Who We Are Today

by LivianLynx

The battle for Shiganshina was won and the Survey Corps secured custody of the Colossal Titan. No one believed that they'd achieve peace with Marley's war machine by talking to the one enemy who could answer them but refused. No one but a single scout who'd believed in negotiation since the very beginning. (Canon divergent rewrite of AoT, Bertholdt survives Shiganshina)

14. Waves V: Midnight

Bitter cold bit his skin, hugging his body like a blanket which so thoroughly permeated his bones that he felt nothing else despite his thick layered coat and scarf. Even the fingers that pulled him up by the rail, bare because he'd forgotten his gloves at home, were losing all feeling despite having been inside this stairwell for only a minute.

His lungs burnt more harshly than they had in many months, legs carrying him into tunnel-vision-framed unknowns beyond his imagination. Something he didn't even know he wanted until it presented itself to him—and in a moment of recklessness, he had grasped it with both hands and wouldn't let go until he'd seen the fruits of his labour.

He'd make it. Never in his life had he felt more like he had to make it, heart ablaze and lungs so busy pumping air in and out of his body that it was a mystery he hadn't fainted and dropped down to his doom yet.

Not like he would let such a thing happen. Wasn't that right?

He glanced behind and was still followed. For once, he was winning this race. He didn't climb; he ran. Never before had he run, not like this, but he couldn't stop himself, he would see this through. And when he finally found himself standing in the light again—eyes cast down to marvel, for a very brief, very intimately personal moment—every bit of pain he felt in his muscles from such a jarring climb left him. He and that sight below were the only things that existed anymore.

His journey was punished with cool, deafening winds that rudely interrupted his endless daze. It was freezing cold up here, even worse than the tower's open stairwell, but that didn't matter.

He gave in to the urge to look behind him, catching a glimpse of his companion slumped against the wall as he stood clutching the book and shaking his cowering head, and there was humour in his heart when the existential dread of revisiting such a view of a Paradis city struck him as a poor country boy being afraid of such heights and he pulled him over to the balustrade to find his courage and adjust to the many sights.

To the hundreds, thousands of houses below, many of which could be next in line to be crushed by flying boulders.

To the citizens of Ehrmich scattered about the pavement as insignificantly as ants whose lives will have come to an end when this cursed incursion has come to an end.

To Wall Sina (heart skips a beat) filled to the brim with millions of titans created to destroy the world.

To those snaking roads and farmhouses and fields and forests that will fall into disrepair and slowly be reclaimed by nature once their aeon has passed.

And he could see him clutch harder, breathe faster—while all he could do was laugh, the grip on his wrist so tight that he couldn't possibly tumble down over the edge of the tower and plummet to his death, and they stood there, one wrist in the other's hand, as they adapted.

I don't think I have to ask you if you've ever been this high up?

Once.

Was it a bad experience?

You could say.

We're at the centre of the universe! In the middle of it all stands this huge structure that can't be missed. Just look up at the sky and you see it, even far outside the city.

(What if even the sky evades his grasp?)

You can always come back here and figure out where your destination's at.

(To lay here and die.)

(To stay by your side.)

If this is the place they'll never look, doesn't that make us the ones who have gotten lost?

We know we're here. Isn't that enough? We're not lost, we're just hiding.

(Alone?)

(Together.)

(Like one.)

If either of us do end up lost, this tower should still be here, where no one else will think to look.

A landmark. The anchor people use every day to get around. The pillar that will always help you on the right path again, no matter how lost you get in the maze down below. One of the silent guardians that protects.

(Gone. Hidden. Never to be again.)

Can he ever find his way back?

(No. Your time has passed.)

And yet, when that proposal is made, for the first time in what could be forever, something flickers in his heart, tiny and vulnerable, but it is there. He can feel it. He wants to keep it forever and cherish it like it is the last flame in the world.

So he hums. Seals his fate. Agrees, for once, that perhaps it's not all idle idealism.

And maybe it's not a direct promise, but he doesn't think that he could ever forget.

---

16

A knock on his door pulled him out of his dreams.

Without waiting for permission, Eren entered, leaving the door ajar as a hint that he wouldn't stay.

Adorned in his long Survey Corps coat with his awarded teal tie on display, the only feature that stood out from his neat appearance was the messy hair he'd been growing out, similar to the length Armin had had for most of his life but so different when it was Eren who sported the look. Freer, wilder. Actually handsome.

"Hey," he said, lingering by the door. He kept his eyes pinned outside the window.

"Hi," Armin responded.

"You should come with us."

Armin uncrossed his arms that lay over his chest, turning his exhale into a soft laugh.

"I'm zonked out. Couldn't get me to go in a straight line if I tried."

He propped his torso up by his elbows to get a better view of Eren.

"Even if I could, all that noise would just give me a headache and make me sick. Don't mind me. I'll be fine here, really. I was just planning on sleeping, anyway."

Eren simply nodded, accepting.

"See you in a bit, then."

"See you, enjoy the ceremony," Armin wished him with a shaky wave before he let himself fall into bed again and Eren left, closing the door before his footsteps removed themselves from Armin's room.

At least he hadn't come to ask if he needed anything, as the others kept doing. The old Eren may have, but this newer, more confident and controlled Eren? He knew Armin could take care of himself. At least, he assumed so. It wasn't like he would confirm things.

His hands went for his face, wiping away the sweat and clamping over his eyes as he ground his teeth together. He looked to his side, to his nightstand, where a bottle of melactin and a syringe box stood.

One injection in the morning and one in the evening to make the pain bearable again and speed up his recovery. A painkiller scheme like this would make his afternoons the most unbearable, but his noon injection had been scrapped in an effort to build down his usage until he could be weaned off the stuff and learn to deal with his pain the natural way again.

Wasn't that just the most brilliant system? He got to enjoy the edge being taken off, they got to have a test subject to work out the details of how to best administer a new medicine developed less than a year ago. Everyone won.

The intense nausea and disorientation he'd experience after an injection raised questions about the stability of this new agent, but he did not tell them about the damage it wreaked on his weakened body.

It was futile to hope that the poison they injected into his veins could ever hope to cure him.

He groaned, gnashing his teeth as the pressure on his wrists increased over his skull. A ceremony would be a great distraction right now, but he didn't feel like doing anything. A week in the infirmary while the others were out hadn't incentivised him to go out, and neither had the availability of crutches and a wheelchair once he'd been cleared to come back to the headquarters. He hadn't gone to their military training graduation's first anniversary either.

An endless blue sky on a blistering hot day would only remind him of what it was that he would be missing out on. All he wanted was to lay in bed and do nothing but wallow in his misery.

His arms gave out from exerting so much pressure and he dropped them on the bedsheets instead. Trost wasn't so wheelchair accessible anyway. Flights of stone stairs everywhere, if the terrain were even enough to reliably move around. Crutches were always an option, but he didn't want to be seen and pitied by those who saw his leg. Rolling through the mess room or hopping through the halls would only be pointlessly exhausting.

Still, with a great deal of effort, he sat up, eyes on that bottle of melactin again. Opaque glass covered in a label that prescribed his daily allowed dosage and how much he should administer every injection based on his weight.

Carefully and with a wince, he let his feet hit the floor. Grabbing the bottle, he swigged around its contents. This bottle should almost be empty by now. People might get suspicious.

He reached over for his backpack, then dug around in it until he found a bundled-up cloth inside. The weight implied it was empty. He unwrapped it, revealing a translucent bottle. Lucky draw.

Placing it on his nightstand, he unscrewed the lid, opened his melactin bottle, and carefully poured the contents from one into the other, leaving a few drops behind in the opaque bottle to give a sense of excess that didn't add up to a proper dose. Closing both bottles, he wrapped the newly-filled transparent one back into its cloth and stuffed it between the towels in his backpack, then finished the whole operation by grabbing a new bottle of melactin from his drawer and leaving it next to the empty one, where concerned parties would surely notice it.

With less care than he should've given it, he lifted his legs back into bed and turned, letting himself fall against his pillows as he worked on subduing the sharp throb in his ankle.

An idiot so useless he sabotaged his own dreams deserved to feel the full brunt of his pain.

---

They acted without him in mind, as they should.

They restrained their enthusiasm when Armin was around, but it was hard to hide the sheer excitement that came with being the first humans of the Walls in a hundred years who would go see the outside world. They had worked hard to earn it, after all. They weren't useless. They contributed to the Survey Corps in a meaningful way. They didn't overexert themselves to the point of repeated injury that could eventually lead to disability just to prove their worth.

And yet, whenever Armin caught a glimpse of one of them as they were unable to subdue a proud smile, a triumphant word of victory, even a happy little twist accompanying their movements, he had to fight with everything he had not to spit venom. This wasn't their dream, they hadn't spent years fantasising about finally making it—they only were excited because they got to do something fun and set a precedent, not because it meant anything to them.

Not the way it meant the world to him.

Jealous, entitled brat.

At least despite not being fully mobile quite yet, they let him stay at the Survey Corps headquarters for the duration of their expedition instead of making him sleep in the back-breaking cots of the military infirmary as they did last time. A gesture of consolatory compensation. Like this, no well-meaning nurses could inject him in his sleep and lead to him waking up drowsy hours later in a confused haze about what had happened, twice as sensitive to the pain after having been relieved of it against his will.

Still, he preferred that ordeal over having to stand around and pretend he was nothing but happy for his friends as they were the first soldiers to ride through the new Trost city gate, unveiled the day before at the ceremony to celebrate the Survey Corps declaring the south of Wall Maria completely titan-free and sending the first forward party back to Shiganshina alongside a group of resettlers. He was happy for them. Of course he was.

Jean and Mikasa were the only two people who hadn't at some point along the preparations by the gate been snatched away. Eren had been there too, but he got borrowed a few minutes ago, likely once again courtesy of being the Attack Titan, leaving just the three of them overlooking the rest of the Survey Corps as the newer members went over their stocks—rations, water, spare gear and clothes, tents, fuel, and horse feed; but also blades, guns, ropes, and shackles—one last time before they were headed south on an expedition for the history books. The local merchants had freely offered the Survey Corps all the goods they needed to make their journey. Flegel Reeves had personally insisted on it and he was making sure that his bombastic appearance at the sendoff would be in the papers.

Armin had been too overwhelmed by his aching ankle to come up with a good excuse to stay in bed and miss waving off his friends and colleagues for what might be the last time. He already regretted coming when Floch wore a bitter scowl that had a clear message: thanks for nothing, you waste of air, it's what you deserve.

"So… This is it, huh?" Jean asked.

"This is it," Armin responded, not much life to be found in his voice.

"Hmm…"

Jean placed his hands on his hips, overlooking the working scouts by the carts. Any happiness Jean may have felt was well-concealed by that sour frown he carried on his face.

"I'm sorry that Hange said no."

"Doesn't matter. I'll go next time."

To that, Jean nodded understandingly.

"So… You know, should they get us–"

"They won't get us," Mikasa interrupted Jean before he could say something that would cause Armin to lose his cool, causing both boys to be caught by surprise by her unusual forwardness. Her dark eyes remained pinned on the other scouts, though they seemed not to be following anyone in particular.

"We're not leaving you behind for good, Armin. We'll come back for you."

Armin leaned his weight onto his other crutch, peering down at the dirt as he weakly nodded.

Jean swung an arm over Armin's shoulders, a cocky smile on his face.

"Of course we ain't leaving you behind, buddy! What kind of friends would we be if we did, huh? We'll bring back people who can tell you so many interesting stories that even you will get a headache. You just wait."

He poked a finger against Armin's pec a few times to go with his encouragement. The only reason Armin didn't pull loose was his limited mobility, but he couldn't subdue the bashful smile that tugged at the corners of his lips. If nothing else, the attempts at cheering him up managed to break through the ugly resentment that Hange wouldn't put the mission on halt or let him come along in the back of a cart.

Too dangerous.

Because he apparently wasn't worthy of dying alongside his comrades. As if they hadn't collectively decided to let Erwin come along on a horseback-riding-and-3DMG-intensive mission with one of his arms severed. As if the zero casualty rate of their most recent six expeditions didn't more than prove that they– that he had devised the perfect strategy to make every mission a non-combat mission.

The thanks he got for his service.

Not that Armin's absence would lose them nearly as much as Erwin's did. He had more than proven that he deserved to be rotting in the soil of Shiganshina alongside the hundreds of other scouts who lost their lives there. Someone else deserved his luck more than he ever did. Someone who didn't count himself so important that in a moment of weakness, he'd prop himself up on a pedestal so high that his failures became tiny specks.

One would develop a grudge against him for less.

As if on cue, Hange appeared in the corner of his eyes, approaching their little group with a chipper smile.

"How we doing here? All set?" they asked, ignoring Armin's presence.

"All set," Jean answered, letting go of Armin at once.

They clapped their hands together. "Great! You too, Armin?"

"I know what to do," Armin dutifully responded.

Hange nodded his way, a confident smile on their face.

"Glad to hear. I know you wanted to come along, but here, you can play a role we otherwise would've missed. Should anything go wrong, working with Historia will be key. We'll have an emergency courier on standby at any moment, so regardless of what happens, you'll remain informed. The 31st of August is our reference date. Clear?"

"Clear."

"Great. Jean, Mikasa, you should prepare for departure. I'm doing a final check-up and then we're off," they said, already on their way again halfway through their sentence.

Neither responded, knowing it to be futile when it came to the Commander. They stopped listening when they'd turned heel and their chipperness was weighing on Armin's mood. He didn't know what to think of them yet. A month or two alone should be enough time to work out his feelings on the matter.

Mikasa was the first to act, pulling Armin into a hug, her hands pressed tightly against his back as she was thinking about more than she let on through her words. She didn't break the hug until Armin had to skip on one leg to reposition himself, balance lost thanks to the one arm he'd moved up to hug Mikasa back.

"Take good care of yourself, Armin. Take your medicine and rest plenty. Okay?"

"I will," Armin softly responded to her worried tone.

She smiled back at him. Behind them, the others came his way, but he was prevented from sinking in on himself over the attention when Jean laid a hand on Armin's shoulder, patting him a few times.

"Hey, I expect you back in perfect shape when we come back. We gotta get that ankle back on track. We'll go on plenty of runs and get you back into a saddle in no time, 'kay?"

"As soon as a doctor allows me to exercise again, I will, Jean. This isn't the first time I've had to revalidate," Armin reassured him, earning him a flustered nod from Jean at the obvious.

Eren, Connie, and Sasha reached their group and Armin instinctively held onto his crutches with more force.

"Hey, we're here to say bye," Connie said, finding his way around the group to snake his way between him and Jean instead. "So… See you later, Armin?" he repeated himself with a hard pat on Armin's back.

"We'll think of you!" Sasha excitedly said as she kept her distance, mindful of Armin's decreased stability.

"Thanks, you two," Armin responded, a light flush heating his cheeks, as if he weren't already hot enough from the unbearable summer temperatures.

Jean, Connie, and Sasha took their leave after a final goodbye, off to wherever they were assigned and leaving Armin alone with Eren and Mikasa.

Eren simply stood around, not sure what to do, if it was that at all. Armin had given up trying to figure him out. He looked like he believed that there was nothing he should be doing, and Armin wasn't sure which one of them would be the one to break through this awkwardness. Honestly, Armin could do without another goodbye like it was the last time he'd see them.

Like he deserved the comfort of a goodbye if things went wrong. Should negotiations fail with the outsiders they'd meet out there, then it'd all be Armin's responsibility. He'd destroyed their only bridge to the outside world and as such gave them no leads on what to say or do to maximise their chance of success. All they had was a hand gesture that apparently meant they wanted peace, but that barely meant anything in the grand scheme of things. No amount of goodwill from their side was going to stop the bloodthirsty from killing them.

Was that something Eren and Mikasa had considered too? How much danger Armin's failure had led to, only for him to get injured and not have to face any of said danger himself? Did they regret fighting for him?

They'd probably reassure him that it wasn't his fault at all. If they were willing to go so far for him in Shiganshina as to destroy the life-giving titan serum if Armin couldn't have it, then they wouldn't have any issues defending him from his own stupidity now.

They hadn't even spoken about Eren's lie about going to visit Bertholdt. Like it had never happened. Like he didn't care that Armin accused him in such an underhanded manner.

Armin was pulled out of his thoughts when he realised that Mikasa was looking between him and Eren with worry over their mutual zoning out.

He smiled.

"Hey. I always knew that you'd see the ocean for me, Eren."

Eren tilted his head up, but his eyes lingered before they followed and connected with Armin's. Then, he nodded, though that forlorn look on his face wasn't replaced by the confident smile that Armin had expected from him in this situation.

Instead, he opened his arms and neared, drawing Armin into what could be the gentlest hug they'd ever shared, his chin resting upon Armin's shoulder as that familiar smell of his hair brushed with Armin's nose.

It should've lasted forever, but it couldn't. Hange was shouting in the distance about how they should get a move on and Eren disconnected again, keeping his hands on Armin's shoulders as Armin regained his balance against his crutches.

"We'll be back really soon, Armin," Eren said. "Wait for us here."

"I'm not going anywhere like this," Armin softly laughed, to which Eren only nodded. Mikasa joined her hand over Eren's and they both exchanged a last few caring glances before both of them let go and they went after the others, waving behind them.

They were leaving without Armin to see the ocean and without Bertholdt to show that Paradis was a benevolent, forgiving nation—rendering both useless.

Hange went on to give some grandiose speech about setting an unseen precedent for humanity that Armin entirely tuned out of. The pain in his ankle was crushing him, and now that everyone who could viably distract him from it had left, it only increased in magnitude. At the end of their speech, they asked the people to dedicate their hearts with an ancient salute.

A languid hand rose from his crutch to bump against his shattered heart, but halfway there, he lost the will to complete the salute.

---

Throwing his crutches aside in a place that would definitely cause him trouble when he needed them again later, Armin sat back down in bed. On top of his ankle's outburst, the gathering and all the excited shouting from Trost's citizens had given him a bursting headache and he couldn't be back at the headquarters soon enough.

He took off his coat and scooted aside, lingering by its pocket as he went to pick it up and throw it on the floor to clear the bed. For a few moments, nothing. Then, his hand slid inside and grabbed the card that he'd neglected to return to Jean thanks to his injury.

A tower framed by a dark night sky as lightning struck it and people jumped out of its windows, engulfed by flames. Across its length ran a line where the card had been folded in half by his fall.

Ominous, if nothing else. The card itself couldn't have possibly had an effect on what had happened, but it did distract him enough to ignore the terrain and lose sight of a bump he knew was there. Armin was unfortunate enough on his own, he didn't need to be cursed. Most people would have designated it their unlucky item after that, but Armin held too much respect for Jean's possessions to toss it into the hearth.

So instead, he placed it aside on his nightstand and curled up beneath the sheets as much as his ankle's cast allowed him to, to forget about everything that was going on in his life right now.

---

By Sunday morning, the heat that had persisted for a whole month was finally getting to Armin's head, and so he decided to go out into the city's morning shade side in the west and enjoy things when they hadn't been touched by the sun's inexhaustible rays yet. The nights were still moderate, leaving the mornings with a cool undertone that would vanish a few hours after sunrise, and Armin wanted to make use of it.

He needed to see other people, even strangers, if he didn't want to explode.

Swinging through the city step by step supported by his crutches made it abundantly clear how out of shape he had become from just two weeks of lying in bed. He had to catch his breath from taking the stairs up and down to the elite's living quarters, but Trost's morning shadow zone had a constant verticality that was even worse than one burst. This was what all of his work had amounted to.

Not that it mattered, he realised as he came to a halt to lean against a building and catch his breath. One of the side effects of accepting his true nature was that it felt permitted to stop trying. Stop reaching out to people, stop keeping in shape, stop trying to gain knowledge at any possible avenue, stop caring about Bertholdt, stop worrying about Erwin's legacy that had died with his actions, stop worrying about all the stupid things going on in the world—and just let himself exist.

Maybe, somehow, he had become the freest person in the world: an ignorant one blind to the needs of his fellow man.

Hah. What a farce to even think it.

And yet, he couldn't shame himself into caring. Not anymore.

He decided to queue for a nearby bakery stand to grab himself something tasty to snack on if he was going to indulge today anyway. Getting a little chubby was better than bony. Who knew how long this good mood of his would last before he once again started denying himself things? Trost may not have those locally-produced éclairs he'd developed a taste for, but its selection of sugary baked goods was still exquisite enough to sate Armin's sweet tooth.

As he stood waiting for his pastry, a tap on his back, at the bottom of his ribs, pulled him out of his thoughts and he looked behind to find a young boy standing there, retracting his hand again.

Armin looked down at the boy expectantly, and as the boy's eyes darted down, it confirmed why.

"What happened to you?" he asked, eyes wide. A group of equally small children stood farther back, but they were clearly part of the same group, staring at the two of them after having sent over a messenger.

Armin gently smiled at the boy. "I've been in an unfortunate accident. You see, I am with the Survey Corps. Things don't always go smoothly there."

The boy's eyes widened, sparkling. "Whoa, really? That's so cool!" he exclaimed, turning around and pointing at Armin while he addressed his friends. "They burned him in the Survey Corps!"

Armin froze.

Despite his skin having paled significantly since the Battle for Shiganshina, he still bore his telltale scars, and despite his distracting cast, they shaped a significant part of his appearance. With everything that had happened, he was so used to seeing them that he stopped feeling bad about them.

"Well… It's not them who burnt me, I got those from fighting the Colossal Titan up close," he clarified.

"Whoa…" the boy simply gasped in amazement.

In the background, he saw one of the children running a finger from the side of her mouth down to her chin in a similar pattern of where Armin's most visible scar ran, sticking out her tongue and making a contorted face along with the gesture while her friends laughed at the mockery.

Armin's fingers tightened over the grips of his crutches. He was down to feeling threatened by young children.

He turned around again, his resolve not to be bitter at children forgotten, but the boy behind him spoke up again.

"Don't listen to them, I think that's pretty brave," he comforted Armin. "I want to fight titans too in a couple of years, when I'm old enough."

Armin bowed his head forward, then turned halfway around again, ignoring the children that were hopping around on one leg behind him.

"That's a noble cause. But humanity is lucky: the titans have all gone extinct not so long ago thanks to our hard work. If you still feel motivated when the time comes around, how about you join our ranks to maintain peace with the outside world?"

He gave the boy a careful smile to feign confident encouragement, and the boy's eyes sparkled.

"I will, thanks!" he said before he decided he'd stood around a Survey Corps member long enough and retreated towards his friends, who hollered and jeered at him for engaging so positively with a crippled soldier.

His purchased pastry didn't quite bring him the joy he had hoped for.

---

17

For the fourth time that day, he had once again found his way to bed, staring at a blank ceiling as he tried to suppress the heat—the itch it caused within his scars, the layer of sweat that soaked his clothes, and the burning ache of his ankle, swollen to an uncomfortable size that disagreed with his tight cast.

Everything was taunting him these days. The outside wasn't working for him. He'd always be laughed at and stared at for looking and acting differently from everybody else. The inside was boiling him alive and boring him out of his mind, yet its many books and documents could not pull his attention away from doing the same nothing day in, day out.

The children hadn't been the only ones. Plenty of people had stared at him while he sat down to eat and made his way around Trost's streets for his morning exercise, emphasising that he looked just as broken as he felt and his only sanctuary was his bedroom.

What he would give to have instantaneous healing. Complete loss of privacy. The remainder of his lifespan beyond those thirteen years. The inability to solve conflict without violence. The right to stand on the sidelines and watch as his incompetence devoured him. The risk of endless pain.

Paradis had two shifters that would need to go somewhere sooner or later.

Like his track record put him even close to being considered for such an important honour. If they found serum at all, the Attack Titan and the Colossal Titan would go elsewhere, even if he had Eren or Hange's backing to receive one of them. The flames that adorned his skin, the ridges that would heal into his bones, the strain of recovery—they would stay with him until they returned him to the earth.

Unless he found a way to wrestle one of them into his possession to do with as he pleased.

Unlikely. Erratic like that, he'd go to the next candidate the moment they got him. It'd be a life of living as an outlaw, stuffed away in the seedy crevices of society and always on the run. It'd be no living.

He had no choice but to learn how to deal with his body's new shape. What good would defeatism do him now?

More than he had in the past two weeks combined did he feel like he had to get out of there, show the world that he wouldn't let himself get boxed in, even if that's exactly what he was. The sky's the limit, his only hurdles were the things he couldn't make his mind overcome.

Pesky offence nibbled at his temper. He really shouldn't let himself be reduced to nothing, lying around waiting to die or be rescued by his friends when they finally returned.

Pushing himself off the bed, he grabbed his crutches and made his way towards the supply room, finding himself a large expedition backpack before returning to his room and packing enough clothes to last him a little while. Before leaving, he eyed his usual backpack, then grabbed his switched-out medicine bottles and the journal he hadn't written in for weeks and packed them as well, just in case he found inspiration or he decided that his pain needed tending after all.

Dressed in his non-combat Survey Corps uniform, he left behind a note at the reception stating his absence before leaving. They'd understand.

---

There was no point in sparing expenses. The carriage he'd chosen to transport him went smoothly as it travelled across the rougher roads of Wall Rose's inner plains. Its open plan allowed for the wind to sift through the cabin without trapping the sun's unforgiving heat on the roof inside.

By the evening, they finally rolled through the inner gate of Stohess, where the coachman dropped him off and wished him a pleasant stay in Wall Sina.

A Tuesday evening meant that he wouldn't find Hitch anywhere near the position he knew she'd certainly be posted at. That meant that tomorrow, she would work a full day guarding Annie's crystal. As much as he wanted to go visit her on the job, that cavern only worked him up into a frustrated frenzy. He wanted to vent in peace over food and a drink.

So instead, he spent the next day crutching around the city in civilian clothes and taking advantage of the richer city's distribution to spend a few hours sitting in a park, observing the locals and the animals that called it their home to find his peace and come up with something to tell Hitch without coming across as too pathetic.

Knowing her, she would see through him immediately, anyway.

When Hitch emerged from the door to the underground tunnels a few minutes late, yawning and stretching, she walked straight past him.

"Hey, Hitch, wait," Armin said as he pushed himself loose from the wall, leaning his weight onto his crutches again.

Hitch's shoulders jolted and her figure crumpled at the unexpected greeting, laying a hand on her heart.

"Armin, fuck. Didya have to sneak up on me like that?" she asked as she hunched forward, her wide-eyed expression quickly replaced with an amicable one, and he put up a hand placatingly.

"I couldn't let you get away from me, Hitch. I can't exactly make chase in this state," Armin answered, gripping his crutches again.

Hitch whistled as she looked down at Armin's lifted leg.

"Was gonna ask you if the papers are wrong about the Survey Corps travelling beyond the walls, but those answer my questions," she said as she pointed at Armin's crutches, padding closer to touch his left's wood. "How in the world did this happen?"

"Training accident. Just my luck, huh?"

"Oh, you clumsy boy. I'm sensing an attraction to hospitals here, Armin. Did you develop a taste for them painkillers they hand out every time you get yourself hurt, or are the doctors and nurses just that hot in Trost? Should I break a leg too?"

"No, no," Armin laughed at her usual assumptions. "Nothing like that, and I use my pain medication responsibly, thank you very much."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. What did you do, anyway? Tore your ligaments? Broke a bone?"

"Broken ankle," Armin responded, sticking out his right leg, subduing the slight grimace the action caused in him. "My hands slipped while I was maneuvering."

Hitch leaned over to examine the limb, though nothing could be seen through the cast.

"Ouch."

"Mhm."

"And look at that," she changed the topic, brushing her fingers against his hair, eyeing his new ponytail style he'd been wearing more frequently to combat this unbearable heat. "You've changed it up quite a bit."

"Heh, it's only a hair tie, really."

"And it makes you look really cute," Hitch admitted. "So," she said before he could respond offendedly, "what're you here for? Off to go ask Annie the meaning of life again?"

"No. If I wanted to talk to a wall, I'd just stay in the headquarters," Armin bitterly answered.

"Ohhhh," Hitch chanted, "I get it. Your pals are out of town and you need company. So you came to see your good old pal Hitch, eh?" she said, elbowing him in the shoulder with a wink.

"Well, I– They'll be gone for a few months," Armin said as he fixed his hair. "I'm going insane back at our headquarters, but it's not like I have a family to go back home to for the duration of their expedition. I enjoyed our previous evenings out, so…"

Be with me. Save me from loneliness. Please don't assume that I am flirting with you whenever I do these things, or with anyone, for that matter.

He didn't complete that sentence on purpose. Hitch could fill it in herself.

"So 'please pay me dinner and an evening in town again, goddess Hitch.' Yeah, yeah, I get it. Sounds fun, it's been a boring couple of weeks. It's finally hot out but no one's in the mood to go do anything. How about you gimme a moment to go shower and get ready for the evening?"

"Oh, right, you did just spend a whole day underground," Armin sheepishly answered.

"You know my work schedule?" Hitch asked, surprised.

"You told me once. Mornings on Mondays and Thursdays, full days on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Right?"

"And you remembered. Impressive," Hitch said with a cocky smile.

"Remembering details no one else does is sort of my thing."

"Alright, braggart, let's move it along," Hitch answered with a comedic note under her voice, beckoning him as she stepped aside to give him the space to move.

So he did, ignoring the comment about his humility.

---

It took Hitch an hour to meet up with Armin again in the lounge where she'd left him behind, making him really regret not taking along his journal now that he had the motivation to work on it again. Travelling cleared the fog in his mind and he could spend the whole evening writing down his poems and the scenes that floated through his head.

They may have only exchanged a few words, but the friendly conversation already cheered up Armin immensely and formed a proper hook to pull him out of his period of inaction.

"I'm really craving this one," Hitch said as she stopped in front of a busy tavern located in the part that looked more shoddy and outdated than the rest of the district that she had taken him to. "It's cheap and homely and their portions are amazing. Reminds me of mom's cooking."

"Whatever you choose is fine," Armin concurred. Hitch took that as her cue to open the door and hold it for Armin, gesturing for him to go first.

The noise and busyness of the crowd didn't sit all too well with Armin at first despite Hitch having found them a quieter corner to sit down in, but once the food and drinks were served, he quickly changed his mind. Hitch was certainly right: despite being two walls removed from Shiganshina, the cooking had something to it that he hadn't tasted in years. Fresh ingredients prepared for single portions rather than stews and soups cooked for hundreds of soldiers perhaps did the trick.

One of the perks of these less classy establishments was that there was much less of a hamper on how freely the drinks flowed. By the time they were both done with their dinner and snacking on a crisp potato treat, Armin was on his third mug and Hitch on her fourth, and it was then that the alcohol finally lowered her standards and she descended into her inevitably prying.

"How's that boyfriend of yours? You're still seeing him, right?" she asked, uninhibited.

Armin wasn't quite drunk enough yet to miss the weight of that question, but it took him a few moments for the mortification to dawn on him.

"My… boyfriend?" was all he could get out, the red already creeping into his face.

"Yeah, the tall jerk," Hitch specified as she waved around her hand. "You know? The guy you're seeing? Can't shut up about him."

The heat of all those folks in the tavern didn't matter for a moment; Armin got doused in ice.

"You think I'm dating Jean?" he said as he leaned closer to keep this between them. How could she have possibly caught onto what they had done—which was not even something done out of romantic interest, but out of pragmatic manipulation?

"What? No, not that jerk. The other one, in the mines. That Colossal Titan guy."

All colour drained from his face in an instant. "You think I'm dating Bertholdt!?" he blurted out louder, bowing his face forward to hide himself.

"Aren't you?" Hitch loosely asked, swigging around the contents of her half-empty mug with the utmost interest in her eyes.

"Hitch, you can't openly talk about him!" Armin placated, whispering. "And I'm not like that. Even if I was… That's our prisoner? He can barely even look at me without conveying that he wants to rip me apart, how could we possibly even be dating?"

"Yeah, bet you'd love it if he ripped you apart," Hitch lightly jested, a pestering smile tugging at her lips as she looked off to the side.

"Hitch!"

She turned up her hands defensively. "Hey, what? You were bringing him sugary little pastries, what was I supposed to make of that?"

"That I was buying his loyalty with nice food?" Armin said with a wild gesture, which only got Hitch's smirk to deepen. "Hitch, it's absolutely not like that! Why are you so insistent that everything I do is about finding love? You say it about Annie, you say it about yourself, now you're saying it about Jean and Bertholdt, but it isn't that way. Really, it isn't," he harshly defended, keeping his eyes pinned on Hitch's to convince her of his earnestness.

When she wasn't faltering, staring straight into his soul, in a moment of weakness, he grabbed his mug and took a swig from his cheap wine. Smooth save, he commended himself for his smart move.

It had gone on for long enough that he finally wanted to put an end to these rumours she was making up about him. He was doing his job, nothing more, and everything else she assumed flowed forth from that. It wasn't his fault that a double meaning could be read in all his actions. Caring had that as its side effect.

Did he really come across as someone who fell for men? He needed to work on how mature he came across if that were the case.

"Okay, wow, struck a nerve there. I misread the situation. Question still stands, though."

"What about Bertholdt?"

"Mhm."

Armin looked up at her, still hunched over the table in shame. The colour was returning to his face, but the question wasn't making things better.

He was there to vent anyway.

"I quit."

"Wha–?" came bewildered.

"I quit," Armin repeated, deadpan.

"Book club didn't work out?"

"No. It did not." He looked down at the table again, crossing his arms across the edge. "It was pointless. All of it, not just the book. He didn't want me there, I didn't want to be there, and he's been denying the things I give him more and more often lately. I was helping no one. And… And honestly…"

He stopped. Someone had to know. Someone who was not a stack of papers bundled into a journal had to listen to his grievances and tell him what that made him. He was so tired of keeping things to himself without letting anyone in.

Hitch was safe. She'd been safe from the start. She would put him in his place, maybe, but she would look for ways for him to feel better even if she'd be brutally honest about his failures.

"Honestly, I'm nothing but an imposter," he confessed. "I didn't even want to make him feel better anymore when I quit. I just wanted it to be over with, but then I broke my leg and lost my one chance at an escape that would let me make peace with leaving him, and now that everyone has left me behind, I feel like such a worthless mistake."

He threw out his hand in buzzed frustration to accompany his last words, uninhibited to throw his full misery out in the open there for Hitch to judge. So far, she sat there in silence, the jolliness knocked off of her face by the sudden turn for the worse.

"What is the point, anyway?" he said as he crossed his arms over the table again, slouching. "He hates me and I hate him, and I can't even be arsed to help him when they're treating him like dirt and torturing him and starving him. And all I'm doing is feeling sorry for myself? What's wrong with me? I'm not even taking my medicine. I deserve everything that's coming for me, honestly, and yet I'm not doing anything about anything."

He slumped through his arms, dropping his forehead down onto his crossed arms and sighing out a frustrated half-groan. "I'm failing everyone who relies on me. I should've died like everyone else in Shiganshina. Someone else would've done better."

Only the background noise of the cheerful crowd singing a drunken song together could be heard for a while. Then, a hand perched on each shoulder and pushed against him, urging him to get up.

"Hey… Hey," Hitch cooed, and Armin expected something incredibly patronising to follow by the tone of that voice. "Will ya stop talking like that? You're boring me with your repetition and I might actually start believing you're a worthless mistake if that's what's sitting in front of me."

The sheer unexpectedness of Hitch's response made Armin freeze, slowly craning his neck to let her put him upright again and staring at her serious face.

He said nothing. She didn't give him much time to respond, anyway.

"C'mon now… You're no mistake. What happened to make you feel that way?"

Didn't he just explain?

Hitch evidently didn't think his personal failures were a reason to feel bad. She didn't understand a thing. He should have stopped, but once he got started, he couldn't.

"I gave up, Hitch. What could you possibly not get about that? It couldn't be clearer if I tried," he answered with more of his venom leaking into his words than he cared for.

"You can't stop taking meds just for that. How much pain are you in right now?"

"It's nothing I can't take," Armin sighed. "I don't want to grow dependent, anyway."

"Okay. Back up, then, if you're gonna dodge me. So you left him? Completely? Nothing else you're doing for him?"

Armin shook his head. "Someone else was going to take over for me, and he'd maybe ask some other people to take over sometimes, but I'm done."

Hitch rolled her eyes, letting go of Armin's shoulders when it looked like he wouldn't crumple again. "Then just say so, yeesh. What's the issue? You wanna do it? Does it really matter that it's you who helps him if it can just as easily be someone else who does that stuff you do for him?"

"Um… I–"

"Did you ask him everything you wanted to talk about? Was it everything you hoped for? Did you get your answers?"

"No," Armin's resolute answer came, and immediately, Hitch's face twisted into something unpleasant.

"No?" she asked. "Are you serious? Do you know what I'd do for a chance to talk to Annie the way you can to Bertholdt? I wouldn't throw it out and walk out, y'know."

"He wouldn't let me, what was I supposed to do when they couldn't even torture these things out of him?" Armin whined when she stared at him with annoyance.

"Well, I haven't given up," Hitch hummed over her mug before taking a swig and crudely wiping her mouth with her sleeve. "Y'know how often I've told her to talk to me? Every day. Haven't stopped since the day I learned where she was. The least you can do is appreciate the fact that your guy ain't trapped in an impenetrable crystal."

But he might as well be, and the fact that Hitch didn't understand showed that she hadn't been listening nearly as much as he'd hoped. He could cry about it.

"Hey… Heeeeeey," Hitch cooed, placing down her mug and bending deep over the table to look up at him from below, extending a hand that couldn't reach his face. "What're y'crying for, then?"

Armin didn't bother to touch his cheeks to verify her claim. He knew what alcohol did to him. He simply looked away, sniffling as he pushed out his lower jaw and pouted.

"C'mon, I wasn't that harsh," Hitch said, pushing herself so far over the table that her torso lay flat over it and her hand touched Armin's shoulder, and strangely, it helped.

He swallowed, wiping his nose. "Do you really think that I didn't know what I was doing by giving up? I tried everything, but he's… just, impenetrable. He lets no one in. He doesn't need a crystal to be beyond my reach. Why is it my fault that he behaves like this?"

"Who's going to see him right now?"

"Jean."

"So, your other tall jerk friend. Looks like he's getting the chance to get his closure instead of you, but if that's evidently what y'want… What's the problem again?"

Hitch blinked a few times at her own words, unaware of how what she'd said had struck a nerve with Armin.

"But Jean's not here," he protested. "Didn't you listen to me at all? He's at the ocean with the others, which means that for the next months, Bertholdt isn't getting food or clean clothes."

"What are you supposed to do in a dangerous mine with that bum leg, anyway? That's asking to get hurt again."

"No, no," Armin whined, annoyedly tapping his fingers on the table. "It's really not so hard to get. Even if that leg were perfectly fine, I know I wouldn't have visited him again. I don't want to go anymore, even if I'm all he's got."

"Okay. Wow. Kinda a dick move, Arlert."

Armin lowered his head. Took her long enough to stumble her way into that conclusion, but she was on her way out. He couldn't blame her.

"Yeah… It is."

"What did this? You were so motivated the last time we saw each other."

"I gambled and lost. Like you said would happen if I left him. All I know is that I don't want to go anymore. I hate it there."

Hitch leaned back into her chair, arms crossed over her chest as she rested her chin against her collarbones. "Yer a pretty bad friend, huh?"

"Yep," Armin agreed without resistance to take all the power out of Hitch's shame tactic.

Hitch stared him down in resounding challenge, but when Armin didn't buckle under her taunt, she threw her head back over the backrest of the chair.

"Ah well. Be who you wanna be. Who needs good friends anyway? Should all be a little more selfish if ya ask me, that way it doesn't matter that he's mean back."

A sudden shift in mood, but Armin wouldn't forget Hitch's reason to look down on Armin. It was the other way around, not like that. Bertholdt's coldness had doused Armin's passion and taken him for a plunge into his worst version, not the other way around.

"You're… You're fine with this?"

"What's it got to do with me that I should have an opinion on it? I don't care about your quarrels. Besides, what can I do about it? You're all done, you said so yourself. No more food and no more books. No, sir-ee, nice Armin Arlert is DONE. No one but Mr. Only-Thinks-Of-Himself here. It's long overdue, anyway."

She strained to pull her head upright again to take a swig from her wine, relaxing when she had.

"I don't only think about myself."

"Oh really?" Hitch asked, sitting upright again with her hands planted on the table. "Does sound like it. You left before you got hurt, didn't you? Maybe your ankle's karmic or something. Ain't all bad, though. Now you get to live the easy life with me!"

A surge ran through Armin's heart, but he quietly seethed in place at the words. Just as much as Hitch, Armin was also starting to feel his drink and lose the means to control himself.

Somehow, he still managed. Stuck his hands in his pockets, took out the artefact he'd been carrying around for weeks with no real purpose except that he felt drawn to it. Tossing it onto the table, he observed as Hitch's shoulders sank and she took a cursory glance at it before she studied it.

"What's this?"

"Dunno," Armin said with a shrug. "Found it when I injured myself and now I feel like it's burning a hole in my pocket."

"So take it out of your pocket."

"What did I just do?"

Hitch took the card. "So this is mine now."

"What? No, give it back!" Armin whined in protest, lunging over the table to swipe the card out of Hitch's hands again, but he was too slow—she'd already turned her legs to the side of her chair and sat too far away, cackling at her acquisition and holding it up to examine.

"You found a card that's obviously really bad right when you broke your ankle?"

"You think it's bad?"

"Armin. There's fire and lightning everywhere. There's even little guys jumping outta the window, see?"

Hitch turned the card around and pointed somewhere at the middle of the art, her finger obscuring the elements she was referring to.

Armin crossed his arms over his chest. "I don't know, these are always weird. Death doesn't mean literal death, either, it's just about change. And I didn't find it when I broke my ankle, I found it when I fell a few hours earlier and scraped my elbow."

"Point still stands," Hitch spoke as she flicked the card in Armin's direction. "You're fucked. You find some random card when you hurt yourself and next thing y'know, yer breaking bones. You had the right idea to quit and run away, I'd say," she said with an amused grin. "If you believe in that stuff."

Armin failed to grab the card during Hitch's explanation and it instead landed on the floor. He quickly bowed down and picked it up before anyone could add a footprint to it on top of the folding line.

"No, I do not believe in that stuff. It's a friend's card. I had his deck in my pocket for a while and it fell out when I gave it back. It's just a card."

"Which you carry around everywhere you go."

"Yes."

He had intended to make it a casual topic of conversation, nothing more. No special meaning, no properties that would magically be imbued into a mass-produced piece of paper.

They stared each other down for a few moments before Hitch broke out into a fit of laughter, hunched forward in her sideways position.

"Boy, you really have a way of going waaay off-topic to avoid talking about difficult things."

Armin's cheeks heated up. "I don't want to talk about how much of a failure I am anymore. I get it already, can we move on?"

"You brought it up," came Hitch's unstrategic answer.

"Hitch…"

"Okay! Stupid topic anyway," Hitch changed her tune. "Yer gonna learn to have some fun! We're not here to mope and moan about everything that sucks in the world, let's make it a great evening."

He'd never been so happy to hear those words and see that his failures hadn't damaged his relationship with Hitch. She yelled after one of the servers to order another bottle of wine, and even though he knew that pushing it beyond this point would mean he'd hang over some latrine puking his guts out, he needed the flush of alcohol to flood his body and to just forget about it all. Swallow enough poison to replace the one he refused to, forget about when he may have gotten so invested in that metaphor.

They continued well into the night, the warmth and noise of the crowd at one point turning from distracting to welcomed, and when Hitch tried to pull Armin onto the floor at the centre to join her for a dance, it took one step for him to remember with a bone-chilling ache that he couldn't.

Instead, she ended up seated next to him rather than across from him, reddened head down on the table between her crossed arms as she looked up at him with a stupid smile and kept plucking and poking Armin's body, and he found that he didn't mind at all that their pleasant conversation and laughter were underlined by these charming little physicalities.

He was too far gone to determine whether, at some point, loosened up by the toxic quantities of alcohol that had seeped into their veins, they had really brushed against each other, but it didn't matter all too much; if he wasn't going to remember accurately enough to make out whether this was reality or just a fantasy, then Hitch wasn't either. All that stayed with him were those flashes of awareness that indicated that the night had been an ecstatic bliss, beyond anything he'd ever experienced in the bonds forged with his regular friends.

He could get used to indulging in this lifestyle.

---

Murmurs broke through the haze that kept him under, dragging him out of the peace of the night and into a world that blared white through his eyelids. He opted to keep his eyes squeezed shut, pressing his face into his pillow with a groan to shut out the world and let his existence just be him, his pounding headache, and his stabbed ankle.

"No. No, that's not fine, you can't keep making excuses up," a faraway voice complained, but he couldn't make out the rest of what was said.

"Ugh, fine," a much closer one groaned, higher and far more annoying in pitch so close to him, causing him to press his face deeper into his pillow to shut out the world.

There was some movement against his right side which he tried to ignore, until the faraway voice made itself known again.

"And since when were you into girls?"

"Oi, that's rude," said the closest voice.

Something pulled on his thigh, forcing him from his position lying on his belly to his right side with an annoying nagging pain shooting through his injured ankle as his left leg was briefly lifted by the knee before it was dropped against the sheets again.

"If that's the only way to tell, that might as well be a girl," scoffed the farthest voice. "Get up."

The sound of a door closing loudly was like thunder in his head.

"Yeah, yeah…" the remaining person murmured to herself, annoyed.

He let himself roll onto his front again, finding he could block out the light more easily that way. The mattress shifted around him and he felt skin against his as someone crawled over his back.

Why skin on skin?

Wait, where was he? What did he just hear?

His heart stopped in his chest as he pushed himself upright, instantly awake, and looked off to his left to identify his surroundings. Through the slime that lay on his eyes and the crusts that had hardened over his eyelashes and welded his left eye shut, he could only make out pale white light in a blurry room. As he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and focused, he realised this was not the room he had rented for the night and that the figure that became more and more detailed with each passing second was the back of a woman, scrambling to pick her clothes off of the floor.

In a swift motion, he twisted his body, fingers clinging to the bedsheets so that he had wrapped it around his body to cover himself up. Hitch turned around and he loathed that he couldn't have woken up when she was already dressed, pushing his face deep into the pillow to ensure he didn't get a second eyeful of her.

"Oh, hey. You're awake," she said. "Sorry about that. Colleagues, am I right?" she added with an amused laugh under her tone.

He heard bare soles walk on a wooden floor before the mattress shifted around again and the skin of what he assumed was her thigh pressed against his body, causing him to scoot away and break the contact again. More pains in the rest of his body were becoming apparent as his hungover brain adjusted to being awake again.

Still, he kept his face hidden in his pillow. The things he'd give to sink straight into the mattress and down into the dark catacombs to escape this situation.

"So… Yesterday. That wasn't meant to happen, right? You're fine with us not being… Y'know, just because," Hitch beat around the bush, not quite as forward as she usually would be. She was offering Armin a way out of this, and yet he wasn't sure if he could form the words to take it.

"What… What happened yesterday?" he idiotically spoke out loud instead, like he needed any sort of confirmation when throwaway details were starting to come back to him that sealed his fate.

He risked a glance behind him, but seeing her brassiere-clad torso so close to him instantly clutched his stomach and he turned his head away again. He moved an arm from under the pillow and ran it over the back of his head, using it to push himself even farther into the linens in frustration.

"Well…" Hitch said. The mattress shifted and he thought he felt her close in. He stiffened, which in turn caused her to freeze and hesitate as well before leaning back, respecting Armin's unease about whatever she was doing.

"Hey, it's perfectly fine for this to be a one-time thing. I didn't expect it to happen either, but it was fun. Doesn't need to be regular or anything," she offered.

When Armin didn't find the courage to respond again, too busy fighting that twist inside his gut that was nauseating him to the core the longer it persisted, she scooted away.

"Right, so… I guess you need some time for yourself. That's fine. How about I, um…" She paused for a moment. "How about I go take a shower and we'll see about things after that, alright? You can grab one of my towels or go raid our mess hall if you want something to eat. There's water on my desk. Good against that headache."

All he could do was nod. Hitch got up and he heard her get dressed, relief washing over him that he would finally be given the space to unclench and make sense of all that was happening without the stark awareness that he was lying naked in someone else's bed.

Doom settled over him as more of the night started to come back to him. When Hitch opened the door to leave, he finally found it within himself to speak up.

"Hitch, wait… Close the door for a moment."

He heard her pause, then walk back inside. "Yeah?"

Armin bent his head forward to put as much pressure onto his eyes and cheeks as he could. He absolutely didn't want to investigate last night, but he had to find something out.

"Please tell me that, um… that I… You know," he whispered.

When he moved his head up to glance at her, Hitch was waiting.

"You know. Before I… got there, did I…" Armin tried again, making an urgent rotary motion with his hands afterwards.

Again, Hitch looked at him, tilting her head.

"Come on, Hitch, please don't make me say it…" he now whined.

Hitch's widening eyes said enough. He remembered enough about it to know that safety had been the last thing on his mind, but he hoped that maybe she could put him at ease and tell him it would all be okay.

"Oh," she said.

Armin hummed in response, lips pressed together in anticipation.

"Well… You didn't, but I do take my precautions with these things. Especially when I sleep with someone who's inexperienced. It was more likely to get messy than for you to hit all your cues, y'know. I'm at the end of my cycle. It's really unlikely that you knocked me up," Hitch cautiously explained, leaving none of Armin's worries to the imagination.

"But what if… You know, what if?"

"If something happened, then I will take care of it. But nothing did."

Armin sighed audibly in frustration, something Hitch caught as she placed her hand on her desk and spoke in a cooing voice.

"Look, I'll monitor things closely. Okay? There are options in case we have hit one in a million. Alcohol does wonders when you need to take care of this. They sell things for it. But it's not going to happen. It's gonna be okay, really. I'll take care of it."

Armin squeezed all the air out of his lungs and held when he had entirely flattened himself. He nodded hastily at Hitch's nonchalance over the topic of aborting but heard the door open and close again with a light goodbye in time for her to miss how his body began to rock and shiver as he failed to subdue the nauseated breathing that overtook him over the thought.

Was it truly going to be okay?

It could mean the definitive end of his career. If they were unlucky with Hitch's cycle and these things didn't do the trick or if she understandably didn't want to get rid of something living inside her, then she could easily trap him into a relationship and force him to be present. Especially if she refused to keep quiet about who had done this to her. He could kiss any respect from the military goodbye if he ended up quitting his position temporarily for an extra-marital child who was an accident on top of everything.

He abruptly threw the sheets away, pulling them off his body as hard as he could. In a swift motion, he placed his left leg down onto the floorboards before he just in time realised that running would be a bad idea and he instead threw himself to his hands and knees, right leg weighed down by something as it dragged behind him while he crawled towards the trash can he'd spotted by the door and he retched bitter fluids into it.

When his belly muscles gave out and his energy ran too low to continue, he swallowed hard and wiped his mouth before he listlessly let himself sink to the floor, still shaking from the overwhelming amalgamation of emotions and physical unwellness.

Where the hell was he supposed to go next?

Of course it had been fun, and of course it had felt good. Hitch was smart enough to take care of any accidents, he decided, so why did he feel this miserable?

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time or he wouldn't have done it, not even with alcohol inhibiting his senses. Hitch was by all metrics an attractive woman, yet when he thought about it—those intrusive glances of her body he had gotten in the past minutes, his physical and emotional closeness to her the last night, the phantom sensation of how they'd been entangled the night before—he felt nothing but an anxious twist in his viscera that told him to run.

Things he had never felt when he'd had similar albeit less intrusive encounters with Jean. Immature as they may have been, they never left him feeling uncomfortable in the slightest, let alone disgusted.

He swallowed hard. He was not in the right mindspace to face this on top of everything else. He could stay around and talk things out with Hitch, but even thinking of her face made him pale.

With his elbows, he forced himself to turn around so that he was lying on his back. He propped himself up and risked a peer down, mortified that the visuals matched the sensations of his skin. They'd been too drunk to figure out how to get Armin's pants over his cast, so they hung around his knee, turned inside-out with his underwear somewhere wrapped inside. Bruises and red marks littered his body from where he'd gotten his skin sucked.

He softly whined at the sight. Fixing his underwear and pants, he dressed his lower half while still on the floor. His shirt wasn't that far away, and he spotted his crutches discarded behind the door. At least he hadn't been so stupid to try to limp to these quarters without his mobility aid.

Pulling himself up by the chair at Hitch's desk, he took a seat and reached for the pitcher Hitch had mentioned before. He needed that foul taste out of his mouth and he needed fresh air, so he drank as fast as he could to finish the entire pitcher.

Without leaving anything behind, he got up, grabbed his crutches, and left the room.

---

These were the days he wanted to go home.

It was far from his only brush with loneliness, or defeat, or shame—but there used to be a place he could go when he was overwhelmed. When he was tiny and he would pad inside and sink against the table's leg until he sat shivering on the floor. His mother would be the first to notice, kneeling by his side and coaxing him into standing before drawing him into a warm hug. Soon, his father would follow and promise to take him to the confectioner at the corner of the street for a bag of candy despite their tough financial situation. They would sit together and tell him stories about the vast world they were one day going to see, and it made Armin forget how cruel life could oftentimes be.

It didn't matter which mistakes he'd made; there was a place he could return to where his heart would be nurtured until he was ready to face the world again. A place where everything would be alright.

If they'd known that one day, their son would have a chance to journey beyond the Walls, maybe they never would have abandoned him in search of the horizon. And maybe, he never would have lost his chance to go see it.

But all three of them had chosen to forgo home, and now, he was condemned to crutching aimlessly through cold passageways with no idea what he was doing, nowhere else to go, and no one to hug him and tell him it would be alright.

Jaws taut from carrying his crystal lantern by the mouth, he made his way through haunting passageways until he reached his inevitable destination, freezing at the gate as he found it as unlocked and unguarded as he expected.

Pathetic that all that he had left to go to anymore was a tomb. So befitting, too—yet his brain reached for every excuse he could think of to turn back and return to the surface.

There was always Historia.

Historia, who had been ready to leave them behind for the sake of the love of her life.

Historia, who had apparently never cared that he was playing her body double even after she'd learned what had happened with him.

Historia, who had blocked every one of Armin's requests to bring Bertholdt to the surface.

That Historia.

He threw his lantern to the ground with a loud crash and clinks in a burst of energy. The tension in his neck rose to the point of shivering and he crumpled forward through his knee, head against his chest, before he groaned, then stretched every limb and screamed as loud as he could in a single breath. And again, and again—until his head hurt from the pressure he'd exerted on his chest and arms and he felt like the worst of it had left his system, leaving him panting and standing on an unsteady leg.

If he could, he would stay here and scream forever. Just have a place to himself where no one in the world could possibly hear him and he could roar every emotion that reared its head away, turn his back on everything he felt and everything his overactive brain burdened him with without having the police sent out to investigate.

As much as he wanted to inhabit such an ideal world, it simply was not stationary. He was already past his moment of release. Hitch was bound to finish up showering soon and come finish up the rest of her morning shift, and he could not bear to look her in the eyes again after last night. He was better off leaving now and accepting things for what they were.

But he had unfinished business.

He pushed through the gate and descended those stairs down the plateau, faster than was safe without risking a tumble, coming to a halt in front of Annie's crystal with a mounting growl under each continued pant from his frantic crutched sprint through the catacombs.

Fingers tightened over the wooden grips of his crutches and his teeth ground together as he shuddered out an exhale.

"You still haven't budged?" he asked, shiver audible under his words as he teetered on the line between calm and desperation.

Of course there would be no answer from someone who had shut herself out of the world so effectively that most people had forgotten she was still in the picture. That wouldn't stop him from finding the relief he'd come down here for.

"Do you know that Bertholdt told us we could feed you to the pigs for all he cared? That he'd let us hurt you to spare him?" he asked, voice cold and sharp like ice. "That doesn't make you feel anything? You'll just stand there and let him say that about you?"

The feeling of satisfaction that warmed him should've been an indicator that this was a mistake, but nothing in the world could make him stop now that he was pouring his heart out.

"Months– No, almost an entire year, and you've still decided that you're the only one who matters? That only you deserve to stay safe, locked up where no one can come get you? That Bertholdt should pay the price for it and that we should all be left to our own devices because you can't even think about anyone but yourself?"

Under his grit, his panting turned into a bitter laugh, lips curling up into a solemn, trembling smile.

"Do you know you're all I have left anymore? That everyone else walked out on me when I stopped being useful to them, and that I fucked it up with the ones who remain? And you won't even come out to tell me to go choke? Even that's too much for you?"

He took a step closer, peering straight into those closed eyes, frozen in space and time as his words washed over her, unbothered. Deaf to him as she had always been.

"You should've just said so from the start!"

He threw out his arm in frustration but had to grab his crutch again to prevent a fall.

"That you don't care about anything at all, not even your friends. Then no one would have wasted their time trying to get through to you."

Who exactly was it that he was addressing?

Did it matter? She was the one who was there now, not like Bertholdt would listen to a word Armin yelled at him to make him come to his senses.

"No… You don't even care about yourself. Is there anything you do care about? And it's not just you, but all three of you. None of us would've had to bother and we wouldn't have spent months lying awake worrying about you. Maybe I would've been with them right now and I wouldn't be chained to this useless leg. Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever even considered that your actions have consequences? Or are you just going to tell me you were doing it for the greater good?"

The grip on his crutches was strong enough to splinter the wood if he upped his venom by only a droplet. The previous times he was here, there had been a purpose. Talk her into helping them out. Make her feel guilty enough to see reason, futile as it was to someone who probably couldn't hear him. Anticipate an event where she finally broke that crystal and he could talk her into compliance.

What good would it do now? He was well past his deadline. Even if any of his enemies were ever willing, all information they still had to offer was useless now.

"They're probably out there dying," Armin mumbled in a low tone, this time with a knot forming in his throat that caused him to bow his head forward and swallow hard. "And if only you had done anything to help us, then maybe they could've made peace with the world instead. But you both had to be so… difficult."

Looking up again, he failed to blink away the tears that beaded under his eyelids.

"And I'm just here going on vacations to drink and do stupid things that will probably impact the rest of my career? Do you think I'm even remotely ready to be a father, let alone because of someone I apparently don't even like? Do you think that I'll ever find someone if I can't stop acting like a child? Do you think I even want to recover again? Do you think there is a point!?"

He stared so intensely through that crystal that his head could burst, eyes wide open despite the salted tears that prickled at their corners.

"Are you going to stay out of this like you always do?" he hissed, the control over his voice spanned so tense that it threatened to snap any moment.

There was once again no answer and he lost his cool, lifting his crutch off the ground and bashing it into the impenetrable surface of the crystal. Where he expected relief from the frustration that ran through his veins, it only fanned his flames and he did it once more.

He set down his crutch to keep himself from tipping over from the intense backlash of the hit that ached through his wrist and thundered through his body, hoping that the hit would've been enough to get it out of him. Instead, he felt angrier than ever, ready to strangle the first living thing he could get his hands on.

"Is this all your gambit has led to? You're fine with spending the rest of your days cornered!?"

Another bash, without relief, and as he did it, he spontaneously imagined in front of him not a solid rock resilient to everything he could throw at it, but the form of a limbless man, neutralised and helpless in every single way except his words, thrown around like a ragdoll at the merciless assault of a mobility aid.

Something akin to satisfaction flooded his system, yet it did not sate. Whatever he did, he did not want to stop.

"Say something!"

Another bash.

"Answer me!"

Another bash.

"ANSWER!"

The wood of his crutch splintered from impact, and as soon as he set it down again to regain his balance, the unexpectedly uneven base caused him to lose his stability and sink through his trembling leg, shouting at the agonising pain of his ankle catching his full weight before collapsing to his knees.

He crumpled, folding over his legs and hugging himself close as he finally gave in to his urge to openly weep, ugly and lowly under the sustained realisation that nothing could hear him, that nothing could help him.

"Please, just say something…" he hiccuped through his outburst. "Don't leave me on my own here… Just… Please…"

It was to no avail. He didn't need to look up to know that nothing he did had the capability of booking any results. His actions were without impact on the world, leaving it behind exactly the way he had found it, if not worse.

And he let himself go, crying for as long as his body needed it.

---

Doing this amount of physical activity when his body hadn't cooled down in a month was a bad idea, but there was nothing that could stop him from doing it. Even if it took him an hour to get there, lifting himself up step by step and hampered by the continued deterioration of his broken crutch, he'd see it through.

And he did. Shoulders cramped from the repeated motion, left leg in shambles over having to keep balance, and aching arms and soaked back be damned—he at last looked over the stretching district of Ehrmich from atop its highest tower, a gruelling 95 metres above the library itself.

His journey was rewarded with cool, deafening winds that swept up his clothes and evaporated the layer of sweat that soaked him through as the sun stood lower than the tower's platform and he was offered repose from its merciless assault. Enjoying the privileges of summer, it was quite different from his last visit which brought about bone-chilling winds that had almost frozen him to the core.

The centre of the world. The anchor of the city and its neighbouring settlements. The one place in the universe where no one would ever even think to look.

No one but them.

Calm, a stranger to him in the past weeks, overtook him as he had finally obeyed that indelible pull the idea of this building had held on him ever since he got separated from the pack. Ever since he realised that he, too, had failed at everything he'd ever set out to do. Ever since he became aware that he may just as well be the exact same as Bertholdt: useless, defeated, down.

Better off dead.

He crutched towards the stone edge of the platform, breathing in the fresh air rife with the smell of baked goods and handcrafted materials sold below. For the first time in a long while, he could finally fill his lungs to their full capacity again. Here, he could exist without meaning, without being in the way.

Placing his crutches aside to instead hold onto the balustrade, he observed the features the view had to offer. The thousands of tiny citizens below going about their morning business. The many houses that were dwarfed by this immense structure's presence. The farms, fields, and greenery on the horizon, the landscape carved up by a network of intertwining and diverging paths. The pale wall, composed of hardened titan skin as it hid many thousands of Colossal Titans that could be set upon the world in the blink of an eye should a malicious party desire so—but that would never be given their chance to walk again, trapped in a dark prison for the rest of their days.

And almost did he give in to the urge inside him; to catch a glimpse behind him of a boy with a cracking voice who nervously held onto the stolen copy of Tale of Armistice that didn't belong up on this altitude as he relived one of his greatest sins and there was nothing that could make Armin see the true nature of his fear of heights.

But he didn't.

Because that boy was not there anymore.

He never existed. The shadow he cast was only preserved in the ghost of memories rather forgotten, ones that had been far more pleasant then than they were now. Paradis had condemned him to spend the rest of his regrettably short life hidden away in the depths of hell and prohibited him from ever breathing clean air, conquering fearsome heights, and feeling firsthand the freedom that was every person's birthright.

There was no point looking for him anymore. He'd been wounded and left behind, too. Looking now would drive home how not one, but two nations had utterly failed him.

The hours passed him by as the sun slowly rose to a position where it could finally bite his skin and battled with the winds over his body temperature, yet it left him as cold as the freezing afternoon years ago when they had read here together.

This was yet another one of those ephemeral locations he could lose himself in forever. To be stuck in just this one moment, finally at peace with himself in a state he knew would vanish again as soon as he left, forever.

Wasn't there a really good reason why he came here?

He looked over the ledge, swallowing down the saliva that the sight released at his tongue's sides while he calculated how much distance there was between him and the nearest structure below.

Enough.

More than enough.

His flame-kissed fingers gripped tighter onto the warm stone as the wind laid down and the sound from below reached his ears.

It would simply be brilliant: to leave behind the world almost exactly as he entered it instead of continuing to make it worse, all by his own choice instead of continuing to let fate paw him around wherever it so desired like he was its powerless prey.

What demons of his time alive would dare follow him into the void that lay beyond, anyway?

Armin was made to see the world, but the world wouldn't have him. There were no other options.

A shiver ran through his legs, threatening to make him lose his balance as his survival instincts caught onto his line of thought and decided this was not what they were doing.

Strangled by the silence of the sudden onset windstillness, Armin's hands slipped off the stone ledge, leaving the task of keeping his balance to one already overexerted leg. He snuck a hand into his pocket and took out the worn card he'd been carrying around with him, folding it open to take in its flames, its thunder, and its panicking peasants that all flocked that accursed tower.

He'd long lost the right. Only an impartial judge could make this decision.

Holding out his hand, the card rested steadily in his palm. The earlier winds would've swept it out of his possession and done with it as they desired, but he had no such luck.

What objections were there to be had?

He wouldn't have to wait in solitude to hear whatever had become of the scouts who'd gone to the ocean to meet their doom. He wouldn't have to think about Hitch and why she nauseated him. There would be no need to think about what would become of Paradis anymore, with or without any of their prisoners' help. He'd no longer be in pain, or have to build up his body again every time he got taken out, or worry about how he was going to convince his friends that he was taking his medicine, or that he was of use, or that he deserved to survive in Shiganshina, or how he could honour Erwin's legacy, or to even figure out what to think and say about Eren and Mikasa's actions that lost them the serum. He'd no longer be a wounded soldier fingers pointed after. He'd be free of the burden of fracture and scar alike.

He could just be him. Just let things go, let them happen as they went. Let gravity take him and let factors beyond his control do the rest as he floated off, frightened and regretful and like all of his issues suddenly had a solution now that he had already sealed his fate, but ultimately free to choose—and who would not choose for that?

But then, there was Bertholdt.

Bertholdt, who kept pervading his every dream, his every thought uninvited.

Bertholdt, who had taken up the mantle of friendship and then showed his true colours, only to become a mystery when his intentions and feelings muddied.

Bertholdt, who was helpless, put in a nightmare tailored specifically to his fears and weaknesses for no reason except to enact some sort of perverted justice against the only vulnerable surrogate they had for Marley.

Bertholdt, whom he'd told he would always stay with, no matter what venomous words he hurled at him, no matter how much he got under his skin, no matter how little he wanted Armin to truly be around him.

Bertholdt, whom he had abandoned.

One element that, no matter how he rationalised it, he didn't feel at peace leaving behind the way it was. Not the way he had left it. Not the way it would continue if he did nothing about it. Especially not if Armin's departure may disincentivise his friends to keep up the work he had already done, or worse: if they blamed him for chipping away at Armin's psyche and chose to retaliate.

Wasn't Bertholdt made to see the world just as much as Armin was?

Against all he knew was rational, he couldn't stop thinking about the Tales' Druid and how she had been stuck in a similar situation. Go back to her old ways and embrace cynical apathy as she resigned herself to paying for her own salvation with the life of her friend, or push through and save the one good thing that ever happened to her.

What a mad time to be thinking about a children's story. She was better than him, anyway. She chose what was right and proved that she deserved to be happy.

What did he have to show for his existence?

He was nothing.

No book had ever been toxic, nor had Bertholdt.

Armin was the poison.

He always had been and always would be.

The only redemption was to become aware of how much he corroded the people around him away until they retracted. What greater deed could he do than to safeguard his friends from his venom?

More than anything, he wanted to go, but that one detail—that one insignificant enemy beneath Paradis' surface, the one person who would reluctantly drink in Armin's toxins if it meant getting to wean off Paradis', refused to let him leave in peace.

No gods would find him. Humanity had to intervene.

Armin was already broken. No hurt would break him any less; what did he lose if it ruined him to help the one person he could help? He'd leave the world behind so much worse than he'd entered it, but he'd have made it more bearable for a friend who lacked the way out that Armin had been granted, until he could find peace in his end.

After that…

He could see. There would be time to reconsider his actions. The library tower was going nowhere.

The card still lay still on his palm, his fate decided for him so that he could later blame it for all the bad that his decision would go on to do.

If nothing else, if even the wind had abandoned him, then he could only go to the one place where his envenomed words made a difference.

He placed his thumb down to trap The Tower, rescinding his offer—before he gritted his teeth and in a burst of passion drew his hand back over his head, tossing the card as far into the city as his strength allowed him to. He watched its spiralling descent towards the streets and hoped that it would offer its next owner more prosperity than it did him, turning back before he could watch it hit the pavement.