yep yep
I ship everything
everything except like, two ships
hehe
disclaimer: SnK isn't mine, because they took out all the good Armin scenes in ep. 25 man.
note 1: there are two types of anime - "I AM FREE" + proceeds to attack titan!Annie, and "I AM FREE" + jumps in a pool and dolphins awayyyy
Three Warriors
xxx. eyes .xxx
She doesn't know why, but it's as if someone pushes her shoulder, gives her a nudge, compels her to walk up beside Marlo and grab the other man's arm. She isn't afraid of the gun, pointing at her head. She looks up the length of its barrel like it isn't there.
And maybe that's why a flicker of fear crawls like maggots across the man's face, through his eyes, across every inch of face muscle until he's frozen solid with that expression, terrified to the core of this girl, she who stands more than a head shorter, smaller, weaker, but not.
He drops his stance.
His eyes are blue, like hers, but they are a warm blue, a comforting rush of ocean waves lapping serenely on the sandy shore. Hers are a harsh crash of torrents against rocky cliffs, cold crystals of petrified emotion.
But he babbles on nonetheless in his soft voice, his gentle tones that lilt when he becomes excited. He's got a slight accent to her ears, the way he pauses on his m's and doesn't exaggerate his vowels. His hair, like hers, is a light head of wheat, but his is more golden, more rich, thick like a squarely cut curtain. Everything of her own is cold, drained, not exactly faded, but frozen. He is the head of corn, perfect for harvest, vulnerable; she is the deadened blade of grass that is flattened to the ground, waiting for the time when no other may trample across it.
His laugh is nervous; he glances at her to see if she's listening.
She nods, and his eyes light up. He smiles, if only slightly, and it's one of the few times she sees him truly smile.
He smiles much more now, but it's more of a wan, tired expression. His brow furrows more often, his lips pursed, his cerulean eyes shifted to heavy, concentrated black as he sinks beneath the light of a gasping candle, flipping through a series of documents splotched with illegible ink scribbles. His hair is pulled back into a long tail, and it lays between his shoulder blades like a bundle of silken wheat; oddly, she yearns to reach out and touch it.
But she is immobile, a spectator, a statue.
He glances at her and speaks. It's the same quiet voice, the same soft lips, with his smooth, extended consonants and light, crisp syllables. There are only a few phrases he slurs, but there is one word that always comes from his mouth clearly: the moment he utters titan, it jolts her from her nonexistent sleep like a bolt of lightning.
"She looks peaceful," says the woman with the glasses. "Do you think she's dreaming?"
Yes, she often dreams. She dreams of grassy fields where she lies down, immersed in a sea of long green stalks billowing in tandem, Bertholdt's hand in her left and Reiner's hand in her right, arguing amiably over what kind of shape that cloud right above them is supposed to be making.
"She is," Armin says, touching his fingers to the crystal. "I'm sure."
But not always, she wants to say, but all she can do is watch as he turns, the edge of his long, dark cloak disappearing through the doorway.
Sometimes, there are faces she doesn't recognize. Sometimes, she wonders who has died and who has not. Once in a while, there is an angry face — a boy who cannot forgive her, yet cannot forgive himself either — or an impassive face — the man who accompanies the bespectacled woman, stoic with trained control — or a stolen face — the long nose and gray-green eyes of a boy, a man, hunched in a cloak, stealing precious minutes with her — and a forgetful face — he's got broad shoulders and an eternal crease between his brows, but he's always a warrior now — and she watches them all.
At one point, she thinks she sees Mina and Marco and Dazz and Thomas, and she thinks, this is it, this is where I end, and it's almost all right because the way Marco offers his hand is so comforting, so inviting, that she is tempted to take it and let him lead her through the gates of heaven, but does heaven exist? Because she has sinned against all that is mankind, but she has done right in all that she has known. Where does she go? Why is it that, upon looking into Marco's whole face, she feels complete and utter relief because he is not the bloodied half-corpse she found dying in the streets, wheezing his last breaths?
She stares at Marco, who says nothing for the longest time.
Why don't you take me? Why?
But it isn't Marco, it's Marlo, and he's staring at her with the saddest expression on his face, the most melancholy smile one could muster. Such an expression can't exist, she reasons; such a heart-wrenching, rueful smile.
He's tall, maybe as tall as Bertholdt. And he carries two rifles, one of which he slips off his shoulder and leans it against a chair before her. She recognizes the initials scribbled in scratchy ink: A.L. It's hers.
"I found this, one day."
Silence, of course.
"I wanted to say," he begins, but he never finishes, because he doesn't know what to say at all.
"Marlo, we're not supposed to be in here."
The battling emotions on Hitch's face, even after so many years, is evidently unhidden across her otherwise pretty features. Her hair is impractically long, but it's clasped loosely in a tie.
"Give me a minute. It's been a long time…"
"Marlo."
At that moment, Armin briskly brushes past Hitch and into the room, his footsteps piercingly loud. He ignores them, as if they're not there, save for the quick glance he throws at Marlo. The effect is not lost on anyone; and she knows, she knows, that those eyes aren't Armin's — those are her eyes, and her eyes only, because there is no way that a man so kindhearted can muster that kind of icy strength.
Maybe that's why a flicker of fear crawls like wildfire across Marlo's face, through his eyes, across every inch of his face until he's burnt through his that expression, terrified to the core of this man who has seen a world of everything and anything and complete nothingness all in one lifetime.
Marlo bows his head and ducks out the door, Hitch falling in stride with him.
That's not you.
"I think," Armin says, to the wall, to the chair, to the rifle labeled A.L., to no one in particular, "that you purposely taught us everything. Eren's fighting. Me. What do you think?" He turns to her then. "Am I right?"
No.
"You can't fool me, Annie."
When he walks up to her, he places a hand on the crystal and stares with those beautiful, deep eyes, and she sees that he is no different from her, no warmer, no colder, but just as pained. Eyes that have seen death and blackness and the true heart of this cruel world are beautiful.
But his are exceptionally so.
Stop waiting for me.
Armin smiles, picks up the rifle, examines it.
"I'll wait as long as it takes," he says, and he sits down in the plain wooden chair, the rifle pulled across his lap as if it is a storybook about to be opened, to be read until she falls asleep, perhaps for forever.
"Sometimes," Armin continues, running a thumb along the barrel of the weapon, "I wonder if they can hear you too."
She doesn't know. A chill runs through her, slowly, like molasses, because his eyes still hold the same hidden malice in them, and she isn't sure who she is speaking too.
"It's Armin," he reassures her, quietly. "It's always been Armin."
He glances at her, to see if she is listening. She doesn't move, but his eyes light up, and he is baby blue like the sky, like a bright jay swirling joyously through the air. And he smiles.
Eventually, he falls asleep in the chair, and she can't help but think he too is dreaming.
But, one of those blue, blue, blue eyes opens, and a sad smile pulls at his soft, round lips.
"Only sometimes," he says.
He closes his eyes.
/chapter
title was self-explanatory, no?
plus = future!Armin is fun to right
plus 2 = armin x annie is fun to write
gyahhhhh
should I watch Gintama
seems interesting