Merry Christmas, everybody. I'm five days late.

It's been a while since the last update. Why don't we go ahead and post one today? That'll be your present from me this year. A new chapter for all of your feels.

I hope you guys are liking this story so far. Just so you know, it's barely even begun. The whole fanfiction, as far as I've written it, has reached twelve chapters by now, and I'm not even halfway through. I like the reviews I've gotten for it so far, even though my ao3 hits hadn't even breached 300 the last time I checked. So go ahead and keep leaving those reviews. I love hearing what you guys think.

Once again, gonna put in these shameless tumblr plugs just in case someone feels like following through with them. My author blog is asking-appelia, and if anyone feels like posting anything about this fic, if you would please tag it "fic: tmiu" "fic: tmi" or "fic: the mosters inside us," that would be nice. I'm giving you guys a bit of a selection there, so you can pick whatever you think sounds best.

I wanted to wish you guys a happy nondenominational winter holiday. So... merry Festivus, everyone. It's late, but it doesn't matter. It's the thought that counts. Right? RIGHT?

Update: I've started working on the story again, and I realized that I screwed up the order of a few things. So THERE I FIXED IT. Whoever finds the change wins the fantastic nothing prize.

Never mind. Story time.

Thursday brought on the next meeting with the support group that I was surprisingly going to of my own free will.

Mikasa had been working in her library volunteer position that morning with a gathering of other Shiganshina students, so one of the seniors offered to give us a ride. I couldn't help feeling relieved. I would be saved another self-inflicted guilt trip for making my dad miss out on work. And for forcing him to spend time in close proximity to me. For some reason I always felt like he never wanted to be around me. Or maybe I was the one who didn't want to be around him. The result was the same either way.

No one had gone missing from support group yet. Conference room 4A still held twelve people, all of them looking just as alive as the last time I'd seen them. I guessed Levi's predictions hadn't come true just yet. Schroedinger's Support Group was still just as lively and un-dying as ever.

To change things up, I looked for Armin instead of letting him search the room for me. I found him standing in the corner, an oatmeal cookie in one hand and his cell phone in the other. And standing in front of him was...

What the fuck was Annie doing with him?

I came to a dead stop and decided to watch for a while. The two of them were standing in complete silence, the both of them fixated on their phones. At first I wasn't sure if they were standing close together on purpose or if they had been playing on their phones and somehow wandered into each other's orbit. Then Annie's eyes suddenly widened. A smile broke out on her face and her shoulders began shaking. She looked like she could have been laughing, although I didn't hear any noises coming from her. I shuddered internally. The whole permanent-silence thing could be really creepy sometimes.

Her eyes flicked up from her phone and fixed on Armin's face. He did the same, flashing her a small, shy smile. So they were having a conversation. It probably would have been a bad idea to get into the middle of it.

"Hey, Eren. Good to see you again."

My head whipped around to look over my shoulder. A pair of soft brown eyes met with mine. "Marco," I said absently.

"Polo," he replied with a laugh.

After a quick glance around to confirm that there was no Jean lurking nearby, I turned around to face him. "Does this look like a swimming pool to you?" I asked.

He smiled warmly at me. "It's a recurring joke. You'll get used to it."

"Okay," I murmured, shifting my weight around on my feet.

"Hey, about the thing from last meeting, with the darkest submission we've ever gotten for the open-ended assignments..."

"Yeah. You said you were going to explain that, right?" I had completely forgotten about his promise from the last meeting. In fact, until he brought it up, that conversation had just about ceased to exist to me. I made a mental note to work on my memory of past conversations. If I was going to make friends the way Mikasa was subliminally pushing me to, it was a skill I was going to need.

"That was the idea," he said. "In the second year the group was operating, there was this one kid. I can't remember his name offhand, but he had pancreatic cancer, like me. He was pretty bad. He'd been diagnosed late, and his doctor had given him only a few months to live, even though they were still trying to treat him and everything else. He was probably the worst case anyone here has ever seen. Not just cancerwise, I mean. His attitude was probably worse than his disease ever was. He spent the entire time talking about how he had already accepted the fact that he was going to die, and he didn't need to go to group therapy to come to terms with it, and a whole bunch of other crap that everyone else got tired of pretty quickly. I don't think the support group did anything to help him. Or maybe he just didn't let it help, since, you know, group therapy is sort of a mutual thing."

I nodded. Didn't that sound familiar. "What about the composition?"

"It wasn't just the first one," Marco explained. "It was all of them. Every single submission he made was about death. It was never anything but death with him. It was like that was all he could think about, like he didn't see his life going in any other direction. I guess that was why no one was surprised when he stopped showing up."

I felt a block of ice settling inside of me. "Did he..."

"Yeah," Marco replied listlessly. His eyes had gone dark. It was kind of scary, coming from someone who seemed so positive as he always did. "He was kind of setting himself up for it, though. But I still think sometimes... was he really being a cynic, or was he just trying to see things the way they really were?"

"It sounds like he was just being a dick," I said. I needed to say something. Anything to get that horrible look off Marco's face. I felt around in the cluttered shelf space of my mind for my store of conversation starters that didn't seem to exist. "So... this is your fourth year with the group, right?"

Marco brightened up immediately. It was only a tiny change, but it was something. "Yeah. I've been getting treated at Trost since I was twelve. I was pretty friendly with all the nurses here, and one of them just brought up the support group while I was in for a treatment a few years ago. I joined pretty much without a second thought."

So he didn't even have to get dragged into this like I did. He had just jumped in all on his own. "Why was that?"

"Don't know," Marco said with a shrug. "I guess I just wanted to get to know some new people. Get help, give it to others. Make some more friends, you know?"

"You really didn't strike me as the kind of guy who needs help making friends."

Marco laughed, the same way that he did when we first started talking. It was nice to see him back to normal. "You don't even know," he replied. "I was diagnosed in fifth grade. I wound up losing contact with almost all of my friends from school in the first year. Well, except for Jean." He paused for a second, as if he were taking a second to think something over. "You know, Jean was actually the only one who's stayed friends with me since then." He shrugged, as if the thought didn't matter as much as I suddenly felt it did. "That's the sign of a lasting friendship, I guess."

"What, that it doesn't get split up by cancer?"

"Or withdrawing from school and spending half your time together in the hospital. It kind of surprised me, how far out of his way he was willing to go just to hang out with me." He glanced at something over my shoulder. I turned around and followed his gaze. Jean and Mikasa were standing by the snack table across the room. He was leaning casually back with one elbow balanced on the table as if it were a bar and he was buying my sister a drink. She didn't seem to be paying him any attention. I genuinely hoped she wasn't.

I scoffed. "He just doesn't know when to quit, does he?"

"No, Jean's just a little... strong-willed." Marco had such a nice way of saying he's a stubborn asshole.

"Strong-willed. I'll remember that."

The LPNs gathered us into the circle not much later. We kicked off the meeting by asking a few more questions. It seemed that the group still wasn't quite finished getting to know each other. After that, we bounced a conversation around the circle in popcorn fashion, letting it go in whatever direction it would. Someone pointed out that Bertolt had worn shorts to the meeting, and his bone-replacement scars were showing. There were a ton of them. He quickly explained that his osteosarcoma had started around his ankles and he'd had almost all of the bones in both legs replaced with prosthetic pieces, as well as one of his hips and a few vertebrae. He had still been growing when the first ones had been put in, so a few of the pieces were a little disproportionate, but not so much that they wouldn't work properly. All it meant was that he'd be a little unsteady on his feet for the rest of his life. His legs sported an impressive collection of red, ropey lines where at some point they had been cut open, the bones inside replaced and the membranes stitched back together. The longer I stared, the more I thought they looked like the skin had been peeled away and left a line of exposed muscle underneath. I spent the rest of the meeting on-and-off staring at Bertolt's legs.

After 4:00 finally came around and the circle broke apart, I spotted Armin milling around in the corner by the snack table. He had his phone out again, but there was no Annie to be seen (or heard). I weaved through the crowd and made my way over to him.

"Hey," I said. I glanced down to see one of his hands resting next to the cookie containers that had been the YCSG's food contribution for the day. He reached in and grabbed one, despite the obvious fact that there was nothing but oatmeal raisin left.

Armin looked up from his phone, blinking in surprise. "Huh? Oh, hey, Eren."

"You actually eat those?" I asked, nodding down at the cookies.

"Yeah. Why not?" he replied, picking one out and nibbling at the edges in a way that made him look kind of like a blonde, blue-eyed mouse.

"They're nasty. No one ever takes them."

"I know. I never really cared though. I think they're okay." He glanced down at the brownish mass of oats and raisins in his hand. "They're always the last ones left, too. It kind of makes you feel bad for them, doesn't it?"

"Not really. I've never gotten emotionally attached to a box of cookies before."

Armin looked up at me and sighed. "Don't tell me you no longer want to be friends with me because I like to eat the cookies that no one else takes."

I sucked in a deep breath and made a concerned face. "I don't know, Armin. That's getting pretty close to crossing the line, there."

The annoyance on his face dissolved into a smile and he shoved the remainder of the cookie into his mouth. "Oh, look. The problem's gone now," he mumbled around the crumbs. "Can we be friends again?"

"Dork," I laughed, turning to walk towards the exit with him at my heels. Mikasa met up with us at the door.

"Hey. Dad just texted me. Some specimens grew out of their petri dishes and they need to organize a cleanup."

I set my teeth and sighed. "So he's going to be late again?"

"Yep," she confirmed. Her eyes wandered from my face to the awkward blonde twig of a guy standing next to me. "Hi."

"Hi," Armin said shyly.

"You're... Armin, right?"

"Yeah. And you're Mikasa?"

"Does anyone else in the support group look like they'd have a Japanese name?"

Armin let slip a nervous laugh. "Heh. No. I-I mean, I guess not."

Mikasa gave him a faint smile. "Well, it's nice to know you remembered."

I cut in. "How could he not remember? Jean's been proposing to you at every meeting since we joined."

Mikasa's smile dropped. "Eren, I thought we agreed to avoid talking about that at all costs."

"Tell Jean that."

Mikasa exhaled heavily and flicked a hand at me. "Nope. I am done. This conversation is over."

Armin and I hung back as she walked out ahead of us. "I'll be outside waiting for you two to catch up," she shouted over her shoulder.

Armin stared after her for a minute, then turned to look at me, his eyebrows so raised that they were hiding under his bangs. "Is she always like that?"

"Pretty much," I said with a shrug. "I'm that way too, most of the time. I guess it's just our way of showing affection or something."

Armin's eyebrows returned to visibility. "Oh. Okay."

"Oi, brats. If you keep hanging around here any longer, you're going to have to clean up with us."

The both of us spun around at the sound of Levi's all-too-familiar voice. At some point he had snuck up behind us without making a sound, despite the plastic bags looped over both his arms that should have been rustling together and giving us at least a subtle warning that he was there. I glanced around the room and was struck by the fact that Armin and I were the only ones left.

"S-Sorry, Levi, we'll get going," Armin stuttered, grabbing my arm and making a beeline for the hallway.

"Good choice." Levi turned away from us and started back towards the table. I opened my mouth to make some sort of witty response, but Armin started towing me out the door before I could say a single word.

I still managed to shout "See you next week, nurseman!" at the top of my lungs before getting dragged out into the hallway, 4A's door falling shut behind us.

Once we'd put a whole three corridors between us and the conference room, Armin slowed down and turned to me, a questioning look on his face. "Nurseman?"

"Long story," I said, my face starting to heat up. "He was my nurse last summer when I had to get a liver tumor treated. It was sort of a one-time thing, really. I just said something stupid to him once, but I'm pretty sure he still remembers it."

"You really think he'd remember something you said to him once? And that long ago?"

"I don't really think Levi is the type that forgets things easily."

The hallways grew gradually brighter as we walked. Soon we were standing in front of the glass-plated entryway of the cancer center. Mikasa was waiting for us outside, just as she said she'd be.

"Hey," I said with a casual wave. "Miss us?"

"Not really. I was too busy enjoying the show." I noticed the signature seriously? look on Mikasa's face as she nodded towards the multitude of cars parked in the lot.

"The show?" I asked, my gaze following her directions and landing on a cheap, broken-in Neon parked a few rows back from the entrance. Two figures were leaned up against it, pressed flush against each other and appearing conjoined at the mouth. After a minute of staring I recognized them as Bertolt and Reiner. "Hold on a second. Are they... together or something?"

"Yeah," Armin replied.

"For how long?" Mikasa asked.

"Two years. They started going out after their first year in the support group."

I suddenly found my eyes glued to their explicit PDA. The longer I stared, the more awkward feelings came surging up inside me. I had no idea why I was having them in the first place. It was just a couple of guys making out against a car. No big deal. Nothing to get excited about. For a brief second, their mouths separated. Bertolt whispered something, and Reiner responded just as quietly, his mouth imitating the motions that his boyfriend's had made. Then Bertolt's head fell forward and they were once again going at it as if the world were ending around them.

"What are they saying?" I wondered out loud.

"They have this whole 'always' thing," Armin explained. I blinked, not realizing that the question had strayed outside of my head, and was finally able to tear my eyes away from the makeout session and fix them on his face instead. "I've seen it up close. It was... It was an accident," he added, looking slightly embarrassed. "Reiner explained it to me. They say it to each other all the time. It's supposed to mean they'll always love each other, they'll always be there for each other, that kind of thing."

"Hm," Mikasa hummed in acknowledgement, her eyes still inseparably glued to Reiner and Bertolt's whispery, tongue-ridden display. "That's pretty sweet, actually."

"Yeah, I guess it is," I agreed, trying to resist the uncontrollable urge to turn back and keep watching them stick their tongues down each others' throats. "Sometimes you just need something to be for always. Especially when you don't know how long always is going to last."

Suddenly everyone's eyes had switched focus from the everlasting-cancerous-love display to me. I felt my face burst into flames. Way to darken the mood, Eren.

"You're kind of right, I guess," Armin said, turning back to the beaten-up Neon. The two lovebirds had finally separated and were climbing into the car, Reiner to the driver's side and Bertolt to the passenger seat. "That was actually what Bertolt had been thinking when he had first asked Reiner out. He'd had two bone replacements since joining the group, and everyone was worried the spreading would continue, so he figured he would just give it a shot while he still had the chance, and... well, you see how that turned out."

I watched as the Neon pulled out of its parking space and rolled out into the road before turning to Armin again. "How do you know all of this?"

"I've been talking to Reiner a lot," he said. "He's actually really friendly. He gave me his phone number at the first meeting. He texts me all the time. He must have a remedy for severe social awkwardness or something that he wanted to give me."

"Do you think he has anything for me?" I asked.

Mikasa smirked. "I don't think social awkwardness and an aversion to life itself are the same thing."

"Hey, I'm not averse to life. I just don't have one."

"You could have one if you wanted one."

I rolled my eyes. "Excuses, excuses."

"Well what were you planning to do all summer before I signed us up for YCSG?"

I cast Mikasa a sharp sideways glance. "Hey, it's not my fault. I was in kind of a dark place."

She cocked her head to the side. "You were?"

"I'm getting out of it. Slowly."The mood started to lighten as the minutes passed us by while we were leaning up against the wall and staring out at the parking lot. Armin's grandpa hardly ever picked him up on time, and our dad had at least warned us that he would be running late that day. We were stuck outside for almost half an hour. But for some reason, it didn't feel like it was that long. The minutes ticked past in quick succession instead of dragging painstakingly by. I never realized exactly how much faster time went when I wasn't suffering through it.

Somewhere in the middle of a philosophical discussion on the importance of Hot Topic as a religion or something like that, a white Accord straight out of 1996 came rolling out of the street and into the parking lot. Armin stopped laughing and tensed up, watching the car as it drove steadily closer to us. "That's my grandpa. I have to get going."

"Oh. Okay," I said, feeling more than a little disappointed. Somewhere deep down, I'd wanted both our rides home to show up at the same time for the sole purpose of not having to stand there without him. "I'll see you Tuesday, then."

"See you." He took a few leisurely steps toward the curb as the car rolled up alongside it. A second before he reached for the handle, Armin spun back around. "Wait. I can't believe I forgot. I wanted to ask you something."

"What is it?" I asked, brightening up at the prospect of a few extra Armin minutes.

He slipped a hand into his pocket and dug out his cell phone. "Can I have your cell number?"

My brain stuttered as if he'd been speaking in C++. "What?" I asked dumbly.

"I just wanted to know if you would give me your number. You know, to text and stuff. If you want to." Armin dropped his gaze and stared at his phone. "I've gotten phone numbers from a few of the YCSG members, and since you'd been talking to me lately, I just thought-"

"Oh. Yeah. Sure, it's fine," I blurted out, hoping desperately that I didn't sound too much like I lived under a rock. Although I sort of did. I hadn't given anyone my phone number in years.

Armin looked back up at me and smiled. "Really? You would?"

"Yeah. Here, give me your phone."

Armin obediently handed it over. I punched my digits into the keypad. "Just text me later and let me know it's you, okay?" I said.

"Mind giving him my number too?" Mikasa cut in. She looked pointedly at Armin, the traces from the earlier smiles still on her face. "Eren doesn't always answer his phone. And if you really need someone to talk to..."

Armin stared at her as if she'd gotten down on one knee and proposed. "That would be great. Here. I'll open up another-"

"No, it's alright. I've got it." I opened up another contact slot and added Mikasa to his contact list. It wasn't all that impressive. The only numbers he had stored were those of a few family members. I noticed that Marco, Annie and Reiner had recently been added to the list. I gave his phone back to him, and he turned away, a smile lighting up his face.

"Thank you so much!" he borderline squealed, pulling the passenger door of the Accord open. "I'll text you guys soon, okay?"

"Okay."

"See you next week, Armin."

"See you." He pulled the door shut and we watched his grandpa's car peel away from the curb and out into the road.

True to his word, Armin texted me less than an hour later. I saved his number into my contact list and in the process took note of the fact that mine was even more pitiful than his. The only numbers programmed into my phone were mine, my dad's and Mikasa's. I also had Dr. Erwin's office on my list, but I had never used it. It was really only there in case of an emergency.

My new best (correction: only) friend texted me again the next day. Our conversation didn't last all that long. I gave up on trying to be social after about twenty minutes and retreated back into the magical realm of Netflix. Sure enough, Armin texted me again the day after. This time, I actually held up a conversation with him while watching my usual endless chain of Supernatural episodes. It required a considerable amount less effort than it had the first few times. I thought I was making some serious improvement in my socialization skills. Then he sent me this.

Armin: Are u busy right now?

I poised my thumbs over the screen, ready to type a short-and-to-the-point "yes" and continue on my quest to find out what the hell the Winchesters would be doing about the always-impending apocalypse. I stopped just short of pressing send. After a quick evaluation of my life so far, I reconsidered my response.

Me: No.

My phone went off again a minute later.

Armin: Cool. Is ur dad home?

Me: Y r u askin

Armin: Bc I wanted to come over maybe?

I stared down at my phone, not entirely sure if I was reading correctly. Was he serious? Someone actually wanted to come visit me? How long had it been since someone had asked to come over to my house?

Me: You mean now

Me: Today

Armin: Not like RIGHT NOW, but sometime soon i guess. Why? Are u doing work or home alone or something?

I looked up from my phone and listened to the silence that seemed to be echoing through the house. My dad had left for work before I had even woken up that morning. Mikasa had gone out to her library job hours earlier. So yes, I was home alone. But that didn't mean anyone had to know I had done anything other than hide in my room all day with my headphones on and my laptop acting as the only light source.

Me: Yeah sure u can. When do u want to come over?

Armin: Is today okay?

Me: You think i have anything else to do?

Armin: Ok lol. Today then. You said u live in Shiganshina, right?

Me: Yea. Wbu?

Armin: WEIRD. I'm looking up your house on Mapquest. You are like 5 minutes away from me.

Me: What dude how do you live so close to me?

Armin: Idk. I don't get out much. :l

Me: Neither do I lol. See you in a bit.

Six and a half minutes later, the distant vibrations of an outdated car engine began to travel through the framework of the house. I ripped my headphones off of my ears and jumped up from my bed. I scrambled around my room for a few seconds, yanking the shades up and letting the afternoon sunlight in, kicking dirty clothes under the bed, and especially looking myself over and making sure I was presentable. At least I'd remembered to change out of my pajamas that day. If I ever had to face anyone in a shitty t-shirt and boxers again, I didn't think I would survive the encounter. Not that Armin seemed to be the kind to mind all that much about appearances. But I still didn't want him to have to see me looking like I'd just narrowly escaped an awkward morning-after experience.

A minute after the vibrations died down, there was a knock at the door. It was so soft that I could barely hear it from upstairs. I dashed out of my semi-organized room and down the stairs into the entryway. There was a small, scrawny figure standing outside, his eyes hidden under his blonde coconut shell of hair as he stared down at his cell phone. My own cell buzzed in my pocket. I didn't bother answering it and pulled the door open, plastering a smile onto my face.

"Hey, Armin!" I shouted as cheerfully as I could.

Armin jumped as if my greeting had punched him in the face. He stared at me for a second, wide-eyed and blank like a deer in the headlights, before a smile broke out on his face. "Eren! Hi!"

I glanced over his shoulder to see a familiar white Accord pulling away from the curb and driving off down the street. Armin's grandpa abandoning him again. Great.

"Great to see you. Come in. It's like a fucking sauna out here." I took a step back, pulling the door with me and holding it open. He walked through and I pushed the door closed behind him, shutting the stifling early-July heat outside.

"Thanks for letting me come over," he said, looking around the hallway like a rescue kitten discovering its new home.

"Don't mention it," I replied. "It's no big deal. I really didn't have anything else to do today. I'm still a little confused as to what the sudden desire to visit me was about, though."

Armin made a face and shifted uncomfortably on his feet. "Oh. That was my grandpa's fault, really."

"Your grandpa?"

"Yeah. I was texting you, and he asked me who it was, and I just mentioned that I'd met this guy in support group and maybe we should hang out sometime soon, then..." Armin sighed and shrugged his bony shoulders. "He just told me to ask you if I could come over. I think he's trying to push me to be more social."

Well, that explained tough-love approach regarding his methods of dropping Armin off and picking him up. I laughed under my breath. "Don't we all know what that's like."

"Heh. Yeah," Armin murmured as he followed me into the kitchen. He looked around the room again, an inquisitive look in his eyes. "Weird. It's so quiet around here."

"Yeah, it is. My dad's out at work, and Mikasa is at the library, so I'm just stuck here by myself for the day."

Suddenly Armin turned to me, his eyes widened into sky-blue frisbees. "Wait. You mean we're alone?"

"Yeah. Why do you ask?"

Worry crumpled at the edges of his face. "A-are you sure that your dad's going to be okay with this?"

I shook my head and sighed dismissively. I'd already thought of this ages ago. "My dad probably won't even be home until it gets dark. As long as you're out of the house by then, I'm pretty sure he won't care." Not that I had been planning on telling him in the first place. What he didn't know had never hurt him before, and I was pretty sure it wouldn't start hurting him anytime soon.

"And what about Mikasa?"

Alright, there was a curveball I hadn't even taken into consideration. "Um... Mikasa..."

Armin drew his eyebrows into a frown and sighed. "See? I told you."

"Mikasa probably won't care either," I said flatly. "She'll probably just be happy that I did something other than stream Netflix today." There. That sounded like at least a somewhat viable possibility.

Armin's face finally came out of its worried expression. "Okay. As long as my grandpa doesn't ask to meet your dad afterwards, I guess it'll be okay."

"Right. Besides, it's not like we'll be getting high or hiring hookers or anything."

Armin sighed and stuck out his lower lip like a disappointed six-year-old. "So I guess this means I brought my weed stash and list of phone sex hotlines for nothing."

My mouth dropped open. "Armin!"

His pout disappeared instantly and he looked bewilderedly up at me. "What? Did you think I was actually serious?"

"N-no, I just... What?" I shouldn't have been all that surprised. And I wasn't, really. I just found it a little hard to believe the guy who could probably pass for a twelve-year-old was capable of making perverted jokes, let alone ones that were actually funny.

"Hey, it's not the first time it's happened. Once I told one of the people in my classes that I had a disorder that prevented me from growing at a normal rate and that I was actually almost thirty. He thought I was being completely serious and almost went to the professor about it."

"What? No way."

Armin giggled. "Yes way. I wasn't even trying to fool him or anything! It just happened!"

"Wait a second," I said. "What classes? I thought you were homeschooled."

"I am," he replied. "Well... I was. I finished up the program and got my diploma back in April. I signed up for a few classes at Rose Community College. They have sessions that run over the summer, and my grandpa told me that I should sign up. I have three of them, four days a week."

"What classes are you taking?"

"Mostly English stuff. Literature analysis, art history 101 and creative writing. I'm thinking of taking a music theory course when the fall semester starts."

"Why music theory?"

"I don't know. It's just always sounded like something I would be interested in."

"So you're into music?"

"Yeah. A little." Armin gave me a shameful little smile. "I got into songwriting after I went into remission. I've still got all of the notebooks, even though basically everything I wrote was crap. Then I started teaching myself to play the guitar a little over a year ago. What about you?"

"I'm into music too, but more in the listening way than the composing," I said with a shrug. "I like it, but I can't do it myself. You get what I mean, right?"

"Yeah. Completely," he responded, nodding. "So what do you listen to?"

"Specifically? I don't really know. It's mostly alternative and rock, some electronic, indie, sometimes dubstep... it's just a lot of different stuff."

"Any artists you like?"

"Oh. Let me think. There's... Three Days Grace, Skillet, Mayday Parade, Coldplay..."

"You listen to Coldplay?"

"Yeah. Is that a problem or something?"

"No, just... why?"

"They have a unique composition style, and I like their song lyrics. Most of them are a little deeper than what you usually see in current music."

"Oh," I said. "Anything else?"

He rattled off a list of bands, some of which I recognized. "Wow. I guess we're into a lot of the same stuff."

"I guess we are. Musicwise, anyway."

A smile twitched the corner of my mouth. "Hey, if you're interested, I have my laptop open upstairs. I can show you my library if you want."

Armin's eyes lit up. "You would do that?"

"Yeah. Why not?"

"That would be awesome." A giddy smile had spread across his face once again.

We went upstairs to my room and gathered around my laptop, which I had conveniently forgotten to turn off. We spent a while shuffling through my iTunes library and flipping out over songs that we both happened to have in common. Armin leafed through his iPod and showed me the better part of his own collection. Eventually the laptop escapades strayed from iTunes and landed us somewhere in the weird part of Youtube. We spent at least another hour with my laptop trying to make ourselves forget a series of Gmod animations that had quickly gone from funny to brain-stabbing. Once our brains had been sufficiently numbed, I suggested taking my laptop into the basement, hooking it up to the tv and streaming something on Netflix. Somehow my days always wound up returning me to that lovely website.

We travelled the two flights of stairs down to the basement and plugged an HDMI cable into my laptop's side. After a long, indecisive while spent scrolling through the instant streaming options, we finally settled on Heathers, since there really wasn't anything else decent available that we could agree on.

The front door swung open and slammed shut in the middle of the strip croquet scene.

"Eren, I'm back! What are you doing?"

I froze in place. "Shit."

Armin glanced over at me from the other side of the couch. "What is it?"

"Mikasa," I murmured, looking frantically up at the basement stairs. "I never told her you were coming over." I heard faint footsteps above us behind the dialogue of the movie. She was standing right between the entryway and the kitchen, and the basement door was directly in front of her. If she came down...

Armin spun around toward me, his eyes wide. "Oh god. Are we in trouble now?" he whimpered. "I got you in trouble, didn't I?"

"No, no, it's okay. I'll handle this." I sincerely hoped he didn't hear me mumble "She's going to flip the fuck out" under my breath a moment later.

"Is she really?" His face crumpled.

Great. He did hear me.

"Oh, god. I'm sorry. I am so sorry, Eren. I shouldn't have asked to come over. I just-"

"Armin," I snapped. He fell silent and stared at me in the flickering half-light of the tv. "It's okay. Really."

He shifted uncomfortably on the couch and sighed. "Okay. If you say so."

I climbed over the back of the couch and landed feet-first on the carpet, leaving Armin to continue watching Heathers in peace. The basement door swung open by the time I reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Eren! There you are!" Mikasa's silhouette said. "I was looking all over the house for you. What are you doing down here?"

"Watching a movie," I replied casually, making my way up the stairs towards her. I glanced back at the couch and Armin lit up by the bluish glow. "With Armin," I added quietly.

Mikasa looked taken aback. "What?"

"Don't freak out okay?" I implored, holding my hands out in front of me.

"Why would I-"

"Armin came over today," I explained, the words coming out so fast they fell over each other on the way. "I wasn't planning on it, we were texting and he just asked me. I know I should have asked dad first, and we're not supposed to have people over without anyone here and everything else, but he just asked and I didn't want to say no, and now he's in the basement, and I swear to god we haven't done anything-"

"Whoa, whoa, Eren, slow down," Mikasa commanded.

"But Mikasa-"

"Eren. Shut up."

I did as I was told and shut up. My sister pressed her fingers to her forehead and sighed. "Okay. So let me get this straight. You invited Armin over to the house?"

"Well, he asked first. I just said yes."

"And he's here."

"Yes."

"Right now."

"Yeah."

"In the basement."

"Uh-huh."

Mikasa fixed me with a level stare and exhaled slowly. "Well, then."

"I'm sorry," I blurted out before I could stop myself. "I know, I should have asked if it was okay or at least told you or Dad that he was coming over-"

"You know what? Whatever."

I froze, my mouth hanging open and my vocal cords caught in mid-sentence. "W-what?"

"Whatever," Mikasa repeated, flicking a hair indifferently out of her face. "I don't care if he just came over. I don't care if you were on the internet this entire time or jacking off or doing cocaine or whatever. You didn't burn the house down, the both of you are still in one piece, and as long as we get him out of here before Dad shows up, no one has to know."

"S-so it's okay if he stays?" I stuttered in disbelief.

"Yeah," she replied with a shrug. "Just not too long. We should probably get him out of here before dinner."

I nodded in silent agreement. We both knew Dad wouldn't be home until long after then.

After the issues were resolved, the both of us headed into the basement. Armin hadn't moved an inch from his spot on the couch. He spun around at the sound of our footsteps pounding down the stairs.

"H-hi, Mikasa," he stuttered, giving my sister a shy smile.

"Hey," Mikasa responded, traipsing across the room and vaulting over the back of the couch. She landed gracefully on the cushions and glanced at the tv screen. "What are you watching? Heathers?"

Armin seemed to melt in relief. "Yeah, actually. It was the only good thing they had to stream today."

"Awesome. I freakin' love this movie." Mikasa curled up in the corner between the couch back and armrest. I tried to walk past her without blocking too much of the screen, but still she grabbed me around the waist and tugged me backwards. My legs gave out like the toothpicks they were and I crashed ass-first into the couch, letting out an awkward noise of surprise and earning myself a laugh from Armin. I snuggled into the cushions between the two of them and we finished the rest of Heathers in partial silence, interspersed with comments about what the fuck was going on with teens in the J.D.'s bomb went off and the credits began rolling, Mikasa took out her cell phone and checked the time. It was almost 5 in the afternoon. We still had about a solid two hours before anyone had to go anywhere, so we didn't move. The three of us just stayed in the basement, sprawled out to varying degrees on the couch. Most of the time was spent talking, bouncing back and forth between random subjects, ranging in deepness from how hot thigh-high socks are to what the fuck happened with all of our parents. As it turned out, Armin's parents had met in a hospital support group, kind of like the one all of us had just joined. His dad had been diagnosed with lymphoma at 22, the same cancer that Armin's grandma had died from before he was born, and his mom was 21 with a five-year-old breast cancer diagnosis. Things led to other things, and two years later they were married and Armin came into existence. But, sure enough, things went to shit three years later. Armin's mom had a reoccurrence, and the cells were exponentially more aggressive than before. So she died. He hadn't said anything more on the subject. He was diagnosed with lymphoma when he was six, and at around the same time his dad's condition was starting to worsen. He died a year later. Armin explained that his dad had supposedly been living on borrowed time. His cancer had progressed much further than his son's had by the time he was diagnosed. Even though they were stages apart, it still sometimes felt like his dad had traded his own life for his son's. That was how he had described it. He'd been living with his cancer-free grandpa ever since.

We quickly steered the conversation towards something that was much less dark. First it was Armin's purple blob cancer, then the other metaphorical renderings of terminal illness, then the YCSG in general. Then suddenly...

"So how have things been with you and Levi?"

I would have been sitting up pin-straight in shock if I weren't hanging upside down on the couch with my feet over the back and my head dangling off the seat. Still, a small jolt of surprise ran through my body, threatening to send me sliding headfirst towards the floor.

"L-Levi?" I asked dumbly.

"Yeah," Mikasa said, refolding her legs underneath her. "Have you been talking to him at the meetings or anything?"

At least I could blame the upside-down hanging for the blood that was rushing rapidly to my face. "Yeah. A little."

"What about?"

"Nothing much, really," I said, crunching my stomach and pulling myself upright. "Usually just the support group, what we've been doing lately, that kind of thing."

"And what has he been doing lately?"

"Just the usual. LPN work, that sort of thing." It wasn't a total lie. I was just stating the obvious, since I actually had no fucking idea what else Levi did with his life.

"Nothing out of the ordinary, then."

"Nah. Not that he's told me, anyway."

Armin readjusted on the couch so his head rested next to my legs and his were hanging over the armrest. "What was it like having Levi as a nurse?"

"Weird," I deadpanned.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing about him made any sense," I explained, ignoring Armin's raised eyebrows. "When I first met him, he was a total ass. He snapped at me all the time and made fun of me and called me a brat more times than I have even bothered to count. But then every now and again he would suddenly... soften up? I don't even know. It was like one second he hated me, and then the next he was my best friend. And it never stopped. Not until..."

I suddenly realized where the story was headed and let my sentence drop dead, unfinished. I hadn't told anyone about what had happened that day. And I wasn't sure that I would ever want to.

"Until..." Armin prompted, his voice quiet.

I stared at the floor and shook my head. "Nothing."

"No, not nothing. Something," Mikasa murmured, inching closer to me. "What was it?"

"I already told you. It was nothing."

"No, it wasn't. Come on. The cycle never stopped until..."

"Do you guys really want to know that badly?"

The both of them stared expectantly at me. I felt the tips of my ears starting to heat up as if someone were holding a match nearby.

"It wasn't anything important. Really."

The staring didn't stop.

I sighed, feeling as though every inch of my skin were on fire. "Okay, fine." I took a deep breath and murmured the rest. "I might have held his hand before going into surgery. And... maybe told him about my deepest fears in a moment of desperation. But that was it. I got released a few days later and that was it."

The room was quiet for a moment before Armin spoke up. "I didn't know you guys were so close."

"That's the thing," I said, picking absently at a loose thread in the couch. "We aren't."

"You never told me that that happened," Mikasa said.

I dropped my gaze back to the carpet. "I didn't tell anyone that it happened. It was just kind of embarrassing and I never saw the point in saying anything about it. It's not like I was ever planning to talk to him again after I got released."

"But you did anyway," Armin added quietly.

"Yeah," I quipped, flopping over sideways next to him. "And now everything's fucking awkward."

"Why do you think it's awkward?" Mikasa asked. She grabbed my legs and pulled them into her lap, straightening me out over the couch.

"Because of what happened and all the things I told him, and then how we just stopped talking as if that summer in the hospital had never happened at all. And now he's back, and..." I sighed and pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. "I just don't know what to say to him."

Armin gave me a little hum of acknowledgement. "Well, you don't have to go mentioning that right away. Maybe if you guys hung out a little more you could reconnect or something."

I strained my eyes to look over at him. "What makes you think we want to reconnect?"

"I don't know," he said, the cushion shaking as he shrugged his shoulders. "It just sounds like you guys were really close."

"Yeah. Were."

The three of us fell silent for another minute. The conversation was almost as sporadic as the one we'd had during Heathers now.

"Why would he want to hang out with me, anyway?" I rhetorically asked.

Mikasa curled up, squishing my feet in her lap. "What makes you say that?"

"He's a college student. And a nurse. Unlike me, he actually had a life outside the support group. Besides, I don't even know how old the guy is. And something tells me that it's not exactly his dream come true to waste his life hanging out with some random cancer-stricken teenager."

"But that's what he does for his job," Armin pointed out.

"That's the difference," I deadpanned. "He gets paid to do it."

Half an hour later, Mikasa checked the time on her phone again and figured that our dad would be home in an hour or two. We would have to get Armin out of the house before he showed up if we wanted to keep everything quiet. Armin called his grandpa, and Mikasa gave him some bullshit excuse about how there was a chemical accident in the lab and he'd had to run out to take care of it, just in case grandpa wanted to come in and meet the elusive Mr. Jaeger.

Twenty minutes later, he pulled up in his shitty Accord in front of the house. We said goodbye to Armin and promised to talk more at the next support group meeting. Then Mikasa and I went about hiding the evidence that anyone other than the two of us had been in the house that day. Luckily, Armin wasn't very much of a messy houseguest and there wasn't a lot of evidence that we had to cover up. The basement was relatively clean, and my room was always a disaster area, regardless of whether I had friends over or not. So when Dad finally came home, no questions were asked.