bakerstreet | Changes

[She scowls at him, and sucks the blood off her thumb, flexing her fingers. The bite mark on her hand is pink and indented, but already starting to fade. She stares at it for almost a full minute.]

I haven't killed anyone.

[Probably untrue, and in her heart of hearts, she knows that. But she's never meant to kill anyone, and that still counts for something. It has to.]

[She sighs, and looks up at him.]

I don't fucking know, okay? But I'm not a murderer and I'm not a torturer and I don't...

[Another sigh, equal parts aggrieved and tired. He doesn't have a right to this. Any of this. She can't shake the feeling that she's back in therapy, except if she flips a table or puts a fist through the wall, it's not going to get her out of it.]

[Which means, to her disgust, the only ways she can see are silence or the truth. And she's pretty sure he can outwait her on silence.]

...I've got a little brother. Fucking spoiled little brat. [But there's something different in the way she says it. It's not a real insult, and it's not hateful. It's so fond it's almost normal.]

When he was born, I decided to get better. I took the pills, I ate and drank and quit bashing my head on things, I even went to the fucking shrink. I tried. I never hurt him. I'd never fucking hurt him.

I dunno. Maybe it means it's all rotten, if that's the best I can do even when I try like hell. But he's a good kid. I didn't ruin him all the way.

[Eren listens, just as he always has, when Bethan speaks. He asked for a reason; it's a story he wants to hear. He couldn't say why. Sometimes Eren's mind only makes sense to Eren, and sometimes it simply doesn't make sense to anyone. Bethan is right. It would be a lot easier if everything, everywhere was rotten, but it isn't. For whatever reason, he still wants to know that, even if it hurts.

[At last, he speaks, and it's simple - casual, albeit as flat as ever.]

I've wondered before what a relationship like that might be like. My brother and I didn't know each other while I was growing up.

[They know each other know, but that's another ugly story. He feels disgusted to have brought him up at all, honestly, but it doesn't show. He's gotten good at pretending he can stomach Zeke.]

[The fact that she can't get under his skin is all the worse because he keeps getting under hers. In this case, not in the same way his politics do - it's just that family is important.]

[She doesn't want to feel sorry for him. It's the last thing she wants. But even more than her parents, even more than Uncle Eoin, her brothers have been the anchors holding her to the world ever since she got back to her family. Imagining not knowing them hurts - especially because, while she's often thought that they would both be better off without her, she knows damn well that she would be a worse person without them. To this day, it's Dara's weekly visits that mean she eats food, takes occasional showers, and takes slightly more care not to get herself killed. And it's the thought of them that stops her from being way, way more violent than she already is. She'd be lost without her family, too.]

[Which means now she's having empathy for this fucker, which is the worst.]

You got anyone?

[Quid pro quo is a double-edged sword; Eren should know this. He asked Bethan a painful question; she asks him one, and it's a natural one.

[It would all be easier to stomach, Eren thinks, if one could tell themselves that it was only happening because Eren had never known love. Surely, to do what he's doing, one must have never known love. Who would do it despite?

[Someone might do it for love. Someone is.

["You got anyone?" Not a brother. Not a father or a mother - not anymore. Aside from that, though...he's spoiled for choice.

[It just isn't enough.

[He searches for words - enough to provide an answer, but not enough to hurt; it's impossible. He still doesn't know their fates, but he knows that the battle comes. He knows that their deaths are possible - likely, even...

[He has to believe they're stronger than he is. He has to believe they're braver.

[He knows they are. Eren loves. He loves desperately, violently, mournfully. He loves. He loves. He loves.]

There are people that I care about. [His words are cheap. It isn't enough. He feels guilt, rotten, decaying. He longs.

[He can't list them all. He'd rattle off names all day - Armin, Mikasa, Jean, Connie, Sasha - God, Sasha, dead - Marco, dead - Reiner - Reiner Braun, and Annie, even - yes, even Annie. Captain Levi, Commander Hange (dead, dead, dead). Historia, whom he met with on the farm - protected, loved, cherished. He thinks of Petra, and Eld, Oluo, Gunther, even after all these years - their faces, their trusts, the indents of bite marks on their hands - like Eren's bite marks, like Bethan's bite marks, but she'd never trust him, and they shouldn't have--

[Eren's eyes flicker back up to Bethan. He's lost focus. Pupils dialate through stormy green, and he evens his gaze back into something cold, false--

[He tries, but. She gave him her brother. He should give her something.

[Why not? They're both here.]

Armin. And Mikasa. [Mikasa. Mikasa. Mikasa. The grief is insurmountable. In his mind, he's cradling her safe in his arms - finally, finally, but it isn't real. He'll craft her a world from scratch - he'll build them a cabin with his mind and they'll live there until he wastes away, the world crumbling all around them.

[Eren rolls his head on his shoulders, cracking his neck. He can't look at Bethan for a moment - this is his distraction. His hand jerks violently as his side.]

We grew up together.

[Ah. So she can get under his skin, after all.]

[There isn't a whole lot of triumph in the thought. Bethan herself, for all that she's suffered, has escaped with a life largely untouched by actual loss. All her family are alive, and she doesn't have friends to lose - has, in case it was unclear, spent most of her life semi-intentionally making sure she doesn't. She knows pain and struggle and fear and guilt, but despite everything, she's not intimately acquainted with grief.]

[But she knows the look on his face. She's seen it on her father's face a hell of a lot of times - most of all on the times, in her adolescence, that he sat her down and told her, very quietly, how there are some things you can't come back from. And when she saw, in his mismatched eyes and the pained lines of a face scarred from years of fighting, the names and faces she's only ever heard him reference in whispers to her mom when he thinks none of the kids are listening. Sean had friends to lose.]

[So, apparently, did Eren.]

[She sighs, rubbing the bridge of her nose.]

...Before or after you got changed?

[Because she had had friends, too, before the faceless men took her. She just doesn't know where they are now.]

[The answer comes too quick, too casual - he doesn't mean to let his brows pinch, his nose quirk up, his lips sneer, though not in a cruel way. It's the look of someone asked a question so obvious that they almost want to laugh, but Eren hasn't laughed in a long time, and likely never will again. He says:]

Before. [Almost dismissive, like there could clearly be no other answer.

[And then he reminds himself that he's supposed to be a husk right now; becomes one.]

We're at odds now. I suppose the reason why is obvious.

[Then, with that subtle but mocking upward inflection:] You'd probably like them better than me.

Low fucking bar.

[She huffs, and then huffs again, because there is - begrudgingly - an addendum to that.]

They'd probably like me even less than you do.

[Eren shakes his head - too honest again.]

No. They wouldn't. [He knows that for a fact.]

They'd give you the chance you deserve.

They're good people. [And that isn't "too" honest. He means it. He knows it. Everyone should. It's not a secret.]

That is the chance I deserve, fuckhead.

Thought you'd've figured that out by now.

[Two can play at the self-loathing game!]

[Hm.]

Yeah. You're right about that.

Let me rephrase.

They'd give you a chance you don't deserve. They'd do everything in their power to make sure that your life would continue purely by virtue of you being human.

They'd kill you if necessary. They'd do what's needed done.

But they wouldn't rip you apart limb from limb and enjoy it. [He didn't either.]

They'd try to see the human in you, even if there isn't one at all. And you'd never convince them otherwise.

Better?

Fuck.

I'm glad I haven't fucking met them, then.

[That sounds like her nightmare, honestly.]

Yeah. [There's such an odd tone to that voice. It's hard to tell if it's fond or hateful or some terrible, nauseating mix of both. Dull green seas roll up to a sky that doesn't seem quite real. Where are they, anyway?]

They're real pests.

They'll be doing you a big favor, though.

I don't take favours.

[That's probably pretty obvious.]

Didn't seem like you do, either.

[He'll take this one - force their hand, even.

[But the moment has passed. He'll keep their favor to Bethan, and to him, to himself.]

Let me ask you a question. [It's a dangerous one.]

Edited 2024-08-28 21:42 (UTC)

Can I fucking stop you? Kinda seems like you're gonna ask me anyway.

What's your name?

[She opens her mouth to snap at him, and then blinks as her brain catches up with her. That's not at all what she was expecting.]

[So, like... why?]

[The problem is, Bethan isn't a common name. Uncommon enough that she constantly needs to tell people it's Bethany without the Y, dumbfuck, anyway. And she's now mentioned her family, and he clearly doesn't like her (which, like... why would he?), and she's fine with herself getting ripped apart, but if he knows her name, and he knows who she is, and fuck, she can't remember if she mentioned any of her family's names, but there's always fucking Google, and just...]

[This, she realises, is stupid. She doesn't even know if her family is here. Wherever here is.]

[She sighs, and scratches at her wrists, and chews at her lip. Fine. Whatever. It's honesty hour around here, anyway.]

Bethan. Why?

["Bethan" with the younger brother and the unique name, who was made into a monster, who was born as a human.]

I'm Eren.

[That's all.]

That's not a fucking answer, dipshit. Why do you care what my name is?

It's a pretty common question, don't you think? Why do I need a reason?

It's a pretty common question when you meet someone. Not after you pull their arms and legs off and grill them on their fucking life story.

I skipped a step. [Humor? Hard to tell. Eren doesn't really do that anymore, and was never much good at it anyway.]

Try not to think too hard about it. [Yeah right. He had a reason after all, actually.

[Remember his name. He wants you to.]

[She sneers.]

I think too hard about everything. 'S kind of my whole deal.

[In between thinking way too little. Thinking about things doesn't mean being sensible about them, anyway.]

Your mind must be a crowded place.

[Hm. There's a beat of silence.]

Are all of the memories in your mind your own? [Only wondering...]

Fuck're you talking about? Yeah, they're mine. I'm not fucking psychic.

And I don't even have half of them, anyway.

[Or, well... she does, but muddled up and missing parts. And she's not about to correct herself on that, since she didn't mean to say it in the first place.]

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jesus christ the way I blacked out for 10 minutes and wrote you a novel

i know i said this already but I LOVE IT MORE NOVELS PLS

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