of her eyes in rivulets, soaking into the thin fabric of her pillow, and she brings her hand up to cover her mouth and muffle her sobs. "Did I really"—she chokes on her own words like a shard of broken bone is wedged in her throat—"did I really kill all those people? All those innocent people, all those soldiers in the forest, that boy in the city…?"

"Marco?" he retorts, jolting up to his feet, "Oh my God, Annie… that was you?!"

Annie forces herself to roll over to face the wall. She mutes her sounds with both palms, shoulders quaking in the aftermath of violent sobs, her small frame trembling. "Get out," she utters.

He does. He even makes sure to slam the door behind him.


.

.

.

"This had better be good, Jaeger."

Jean is the one to open his mouth, of course, not even giving them more than a moments peace as Eren ushers Squad Levi into the dining room connected to the mess hall, slamming the doors shut behind them. Connie is the only one to settle into a chair on the right side of the pine wood table, leaning his chin into his fist. Levi opts for leaning back against the slab himself, and Sasha, Jean, Mikasa and Armin spread out around the maw of the entrance.

Eren leans back against the sealed divisions, one palm on the slight throb in his temple. "Sorry, but it couldn't wait…"

"You could at least tell us what this is about," Connie groans, yawning obnoxiously behind his free hand.

"Annie."

Jean snorts. "Of-fucking-course."

Eren gazes around at them restlessly. In retrospect, he probably should have given this more thought before he raced around to collect them all in the same room and spill the bad news. It feels like he's given them swords, and they keep the blade pressed gently against the zenith of his spine. It isn't an issue of trust, but a question of human morale – of their morals, of his conflicting ones.

He almost laughs at that. What would he understand of human morale? He's nothing more to humanity than a guinea pig, a pompous idiot and a pawn. Even with Historia on the throne everyone still looks at him the same way as before: fearfully, dejectedly, maliciously and with rejection. He doesn't know why he thought any of this would ever change.

He's not asking for subtlety, but a little leniency – especially after all that's happened – would be nice.

But they don't associate him with human. They barely call him person. They will only refer to him as he is – Titan, their enemy, his enemy, which he would have thought should put them on the same side. If that's what human morale is, what it really is, maybe he's more human than any of them will ever be. He doesn't find that funny, not at all. Not when his own team is brought into the equation. Not when the only friends he has are on the verge of treating him the same way.

But that's just it. If he can't trust them, who does he have left?

He huffs at the thought, raking his fingers through his thick bister locks. "Annie informed me today that she has been recalling some of her memories, in the form of fragments really; she remembers the Fall of Wall Maria, she remembers the 57th expedition… and she remembers Trost."

He blinks – and suddenly he can smell burning cedar, charred flesh, copper and decay and black mold. He withdraws his hand from his forehead and stares down at them both. Clenches his fists almost reflexively. There's the blood again, soaking up his sleeves, gluing the spaces between his fingers together, outlining every crevice in his palms. It's not his blood. It's never his blood.

Trost. The acute stab of ghostly pain rockets up his left arm and he quickly grabs his elbow, as if he'll keep the teeth from clamping down on him, from severing his limb from the rest of his body. Not again. He won't let it happen again! But the searing flare only intensifies, like the steam of Titan blood, like he's bitten himself too many times and his shift will not come to him. Everyone will see the blood on him. Levi must think he's filthy.

"Eren?"

He rubs furiously at his hands, trying to claw the garnet plaster from his skin. And that horrid smell. He should tell them to remove the corpses from the room, they're staring at him.

"Eren."

Mikasa.

He blinks. His hands are clear, the scent of death is gone, and he's here, in the now. Inhale, exhale. "Annie… Annie confirmed that she was the one who called the Titans through the breach in Maria. I guess we've all known that…"

Inhale, exhale.

He's shaking. "And she…she remembered, yesterday, a lot more. She killed Marco."

Out of the corner of his eye, Jean visibly stiffens. Almost uncharacteristic of someone like him, he presses his lips together and opts on not responding, probably because they've always been aware that Annie had something to do with Marco's death, albeit directly despite previous doubts. His frown is rapidly descending into a scowl, however, and his arms are folding tight.

"I…"

All sets of eyes turn to Armin. He fidgets, pushing his knuckles into his palm to rub off the anxiety of speaking his mind, especially on a topic so delicate.

"…I'm still thinking that it's best to turn her over to the Military Police."

Eren's heart sinks into the acidic pit of his stomach, leaving behind a void that tears through his ribs. "Again with this horseshit?" he seethes, stepping forward as the weight of his best friend's remark hits him with all the gracefulness of a Titan's lethal slap. "They don't have the same authority regulations as us! They can execute her, and we all know they will! They won't even give a first glance at what Historia might say!"

"And at this point, maybe that's the only option."

Eren feels that familiar burst of lightning in his chest, igniting a sudden cataclysm of rage that boils upwards and overrides any sense of self-control. "You son of a fucking bitch! Annie is our goddamn friend and you're sitting here telling us what we should do with her life!"

"She was never our friend!" Jean snaps, stepping up to him with his hands clenched tight. If they hadn't known him any better, he might have lunged at Eren all for the sake of the fight, rather than the topic at hand. "Who's to say she won't kill us when she gets the rest of her memories back? If we don't turn her over, we're just risking the lives of everyone within these Walls! She's useless to us without her memories and a threat with them. If you ask me-"

Snap. Another burst of lightning.

"-I'll gladly do it myself."

Eren's fist cracks across Jean's face before the other boy has a chance to react, sending him stumbling back several steps. But they've fought plenty of times in their trainees days, and Jean reflexively grounds himself before he hits the wall. He doesn't expect Eren to rush up to him before he can recover, however – the shifter slams them both into the granite surface, but Jean pushes back, grapples Eren by his jacket.

"Not again…" Connie mutters under an exasperated sigh.

Mikasa's hands grasp Eren's wrists as Levi thrusts Jean back. "Enough," she exclaims, barely managing to hold him in place, "Eren I said enough!"

He swings his arm out, shoving her back against the table, the corner connecting with her side. Mikasa yelps and the pain is so overwhelming she nearly hits the floor on her knees; Sasha rushes to help steady her.

Eren pauses, the guilt setting in like clockwork as he watches her hiss about the nasty bruise that would form later. "Mikasa, I – I'm so sorry, I didn't-"

Armin steps between them.

The shifter's hands immediately fall limp to his sides, fists unclenched, but still he is tense and still the threat is as present as before. "Armin…"

After a moment of complete, almost eerie silence, Levi decides the boys have calmed down, and lets his captive soldier go. Jean uses the back of his sleeve to dab at the rivulet of blood that spills from his busted lip. "You've become just like them, Jaeger," he says bitterly, gesturing to the mauve patches of bruising on Eren's knuckles as they steam, instinctively healing anew.

Eren gradually turns his gaze down to his hands before returning his attention to his seething rival. He knows Jean is referring to the other shifters – to the Titans themselves. Even hearing it from his least favorite person in Wall Rose leaves a sour sting in his throat.

"Maybe… I've always been one of them."

Jean barks a harsh, belittling laugh. "Real nice. Why don't you leave then? Take that bitch of a blonde and disappear over the Walls where you belong! Be the Titan Reiner and Bertholdt tried to make you!"

Another burst of lightning, emotions, passion – it explodes through his system as a realization hits home all too late, diffusing through his bones, dissolving into ashes. "The Titan they tried to make me?" he retorts, the rage settling back into his voice. "THEY weren't the ones who labeled me a Titan, THEY weren't the ones who treated me as anything less than human!" He remembers: the trial for his life under the accusations of being one of humanity's worst enemies, even as he selflessly offered them his help, offered them his very being. And the way they all looked at him, with terror and cowardice. "It's a shame I was too stubborn to see that. I should have gone with them."

"Eren," Armin stresses, but he doesn't move away from Mikasa, "that's crazy-talk! Listen to yourself!"

"I am."

"Then listen to me!"

"Why should I listen to you, Armin," he spits, "when you look at me the same way you look at Annie? Like I'm insane, like I'm an enemy, a traitor, murderer, monster? Where do you draw the line between friend and Titan?!"

"Where do you?"

Another spark. More silence.

Armin exhales an exasperated sigh, daring to take a step closer to his best friend. "Look… you've always been driven to kill Titans; for what they did to your mother, to Wall Maria, to our comrades like Marco and Thomas and even Hannes. But suddenly Humanity is your enemy! We have never treated you as anything less than a human, Eren, so why do you put more trust in Annie, in yourself… than us, your comrades, your friends?"

"Because everyone is treating me as a person"—Eren diverts his glare to the floor—"and as a threat. Then again, I'm a Titan, so I guess that's how it has to be."

"I look at you the same way I look at Annie: with betrayal, Eren. Betrayal because you've been lying to us."

He returns his glare to Armin but it ebbs into realization, shock, and then terror. "I – I don't know what you're…"

"Sasha figured it out already," comes the prompt reply, like pinning Eren against a wall with spears of glass fabricated with every word. "And when she brought it up with me, I desperately searched for a reason to prove her theory wrong. But you know what? I know she's right. I've always known that she was right."

Eren glimpses at Sasha, whose flustered attention is on the floor, before frantically turning back to Armin. "I-"

"You lied about your ability to shift. You can't anymore, can you, Eren?"

"I – that's not"—he realizes everyone in the group is watching him quizzically, with gazes of awe, and even though he chooses to ignore it, he can sense the sudden emotion of betrayal emanating from them, his allies, his friends—"just shut up!" He clasps his left hand in his opposing one, the phantom burn of long-forgotten bites searing through his flesh. "I can shift, it's there, I know it's there! I can feel the monster beneath my skin! It cries in my dreams and tries to claw its way out at every waking moment of the day!"

Jean snorts humorlessly. "You lying bastard. How long has it been, Eren? How long since you realized you couldn't shift?"

"Don't tell me I can't shift!" He screams, his words radiated with the toxic roar of his Titan, commanding total fear and absolute silence. "I just-! I just… I can shift! I can shift, I can, I can – I swear I can…" His voice cracks. He swallows the shards of his own doubt, of his own lies and of his own morality.

"How long, Jaeger?" Jean hisses.

"Since I broke out of that prison with Historia." He clutches his left fist to his chest. "I didn't – didn't mean to – didn't mean for any of this to happen… I can shift, I can still shift, I can feel the monster. I can feel it. I know I can shift."

Mikasa approaches him slowly, gliding her arms around his waist and pulling him flush against her.

He buries his face in the crook of her shoulder. "I'm so sorry… I'm so sorry… I can shift, I promise I can! I just – I just…"

"You just don't remember how," Sasha amends. "Like Annie, you just don't remember how."

Levi moves swiftly up to the shifter, and for a split second Eren expects to get sucker punched, kicked, or maybe even floored altogether, but the general firmly places his hand on the boy's shoulder.

"My office," he says, far too calmly by situation standards, "now."


.

.

.

Eren sits in the rickety chair across the desk from Levi who has set a cup of tea down in front of him. It has long since gone cold and not once has Eren touched it, but Levi has just been staring absently at his empty ceramic cannikin for the last hour, rolling their time together over into supper. The Shifter's gaze is intently fixated on the desk's rosewood finish, tracing the texture with his eyes.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. We've all been on edge; I'm surprised you and Kirschtein haven't tried to assassinate each other while the other slept." The Scouting Legion general notices that the tension hasn't left Eren's shoulders, and passively drones on. "It's okay if you can't shift. We don't need it for our mission. I mean, it's a huge help for all those tight situations, but I guess it'll just be a bigger pain in my ass than originally planned."

Eren whisks his gaze up to meet the general's. "I wanted to say something…"

"But you didn't."

"I'm sorry."

Levi hums in thought. "Do you still blame yourself for what happened to Erwin Smith?"

A small nod.

"That's not your fault. Nothing could have saved him. Not two arms, not you… not me."

The sickening sound of shredding flesh and snapping bone reverberates through the inner walls of Eren's skull. His hands jerk when the blade pierces layers of flesh and muscle, reflexively finding the arch of his cheek so he can wipe away the warmth of splattered blood that is no longer there.

"I know. It's just… there's a fine line between watching someone die"—he swipes his skin again, again, the blood isn't coming off, it's smearing, it smells like copper and is hotter than a fire that doesn't burn—"and watching someone die for you." He's touching his face with both hands, trying to get this sticky blood to peel off, from his chin, from his forehead, shit he's making it worse. Levi must be so disgusted right now.

"Eren."

Dirty, the blood is on him, Erwin Smith's blood is all over his hands, drying along the lines of his palms. Filthy. Tainted. It won't evaporate like a Titan's should, it seems so unnatural. It shouldn't feel this real. Shouldn't remind him of the bodies he saw in Trost, of the soldiers decimated on the 57th expedition, of the men lost to the chaos of the corrupt justice system while he and Historia could only wait for help to come.

"Eren."

Something clicks back into place. Eren stares down absently at his hands, realizing they are clean, his face is clean. A renewed sense of lucidity filters through him. "I'm sorry," he reiterates, clutching his knees. "I don't want to lose anyone else in this twisted game we're playing as soldiers. I don't want to lose any more of my friends, my sister, my comrades, Annie…"

Levi leans forward in his chair. "Eren… Annie is under my jurisdiction until she either recovers her memories or is turned over to the Military Police. Regardless of our decision, we both know Annie Leonhardt is going to be summoned before a military court, and we both know they will sentence her to death." He pauses, awaits a response, and drones on when he doesn't receive one. "We both know Queen Historia isn't as forgiving a person as she had led you – among everyone else – to believe during her time in the trainee corps, but that doesn't mean she can't be reasoned with."

"She probably wants to swing the ax herself," Eren mutters humorlessly.

"My point still stands: she can be reasoned with. You two spent enough time together. There's someone she values dearly, Ymir if I recall correctly, who she may never see again, and if I'm not mistaken, you yourself value Annie."

Eren meets his stare. "Annie and I are just friends, Captain."

"Did I say you weren't?"

The soldier bashfully glances away again, grasping the back of his neck when it grows uncomfortably hot. I also fucked her, he doesn't say. Just friendly things.

"Historia understands you like you understand her. If you really want to ensure that Annie survives, I suggest you take it up with the queen – the one person who will see your side of the story without the bias of every other shitless soldier in this legion. You'll both meet on level grounds. It's the only opportunity you have, Eren, and I suggest you use it wisely if you have any hopes of keeping that girl alive."

Eren presses his lips into a thin line. "Why are you telling me this?"

Levi arcs an eyebrow quizzically, almost piqued with interest at the remark.

"I mean… Don't you hate Annie for everything she's done, just like the others? For Wall Maria, for the 57th expedition, for Erd, Gunter, Auruo, and Petra?" He sits up properly so he can meet the general's blanked eyes again. "For freezing herself in her crystal when we needed her answers and abandoning us in silence for two whole fucking years? For betraying everyone who called her friend? For massacring all those innocent people like swine to a slaughterhouse?! For making me-?!"

He suddenly snaps to his senses, because he realizes he isn't even speaking about Levi anymore, but about himself.

Levi crosses one leg over the opposing knee, thrusting a sense of authority back into the room. "For making you what, Eren? Trust her?"

"No. Yes. Yes and no." He drags his hand down his face, pressing up on his backstroke so he can soothe the ache in his skull. The acute bristles of his five-o'-clock shadow scrape up his palm. "Forget it. She frustrates me. This whole situation frustrates me…"

"Well, I gave you some ideas. Think on it. The sooner you give me a decision, the less of a pain in the ass this will be for us. This group is barely held together by a thread. Make the right decision, for all of them – not just for you."

Eren gives him an affirmative nod. "Thank you, Captain."

"You're dismissed."

The boy pushes himself to his feet, salutes briefly, and heads for the open door.

"And Eren?"

He faces the older man. "Yes, Captain?"

Something dangerous and ireful glowers like embers in the obsidian film of Levi's eyes. It presses down on the young shifter like the weight of the Trost boulder. "I know it was an accident, and I know better than anyone that you would never intentionally hurt Mikasa… but if you dare lay your hands on her again you'll find yourself in a predicament more compromising than that day you went on military trial. Am I clear?"

Eren gives him a curt nod of understanding.

"So you'd better go apologize properly. And shut the door on your way out." As the general watches him leave, door swinging closed with a metallic ring as the latch pops into place, he sighs.

The obdurate brat didn't even drink his tea.


A/N: Getting back to this story. Decided to just upload it earlier than scheduled as a double feature for taking so long. Enjoy the drama!