Before pushing through, I'd like you to be aware of the things that will appear in this story.
Tags: slow burn, hurt/comfort, mutual pining, non-linear narrative, modern and canon au, manga spoilers, dreams and nightmares, and very minor ymir/historia reiss
Warnings: canon-typical violence, implied/referenced child abuse, implied/referenced sexual harassment, suicide, mental health issues, trauma, and eventual smut
If you're fine with the said themes, I hope you'd enjoy this work!
It was one of the disgustingly humid afternoons, stuck wearing your long-sleeved brown leather uniform under the searing afternoon. The odor reeked of sweat, a soft reminder for everyone that a sweet cold bath will always be a luxury. As if it can't get any worse, an unexplainable stench of death keeps you haunted as well— as if there's no escape from it wherever you go. Under your very own spots on the field, you offered the last salute of the day, and perhaps the last one in your lives, because tomorrow is another deadly expedition to be commenced.
After offering the homage, you looked above him who stood on the wooden stage just above everyone. He offered his salute back after shouting the line that he owned every single time: Dedicate your hearts. You can't help but curl your eyebrows at the supposedly sentimental moment. Not only do you question his right to stand there but also wonder why is he the only person you can see clearly in this lucid nightmare.
Despite the inability to come up with a clear reason, his composure imposes harmlessness on the surface but deadliness underneath; entailing freedom and its tragic repercussions. His voice is set on the highest volume of anger and finality and his eyes look like nothing but a seemingly endless body of water a man can ever see under the highest peak of the sun. The details were horrifying to you, to say the least. Your scrutinization was cut off when he subtly moved his eyes to examine each one of you, and upon noticing the way you look at him with every fiber of his being, he squinted his eyes. Perhaps he was silently questioning your dead ungrateful glare.
Is it time to look away? I think it's time to look away.
But I cannot look away.
Because you have nothing but the seemingly primal fear that the time you stopped channeling your reluctance as to why he's standing there, he'd come to suck your soul next.
He broke eye contact, diminishing any bother for something so trivial, and bid his final reminders: "Eat healthily and sleep early to prepare our bodies for the deadly mission tomorrow." He announced dispersal afterward. When your comrades started walking away, you remained frozen in your spot. Everything started to strike you within a second as you started remembering things other than his face and his eyes— belonging to humanity barely protected by walls, people ridiculing your job as a soldier going through unnecessary lengths that would warrant danger in your life, and being under his command. Your resentment of him stems from the fact that he's the only one who can make you charge to your deaths and would not get punished for it, and that you got nothing to blame for your tormenting life aside from you (for having no significant purpose in this disposition and just waiting for your life to end) and him (as someone you can project your anger with as you watch your comrades die a brutal death, believing his great words of risking their lives to something great). Not until you find your way out of this will your resentment for him diminish. You need to have someone to carry the burden of this tragic war other than yourself. You have no one but him.
Suddenly, your vision dropped dead to black. The voices of your comrades faded as you started hearing another bunch of noises, one voice belonging to someone familiar.
"Wake up. Hey, wake up." she spoke. There you slowly regained your consciousness. It's from Historia, the queen of the walls.
No, wait.
"I can't believe you slept when I'm still talking!" No, it's from Historia, a close friend.
"Queen of the walls?" you whispered groggily.
"What? Queen what?"
You closed your eyes then opened them again. You did so a number of times until you grasped who you are and where you are—in the library, with a book lining on your face, and silly Historia talking about her life. A glimpse of your dream flashed for a moment and you sighed. He appeared again.
You cleared your throat and faced Historia with heavy eyes, "I think I dreamt of you being a queen somewhere."
"Really? You didn't dream of the weird blue-eyed soldier you keep on telling me about?"
"No, he appeared to me as usual but I thought there's a time where you're there with us," you crunched your eyebrows in an attempt to remember your claims, "Actually no, I don't. It's just his face and how heavy it felt. Just as usual."
"But having me in that dream as a queen proves that it's ridiculous." she sighed in disappointment, "And when I thought your dream is some creepy foresight of a real undiscovered world. God. I'm dying out of boredom."
"If that was a real undiscovered world that I was a part of, I'd beg every god alive to erase my memories then and there."
"And they would terribly lament how boring you are to miss the daily grind of adventure. That's a literal action plot somewhere. How could you not like it?" When you didn't respond, she cleared her throat, "Anyway, you said your doctor increased your dosage recently because of the heightened recurrence, didn't it have any significant effect?"
"It's only been a few days since. I don't think it'll take effect just yet."
"Hm. Tell me if it gets worse." Historia replied flatly, trying to mask her usual worry with indifference. The first time she witnessed your midnight nightmare wailing back in childhood, she cried hard as if she had it too. You ended up laughing at her afterward. "Break time is about to end. You have classes as well, right? Come on." she scooped the scattered stuff inside her bag and stood up, tapping your shoulder.
You silently stood up while browsing your phone only to sit down again in dismay, "My next class is canceled. I'm not sure about my last class so I can't come home yet. I think I'll just contact a classmate instead to come here for a project."
She nodded and disappeared so you let yourself space out again with silly ponders as to why you suddenly started to blame him. Given the details of his features, you regarded him as someone you might be head over heels with. Before you got deeper into it, however, you suddenly caught a spark of blue passing through your left side. With a ragged breath, you turned to follow it only to see nothing but a walking man with blonde hair. His back is turned from you.
Oh god, oh god, oh god.
Familiarity sparked tears in your eyes and you had to bite your lower lip to suppress them until he disappeared inside the bookshelves. Great, now I'm extremely overwhelmed. It's getting harder to breathe. Am I hallucinating? Slow inhales and longer exhales, name things inside the room, exhaust all means so you won't drift into a black hole again.
It was like that for a moment until you saw Armin at the library entrance, the young boy being the constant reminder of how long you've been left behind by the academe. The reminder was annoying, but at least you regained your breathing.
"Hello, how are you today? You seem very pale," he asked in his usual kind voice as he sat down in front of you.
You nodded and told him the usual, "No, I'm fine."
"Let's get started I guess." he fidgeted, "I'm quite happy our prof took a day off since we're getting more time to work on this. This is the first time I'll be working with you so I'm excited about it."
You smiled bitterly in return. Armin seems to love what he's doing; very much so, very contrary to you. You ventured the degree as a last resort to enter this university given that your grades aren't high enough due to gap years. You were dead set on getting into a prominent one at all costs, believing it was the only way to redeem yourself. But old habits die hard because the time you became a student here you had no choice but to file for another gap semester. Above anything else, the problem is you getting constantly halted because of horrendous and unexplainable nightmares.
"Are you okay?" Armin said to interrupt you spacing out.
"Yeah, I just thought I should try my best to keep up considering that I'm just repeating this subject."
"No worries. Mr. Hannes told me about your situation." you widened your eyes at the remark. There he suddenly realized you might mind his knowledge about it since you're not that close. He waved his hands in defense and tried to take it back, "Don't worry! It's just the gist, just the gist. They didn't tell me much. But since I'm aware of it, at least I can consider how to make it easier for you."
So the faculty bothered to tell my classmate about it so I can get the consideration I needed. The bitterness reverberated further. Why take such hopeless lengths? You thought.
"No! It's okay, I appreciate his effort to tell it for my sake. I hope I won't make things heavier for you." you tried to smile it out and joked, "Don't hesitate to order me around or something."
"No, you won't make things heavier! I hope you won't think of it that way. I quite understand you, in a way… I also went through some things a long time ago."
Lies. There's no way someone like you could be held back with something like this.
"I hope you were able to overcome it. And if not, I hope we will, soon." You said and flashed him a smile. He returned it sincerely and said, "I think I was able to get through it, thank you so much. If there's something I could help with, don't hesitate to tell me." You don't think what you're going through is something believable to others though, especially if they're not the ones to witness it since your childhood.
After a small talk about each other's lives and mutual friends, you went straight to the matter. After coming up with the concept and starting a bit with the character study, you decided to call it a day. Considering you got less than an hour left until the next class and you had slept the whole lunch break off in the library with Historia, you thought of visiting the cafe beside your college to eat. Checking yourself inside the comfort room, you tried to rehearse a smile. After all, visiting the cafe means visiting people that have known you for so long. After coaxing yourself to not get too conscious and alert, you made your way towards the place. Before entering, however, you warily checked at the counter if Levi is there. Much to your relief, it was only Furlan, his adopted little brother.
Despite the short rehearsal, the "Hello," you managed to say is barely a whisper. Still, Furlan's bored face perked up. "Hey, how are you? Got no classes?"
"I have one in a few. Tell Isabel I said hi. And I'll be ordering the usual. Take out." You handed him the coupon card that's two stamps away from the freebie and he swiftly punched the order on the counter.
"How are your classes so far?"
"It's been two weeks so I can't tell yet, but I think I'm able to cope with it well."
"That's good. Tell me if you need anything. We don't know where Isabel is exactly. I think she went camping on a nearby mountain based on her latest story. Such a pain in the ass, really." You smiled at the remark, thankful that she was still the reckless girl as usual.
After graduating from high school and despite Levi and Furlan's endless nagging, Isabel asserted that she won't be studying for a while and that she'd travel from time to time while she decides on what to do with her life. She's not even going home and prefers to sleep at your place whenever she's near the area. Levi didn't allow her to work in this cafe in hopes of knocking some sense into her. "I think the nearest mountain would be twenty kilometers away from here." you remarked.
"I honestly don't know where she got the audacity. She's a hopeless case."
"I'll try to talk to her about it if she ever stops by."
"You useless brat, talking on your phone all the time and not doing your damn job." A familiar voice said inside the kitchen. He halted when he realized it was just you, and Furlan wasn't slacking off. "I was about to hit him." He clarified. You averted your eyes somewhere without responding. Levi sensed your complete uncomfortability, as he always does.
"I told you I'll get serious about this job now," Furlan bantered then turned to you, "Anyway, here's your order," he handed the coffee. "And here." then whispered as he gave the coupon back with a box of Levi's homemade chamomile tea. He gave you a knowing smile even before you could clarify that you still have one stamp left.
"Daring to give away my products in front of me just to impress her? You're still that childish?" he grimaced.
Furlan's face turned red and glared, "She completed her coupon!" then defensively raised your hand.
"Right. And he already moved on from me." You tried to say in Furlan's defense. Furlan's glare told you it didn't help at all.
"Don't care. Anyways, you," you glanced at him in hopes that he'd make it quick because you don't want to engage longer. He didn't say anything for a moment until he shrugged off, "Nothing. Don't get a new coupon. You've been getting stamps so fast. You'll get my chamomile out of stock. And kick Isabel in the face for me." a final wave before disappearing to the kitchen again.
"Stingy small old man," Furlan whispered.
"Say that again and you'll sleep outside tonight," Levi replied from the kitchen. You waved the poor man goodbye.
Despite the semester starting two weeks ago, this is your first day in this subject. The previous professor abruptly canceled his takeover of the course and it was only through the students' continuous demands that the section didn't dissolve and managed to get another instructor, a new one at that.
And reaching there, you realized that the subject's indeed in high demand. The students were overwhelming. Historia's even there with a beam. She tapped on an empty seat at her right. Sitting on her left was her girlfriend and your previous roommate, Ymir. Gazing at the back, you saw Armin waving at you happily with his two friends seated beside him. There are quite a lot of students from different colleges as well.
Looking at your current classmates made you not notice the punctuality of the professor. You only came back to your senses upon hearing an unnervingly familiar voice.
"Seems like you ran from Levi's cafe up to here. That homemade chamomile tea tastes really good and helps a lot with relaxation." Utterly horrified, you slowly turned your head to the man who was talking. The breathlessness from all the running intensified. When you finally met his eyes, you crumbled out of fear.
It's him.
"Anyway, welcome to my class. You may sit wherever you like."
You were frozen for so long that your classmates started shooting you a curious look. Despite realization, however, you still couldn't get yourself to move. Your nightmares are projecting into real life—giants with distorted bodies, soldiers and citizens getting violently chunked into pieces, and the nasty smell of death—all because you happen to meet the deadly straight-faced commander right in your reality.
Despite your nervous demeanor, the professor continued to flash a flat smile as he waited for you to finally enter the room and sit wherever. Minutes passed until you heard Historia call your name, "Sorry, I think my stomach's acting up. Come with me for a bit," then pulled you out of the entryway.
It was when she brought you to the comfort room that you started crying. It felt like a long while until Historia's voice started to become clear again.
"Please, talk. You're making me very scared." She shakily remarked.
"I'm scared," you uttered in repeat and when she hugged you tight, you realized you were not the only one horrified in that very space.
"Why? What makes you scared? Stop crying and tell me properly."
"It's that face—" you stuttered in between tears. "It's been showing up like– fuck, I–"
"What face?" she didn't understand a single thing but kept you going nonetheless.
"The face that keeps on showing up—showing up in that scary continuous nightmare," your voice cracked midway as if choking. Historia then stopped clinging to you, shifted her gaze on every single corner of your face, and tried to find lies as if she's heard the most hilarious thing she could ever hear. When she realized you're not in the headspace to lie, her fear became more apparent. She might have wanted the thrill as she claims so, but not when she's reminded how miserable you're being with this whole premise.
"I–I don't think we could come back to class with your state." She muttered and tried composing herself despite being terrified. She grabbed her phone from her skirt pocket and looked like texting someone. She put it back immediately afterward, "Can you try taking deep breaths with me? After you stop crying, we'll go straight to the infirmary, okay?" and then tightly held your hand as she instructed you to breathe with her.
And that's the farthest thing you could remember at the very moment you were faced with a grim reminder that you can never run past your nightmares. Your life was all about it haunting you, and despite you running mindlessly from it, it still kept up. The realization was more than enough to knock you unconscious.