(A/N:) This is a time skip thing but I don't think there's anything to warn about necessarily
He isn't sure what prompts him to do it. He's gotten so good at ignoring it, he isn't sure he'll be able to come up with something to say. It's ancient now, rotting somewhere in the forgotten corners of his mind like a virus, slowly spreading through his body and creeping into his heart. It's something evil, something dark and insidious, like a disease he realizes he has moments before it kills him. He thinks it must've killed him months ago, years even, leaving his old self behind with the broken shards of his heart. He isn't himself anymore — neither of them are. And deep down he knows it really isn't Eren's fault.
Perhaps there is a little bit of his old self left over after all.
But whatever his reasoning, whatever it is his mind is telling him to do, he's following a familiar path to the dungeons. He treads on pieces of his heart and soul that have shattered and added to the distance between he and his best friend. The path back to how things used to be is sharp with the shards and it becomes increasingly less appealing to cross the longer it gets. He doesn't want to get those pieces back. It makes him remember why they broke off in the first place and it only makes the fragile mess that remains of himself even more delicate.
He turns down a corridor, down a staircase or two and feels his heart start to race. He tries to quell the feeling, admonishing himself for being so naive. For being so afraid. He'd tried to give up being afraid a long time ago. Especially over something as miniscule as this.
But it isn't a small thing. If he really thinks about it, he knows it's much more than that. It's everything. Or at least it is to him. But when he thought Eren didn't feel the same about it, he figured it would be best to stop trying. To stop thinking of it as his world. There was more for him, surely there was. Surely there was more to his life than bending over backwards for his best friend, throwing himself in front of him whenever someone took a shot or a stab at him. He already had his own problems to deal with. He couldn't deal with Eren's for him.
And yet, here he is, standing before the bars of his cell, seeing emerald eyes look at him in something like shock. "Armin?" he asks and for a moment, there's a softness in his voice that takes him back years. Back to when they were cadets and things between them weren't so impossible. But he shakes his head. That version of them is dead and gone. Has been for awhile. He should be over it.
He pulls the keys he stole from Heichou from his pocket and unlocks the cell without a word. He can't look at Eren, let alone speak to him. His throat is dry and his pulse is throbbing frantically in his throat. He takes a steady breath and lets it out slowly, pushing open the door and shutting it behind him. It makes a soft clang as it closes and he brings a hand up to run through blond hair. "What are you doing here?"
He doesn't say anything. Instead, he moves to sit beside him on his bunk, staring intently at the stone floor. He hates how pathetic he's being. How nervous he is. He blinks and inhales through his nose, finally lifting his head to meet Eren's eyes with a fiery gaze. "We need to talk about it."
"Talk about what?" he asks and Armin almost lets out a scoff.
"You know damn well what about, Eren," he replies and he realizes just how long it's been since he's uttered the other boy's name. Never before has it held so much bitterness. "I don't know what you want me to say," Eren says with a spark of anger that he manages to keep cool. He's never been like that. His anger has always been burning hot, like a fire that erupted from him. Uncontrollable. Spontaneous. Not cool and collected. Not like an ominous breeze before a storm. Not like the distant rumble of thunder in the distance. His anger should be lightning striking quick and powerful. Not like thunder.
