Late again. Sorry. I need sleep.
Counting Sheep
It's not begging if he pretends to have won a free week at a camp on the other side of the country. Or, Eren doesn't think it is. He might beg to go to this camp thing, but really,"Mom, I won a contest! It'll be fully supervised be camp-people and Levi and Erwin. Come on! I'm fifteen." Eren rolls his eyes, flopping carelessly into one of the uncomfortable kitchen chairs. The wooden back smacks painfully into his shoulders. "Armin and Mikasa are going."
His mother scowls. Apparently, Armin and Mikasa are not incentive. They never have been. Not really. She... tolerates them, sometimes, like a cat tolerates a dog breathing its air. Sometimes. She never outright aggressive with them, she just finds other things Eren has to be doing right when the other two have time to visit. Erwin offers to drive them down for the weekend - Eren has a gymnastics tournament two towns over. Levi says he'll watch Eren for a few days during the summer and suddenly there is a family vacation planned. We've been planning it for ages, Eren, don't you listen when we talk over dinner?
He does. They have never talked about vacation plans.
But this. This has to work. It's a free trip to a camp. A paid two-way ticket to the East Coast. Eren is volunteering to spend time with other kids his age, not just Mikasa and Armin. She can't say no.
"I don't think so, Eren." Well there goes that plan. Was there a step two? "I don't like the idea of you being so far away! What if you have another blackout?"
Currently, the doctors are under the assumption that Eren is suffering some form of seizure. He has all sorts of pills he's supposed to take at certain times and with (or without) certain foods. He hates to think what would happen if he couldn't heal. Liver failure, probably. That or he'd be insane. Doped up on the first wave of medications like Armin had been.
Granted, Armin's doctors are nowhere to be found anymore. Not even Erwin with his surprising computer hacking skills can worm out the imbeciles pretending to be doctors. Everyone in the know suspects foul play.
"I'd be fine!" Eren tries to assure. He schools his face into something between pleading and insulted. By his mother's expression, he missed. By a long shot. He aims for cajoling instead. "Please, Mom? It'd mean a lot to me. And you're always telling me to make more friends because Mikasa and Armin live so far away. This camp is for kids all around the country!"
She sighs. Not a defeated, unhappy, fine but you own me sigh, but one of those exasperated sighs that mean run for cover or you're grounded. Damn. "What contest did you say you entered?"
"Uh, I didn't?" Apparently that was supposed to be step two. Now he knows why Levi was giving him a look when they talked about this last week. This lie. Because Kalura Jeager would never allow her son to go so far away in the company of her least favorite people. "I mean, I didn't say which contest I entered. It was..." he racks his brain, searching for something he knows enough about to fake without it being obvious to his mother. Something unexpected, but no too far fetched. "History."
"History?" If that isn't her incredulous face, he'll eat his shoes. It...kind of hurts that she doesn't know he's interested in history. He doesn't keep that secret. Even if the project itself is a lie, shouldn't she know how much history fascinates him? Look at all that has happened in around 1200 years. It certainly didn't take long for humans to spread out again.
Eren fidgets. His nails scrape quietly across the tabletop, eyes down. His mother busies herself at the sink behind him - washing or something. Letting the water run wastefully into the sink. "I wrote a report on the civilizations that came before the Walls." Something in his tone must bother her, because the water turns off and her hand rests on his shoulder. He shrugs it off. "The judges still have the project, but I have the notes."
He stands, chair scraping harshly on the floor, and sets off to the stairs. There were many times in the past when he wanted to know what his mother would think about him. About his choices. Now?
Everything Eren does is met with the same reaction his choice to join the scouting legion was met with when he was ten.
Senator Reiss' Daughter Hates Homosexuals
Under the headline is a picture of Krista, face set in a viscous snarl, punching a girl on the floor of what appeared to be her classroom. The article went on to describe the girl, a Ymir something-or-other, who got into the private school on scholarship. Not from the best part of town, but good in school. Not many friends. Despite being only eleven, she's out. Firmly. She's been declaring her love for girl since she was nine, or something. Her first day of school began and ended with Krista beating the crap out of her. Krista!
Krista who is obedient and kind and just... biddable.
For weeks the papers have been running with Krista being adopted. No one seemed to be able to choose whether or not that made him a family man - good for politics and his image - or just another sleazebag politician looking for a good in without having to do the work. Which is not true. Lod loves Krista. She's adorable and self-sufficient and doesn't hurt his career.
She does one thing. One. Thing. The papers are all over it. Senator Reiss' daughter. Because she messes up once and lets her personal feelings cloud her judgement - where did she learn to fight anyway? - and now. Now it's splashed across every major headline. Children are often the most accepting of the homosexual community. What is Senator Reiss teaching his daughter is she can be so violent in her hatred?
It's bullshit.
Lod storms into his house, thunking his umbrella in the stand by the door. Security informs him that Krista is home and he's stomping across the living room before the guard even finishes his sentence. He doesn't remember descending the stairs or navigating through the nest of mats and sports equipment guarding his daughter's room. Her door bangs against the opposite wall when he opens it, mouth open to yell - inform her about the errors of her ways.
Two faces turn to face him, each as blank as the other, shoulders tense and eyes weary. Krista relaxes when she sees him, settling back against her abundance of pillows. Graceful. Regal. She doesn't really look like Krista right now which is disconcerting. The other girls doesn't move. Ymir something-or-other. The other girl from the fight. Krista touches her back with a foot.
"Relax. Ymir, this is Senator Lod Reiss. Father -" as always, the title sounds strained. Foreign - "this is Ymir. Why are you in my room?" She raises a pale eyebrow at him as Ymir folds herself into the pillows at her side.
Lod puffs himself up again. "Every news agency in the state has heard about your little spat," he grinds out. He tosses the paper at them. "I have been attempting damage control for the last three days."
Ymir looks at the paper and starts laughing, head thrown back as if Lod's career plummeting in the face of an upcoming election is the height of comedy. Krista glaces it over and snorts in amusement. "I do not have a problem with homosexuals. The press is pulling at strings," she states. "If you're holding another conference tomorrow Ymir and I can go and clean up your image." Then she dimples at him as if she's being gracious.
Something is wrong with her. He backs out of the room.
Eren grumbles at his phone. Grumbles at the computer. Grumbles at the lack of charger for either of them, but his parents weren't home yesterday so he took over downstairs in a giant blanket fort. It was cool, okay? Even if he's mentally forty-four, this body is ten and he's never made a blanket fort. Might as well act like a kid now that he has a chance. Of course, that means that his chargers are downstairs and he has a Skype call with the others in less than three minutes. Both his computer and phone are dying.
Groaning at the thought of stairs again - practice was unbearable today - Eren rolls off his bed, barely managing to catch his feet before his face tries to make friends with the carpet. As it turns out, the carpet does not like sudden visitors. He has learned this several times. Pain lances up his leg whenever he steps down. It's not too bad, but he's been breathing steam since the middle of practice. He might have taken a landing wrong and broken it. Compound fracture probably. It's just taking forever to heal. He probably needs more to eat.
Eren plods down the stairs, wincing. He collects the chargers from under the couch and meanders into the kitchen. No one has made dinner yet, but he's fairly certain there's leftover KFC hiding in the fridge. Only, there are people in the kitchen. His mother and father and an old man with a lot of hair. He blinks at them. There isn't really a way to edge around the kitchen table without drawing notice. All he wants is food.
"Eren!" His father beams, rising from the chair to usher the boy into the room. Eren casts a longing glance at the fridge. So close, yet so far. "Eren, I would like you to meet Marcel Karras. I'm going to be working with him for a while." Eren plays dutiful son, smiling and shaking hands with the stranger.
The old man crinkles his eyes, booming over how polite Eren is. "This is what we're trying to protect, Grisha," he exclaims. Personally, Eren thinks he sounds like a used car salesman. To each their own though. Eren is able to escape with the chicken without much hassle, claiming homework and a dire need to call his friends. Maybe not dire, but Levi and Mikasa will be on tonight. They've been without internet at a martial arts tournament for Mikasa. Texting and short phone calls have been their only means of communication.
Three years since the kidnapping and Eren has only been able to see his siblings roughly two dozen times. Weekend visits like Erwin promised, but it's never enough. He hates leaving, hates watching them leave. At least he's the only one left alone. Mikasa and Armin have each other and Levi and Erwin and Levi's squad. But he prefers his own isolation to that of his siblings. He'd go crazy knowing one of them was along and undefended. At least he can heal.
He plugs in the computer and his phone, answering Armin's impatient texts with something along the lines of, "Just a sec, there are too many wires." Which, there are a lot of wires. In an age where everything is supposedly wireless, his parents are the annoying type that won't get him the best. They think he'll break it or something. Eren disagrees. It'd be a lot easier if he didn't have to worry about the mouse wire tangling with the charging cables and his headphones while the headset he uses for Skype coils around everything like a snake. A scrawny blue snake. He pulls and tugs, pawing at the accept call button that pops up even as he slips the headset over his ear.