Great Descendant || Attack on Titan x Reader

39 || Long, Bloody Road

His breath hitched as he looked down at your sleeping figure. He didn't move an inch, mindful of you despite how he knew you slept like a log every time you felt safe in his arms. You were asleep; he swore you still were, but he surely wouldn't mistake your voice. So he wondered what it was before.

The way your eyes were closed, and yet you could utter something. Twice.

"Y-Yeah?" His breath went shaky, eyes dilating as he couldn't believe that he heard those words from you. He knew how scared you were to experience such feelings all over again. After losing so much, he wouldn't be surprised if you would turn down any form of love. "Goodness..." And yet here you were, whispering how you love him.

People said alcohol could mess up someone's memories, and perhaps you wouldn't remember this moment. But he knew something else. He knew that the alcohol in your blood could reveal even the deepest secret in your heart, begging you to be honest.

So instead of dreading the possibility of you forgetting everything after drinking at the bar, he was only grateful. One day, not long after tonight, he hoped you could also say it out loud when you were sober. Even if you didn't, at least he knew you were indeed — love him.

The insecurity that crept into his mind before, slowly dissipated into thin air. Yes, if you didn't feel the slightest love, you wouldn't let him court you, not when you only had so little time left to enjoy what the world could offer. Oh, how he wished you could enjoy your life to the fullest instead of here as a soldier.

He laid on his side, eyes tracing your face in the dark. His long fingers playing with the end of your hair, now messy from how drunk you were. A few days from now, you had to come back to your hometown, and he wondered now, whether you would continue to spend the remaining years you had together with him, or to come back in the arms of your family.

You once told him about them, how gentle your father was and what kind of power your family had. Armin wasn't stupid. He could see that you long for that, to come home. To let go of your burden and have your life secured, your once privileged life as the country's best asset. Yet, when the chance for you to come home arrived, you didn't.

Instead, here you were now, in the arms of your supposed enemy. You pressed your face against his chest, inhaling deep into his scent that could make his heart flutter anytime with how clingy you could be behind the closed door.

From anyone you chose, from anywhere you could be, you were with him.

And he promised to make sure that you never regret this decision.

〄

Dozens, or perhaps hundreds, of leaves were falling from the trees, hurling down so fast like a storm trying to catch you. You were lost, bare feet treading the muddy road, the only path you could follow in between the darkness of the forest.

Why were you running? You couldn't even remember. Perhaps it was the whisper, the way they lure you in into your own guilt, asking you why you let yourself side with the supposed enemy. You knew the answer to that. It was the right thing to do, to stay with your own kin, aiming for the justice that the Subjects of Ymir were supposed to have.

Not just your family, but for the whole subject of Ymir. They had to be free. It was how human beings were supposed to be treated. Not like this, not to be cast aside from the world just to be eradicated by the end of the day.

You had seen enough. Enough blood from both sides, dead bodies of your loved ones — you had heard enough, all the screams they let out, the grieving tears they had cried.

But how? How could you stop these?

The air was knocked out of your lungs as you stumbled upon something. Your nostrils caught a tangy, rusty smell. Some of it stuck on your skin, and the fact that you just knocked your head on the ground didn't help at all. But did you really fall to the ground?