Tether, 𝙚.𝙮𝙚𝙖𝙜𝙚𝙧

𝗖𝙷𝙰𝙿𝚃𝙴𝚁 𝚂𝙴𝚅𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙴𝙴𝗡

       THE hotel's lobby is expansive and you and Sasha have to search high and low to thoroughly cover the entire area. The one place you don't see sense in checking is the bar area, but since nothing had turned up anywhere else, you finally make your way over to the hotel bar.

"Oh, shit." It's Sasha who first says something when the two of you finally find Eren sitting at the bar counter with his side profile in your eyesight. He's looking down at a drink that's resting before him and seeing this makes your stomach drop.

Without thinking, you're moving towards him, but Sasha grabs your hand to hold you back.

"We should wait for Jean and Connie to get here, Y/N. We don't know . . . we don't know if Eren's okay."

"He's not." You shake your head, eyes glossing over with the wetness that starts welling up at your tear ducts. "He's not okay, that's why I have to — " You look over at Eren again as a lump in your throat strangles the rest of your words from getting out.

"Okay, you go check up on him and I'll call Jean to see how far they are . . ." Sasha hesitantly agrees after seeing the desperation on your face. "Just be careful, Y/N."

Sasha drops your hand and you immediately walk over to Eren after blinking back your tears. By the time you reach him, you've pulled yourself together and even manage to turn on an air of indifference as you climb onto the bar stool next to him.

Eren doesn't even have to look over to know it's you. There's a breeze of freshness from your body that wafts over to him as you settle yourself on the stool. He knows it's because you took a shower recently because this isn't the doing of any of your perfumes. This is your natural scent and if he didn't have the history he did with alcohol, he probably would've deduced the smell of you to be just as intoxicating and addictive as the drink before him.

He's cradling the glass in his hands and one peak at it makes you assume that it's a shot of whiskey.

You feel angry seeing him like this. Ignoring you and at a fucking bar when he's supposed to be sober. You can't help but grab his chin and turn his head to you until you can lean closer to him and smell his breath.

Eren's reddened eyes watch you calmly as you try to figure out if he's actually had any of the whiskey before him. Your touch feels cool against his scorching skin and he wants to feel more of it, but you're quickly dropping your fingers from his face when all you get is a whiff of weed off of him.

"I didn't drink anything." He finally informs you.

"What's that then?" You look down at the glass in his hands and Eren looks down with you.

"I play this game sometimes when I'm frustrated about something." He explains after some time. "I go to a bar, order a drink, and just sit in front of it. It gets my mind off of other things since I'm focused on resisting the drink."

You don't know how to process what he's just told you and sit staring intently at his side profile, bouncing your leg on the bottom rim of the bar stool you're perched on.

"Do you . . . do you ever lose this game and end up drinking?" You finally speak up. Eren shakes his head slowly.

"You asked me yesterday night why I'm here." He brings up out of the blue. "Why I tracked your location and drove all the way up to Vegas. I didn't lie yesterday when I told you that I was worried about you and that I came just for a peace of mind, but I could've just called you for that . . ."

"So why did you come?"

"I missed you." Eren shrugs like it's an obvious answer that doesn't make your heart start pounding painfully in your chest. "Seeing you that night at my mom's place, falling asleep with you . . . I wanted to do it again. So I got on my bike and came here."