Summary: In which we all somewhat warm up to Zeke, after he spits straight facts in SNK 130.

Timeline: Post-Chapter 27 of the WUARD storyline, sometime in the summer between Eren and Mikasa's junior and senior years of high school.

Words: 1,531

A/N: A number of you guys have requested a bro-to-bro real-talk moment between our favorite Jaegers, and so here, I deliver—but not without a twist. My modern AU take on this conversation, with a side of psilocybin mushrooms.

Warnings: Snk 130 spoilers! Don't recommend reading this if not caught up to the manga!

Eren

A hot take: the commercial breaks are the most exciting parts of Major League Baseball games.

I've always preferred sports with a bit more action—soccer, hockey, and basketball top the charts for me, and usually I can sit through a football or lacrosse game—but whenever I hang out with Zeke, I always bite back my unpopular opinions about the Chicago Cubs. I cheer whenever he cheers. I groan whenever he groans. I let him bore me with his extensive knowledge on batting averages and RBI's and home run counts. Whenever I drive down to visit him, I bring an old mitt with me, and we play catch in Hyde Park.

I roll with it for two reasons. First off, Zeke is studying to become a lawyer, so if I say anything remotely negative about baseball, he'll come up with a dozen reasons why I'm wrong. And if I try to fight back, he'll come up with a dozen more reasons why my counter arguments are flawed, so it's really just not worth engaging. Secondly, it's in my best interest to stay on Zeke's good side because he keeps goodies in his refrigerator. After we get bored of tossing the baseball around, we head back to his apartment, and he pulls out a folded-up sheet of aluminum foil and a tub of Nutella. Inside the foil are a couple of dried-up little mushrooms.

We pop them into our mouths, lick clean a spoonful of Nutella, and chew to our heart's content. It takes about an hour for them to take effect, so Zeke plugs in his electric guitar, and I hop behind the keyboard. Each of us plays whatever we happen to be feeling at the moment, and it sounds awful at first, but eventually, we get on the same wavelength, and something groovy comes out of our jam sesh. But we never remember the harmonies or melodies because by the time the notes click together, then shrooms have kicked in.

And from there, we're couch-bound.

Zeke has different playlists for whatever substance we decide to do. If we're dropping acid, we listen to the Grateful Dead, and Zeke tells me how if he had the choice, he'd hands-down reincarnate into a 70's-era Deadhead, devoting his life to criss-crossing the interstate highways, bouncing from concert to concert in a beaten-up van, growing out his hair.

If we're dining on weed brownies, we always order a pizza and some wings, and Zeke breaks out our grandpa's old Jimi Hendrix records. For some reason, we never fail to end up talking about politics, and slowly but surely, my half-brother has converted me into what they call a "democratic socialist." Feel the Bern, fuckers.

As for mellow mushrooms, Zeke always starts by putting on this song called "Zionsville" by this psychedelic trio named Khruangbin. We really get in our feels when we're on shrooms. And I'm talking good feels, the kind that you'd wanna have over Thanksgiving dinner. We discuss what we're grateful for, the great hands we've been dealt in life. One of us ends up crying, though it's usually tears of happiness. Zeke stresses the importance of keeping the vibes positive when we're tripping. Otherwise, it's easy to go hurtling down a dark rabbit hole.

Shrooms kick off with a surge of nausea. As "Zionsville" plays on Zeke's speakers, we pass a glass of water back and forth, hoping to wash away the bitter, acidic taste in the back of our throats, and after several minutes, the lightness settles in. And my head feels like it's bobbing in a sea of fluffy clouds.

"You there yet?" Zeke asks, slumping into the couch cushions and kicking his legs up on the coffee table.

When I'm on shrooms, I giggle—a lot. I'm fixated on Zeke's hairy legs, and if I'm being honest here, he can totally snag a job at Disney World play-acting as Rafiki from The Lion King. He wouldn't even need a full-body costume.

"I figured," Zeke remarks, putting his hands behind his head.

We take a moment to enjoy the music. Sometimes, Zeke puts on a guided meditation to go along with the ambient guitars, but today, we just close our eyes and let the sounds float through his apartment, all warm and bubbly.

"So tell me," Zeke says. "You've been distracted lately. Always checking your phone. It's like you're only 50% here, bro. Where's the other half of you at?"

"What are you talking about?" I mutter, avoiding his gaze.

"You do this thing where you check your texts, and you look so giddy when you respond to a message. It's cute."

"You're delusional."

Zeke adjusts his glasses. He bends his legs into a pretzel formation and peers at me, like he's trying to do an X-ray scan of me. "There's something you're not telling me, huh? Look at you, red as a beet, panties all in a twist—"

"Fine, there's a girl, okay?" I can't shake the image of Zeke the sandy-haired gorilla from my head, and I can't help but crumble into more giggles.

"Aw, you're smitten."

"That's not what I'm laughing at—"

"Mhm."

"Forget it, Zeke."

"The girl who lives down the street from you. Is it her?" Zeke tosses the baseball up and down in his hand, and we watch it defy gravity, lingering in the air for a moment, before drifting back into his palm. Suddenly, he points a finger gun at me, cocking his wrist back, pretending to fire, while clicking his tongue. "Bingo. You're grinning like an idiot."

"Shut up," I mutter, trying to squirm away, but Zeke's arm is already cuffed around my shoulders, and he's ruffling my hair, hooting like a monkey.

"Someone's a grown-ass adult now, huh?" he coos as I try to fight him off.

"Dude, screw off, will you?" I finally twist out of his grip.

He retracts his long, gangly arms and hunches forward in his seat. "Her uncle hates me for some reason. Remember that time we were biking past her house? He yelled the most barbaric things at me."

"To be fair, you almost bulldozed him over when he was taking out the trash."

"Never before have I been called a 'neutered Neanderthal,'" he remarks. "Kinda has a ring to it. Should I make it my new Twitter handle?"

"Careful, Levi's a legit journalist. You might end up in the newspaper if you start some shit with him," I warn.

"I'd be more than happy to engage in a bitch-fest with him in the paper. It'll give me a chance to pick apart his stance on foreign policy," he says, shrugging. Ever since he found out that Levi Ackerman moved into my neighborhood, Zeke's made it his personal mission to read and criticize everything Levi's ever published. Most of this goes over my head because Zeke really gets into the weeds, so I just nod and say "yep, mhmm, I see your point," while waiting for a chance to change the subject.

"Can we talk about how you almost biked straight into their mailbox when you tried to wave at her?" Zeke adds, throwing me the baseball.

But I'm too loopy to register it, and the ball slips past my finger, thudding onto the ground. "That mailbox is cursed, I'm telling you," I say, watching the ceiling fan cycle around and around, like a carousel, forming pinwheel shadows.

"Her name's Mikasa, right?"

"Yep."

"What's she like? Her personality?"

I take a minute to think about this. "She's funny—but not in the normal sense of funny. She won't tell a joke that will have the whole room splitting sides or anything. She's more lowkey than that. You gotta stay close by her side because she does this thing where she mutters things under her breath. You gotta listen closely, like really closely, or else you'll miss it, but those little comments she makes are priceless. She can be dark, sarcastic, vulgar even."

"She seems introverted, then?"

"I guess. She can come off as kinda… aloof in the beginning, but when she opens up to you, she's warm to be around. She'll sit with you for hours if you're having a rough day. She'll go on walks with you in the dead of night. She'll hear out everything you have to say, and she knows exactly what things to ask about if you need to vent about things. It's so weird. It's like she fires you up, but then after you're done talking, you feel totally at peace."

"That's quite a Herculean task, all things considered," Zeke says. "You can be such a loose cannon. It takes a world of patience to chill you out."

"I'm bad at being mad at her. We have little fights occasionally, but I always let her win."

"Translation: She is always right, and you always concede defeat."

"Whatever."

"Have you kissed her yet?"

"It's not like we spend all day in her room playing board games."

"Oh, wow. So you've made it all the way to home base. Good going, buddy. Don't disappoint her."

"Shut up."

"Aw, my baby brother's in love."

"Seriously, can we talk about the Supreme Court or something?"

A/N: I can't help but marvel at how Isayama threw the whole fandom into complete and utter disarray with SNK 130. I was both elated and devastated, which makes me confused because how can someone have equal parts of such polarly opposite emotions?! Yams, gotta hand it to you.

This one-shot was made possible by YOU GUYS! Thanks for suggesting one-shot ideas! I've got a big, long list of them, and if you guys have any more suggestions, please please PLEASE let me know! As always, thank you so much for the feedback, and please also lmk what you thought of this chapter!

Catch ya in the next one!