October 17, 2021
"Eren! I'm back, could you help me bring the groceries inside?" Armin opened the door, calling out to his roommate. But of course Eren didn't respond, as moments prior he had left to run an errand.
You chose not to speak up since your name wasn't Eren.
"Eren c'mon there's a lot of- oh." Armin, with a wandering gaze, finally peered into the living room. "Sorry." His free hand went to the nape of his neck as he noticed you were on the couch. "I was so focused on bringing in these I didn't even notice you, sorry." He continued his apology, saying sorry once more.
"It's okay." You smiled back at him, meeting his eyes with your own. "I can help you." Your fingers grasped the edge of the blanket off that was draped over your body, you began to pull it off.
"Oh, you don't have to help!" He tried to stop you, but you just shushed him instead. The blanket fell to the floor, so there was no going back now.
You walked over to kitchen standing by the countertop. "What needs to be put away first?"
Armin succumbed a smile, appreciating your offer. Animated in nature, he responded to your question pointing at the bags he brought in - telling you where the contents go.
"You got it." Your body was now hovering over the groceries, hand reaching down to the first bag to hoist it up onto the countertop. The reusable bag was quite heavy.
"You're the best." Armin pretended like he didn't see you struggle with its weight, praising you for your actions . "I'll be right back with more!" He called out, his body already halfway out the door.
By the time you were halfway through putting the second bag away, Armin came back in with the rest hanging from his arms. He dropped them harshly on the ground, inhaling with his entire body. He sounded like a fish that was in desperate need of water.
You gave him confused glance as you put the last item away. He held his hands on his knees, taking a few moments to compose himself. "You good?"
"Yeah, never been better." He shot up, taking another huge breath of air. "Totally just got my workout in for the day though. That winded me." He let out a shaky laugh.
"You could have just split the trips." You pointed out, now grabbing one of the new bags he carried in.
"I know I just..." his voice drifted off.
"Just what?" You cocked your head at him.
"I'm not sure why you're here. I felt bad that you're all alone so I wanted to come back quickly." He explained his reasons, eyes glancing over at the couch where you had been lounging before the blonde walked in.
You snorted, "Armin, I've been alone for like 5 minutes. You literally just missed Eren. He ran out to get us ice cream."
"Oh." Armin turned to look at the front door, wondering to himself how he didn't bump into Eren on his way into the complex. If Eren had just gone to the corner store- "Wait." He paused his own thoughts, expressing the word he was just thinking. "Did you say ice cream?" He turned back to look at you once more."We're eating dinner at your house in two hours!" He panicked.
You began to erupt in a fit of laughter, finding Armin's concern amusing.
"Don't laugh at me! Eren always does this and then when we go out he's never hungry." He complained. "Last week he ate a whole pizza before we got ramen, and when we got there he wasn't hungry anymore!"
"You sound like a concerned mother." Armin actually always sounded like one, acted like one too. A single mom, who worked two jobs- the first being a student, the second dealing with Eren's consistent bullshit. It must be an exhausting life for the blonde haired babysitter.
"Half the time I am! He's just a grown child." He mumbled the second part.
"I'm not arguing with you on that one." You agreed, Eren was pretty immature about most things. Although, what he lacked in maturity he gained back in with his academics - the boy was damn smart. Ready for med school with his 4.0 and faculty recommendations.
Armin let out a heavy sigh, "So why ice cream?" He finally questioned his roommates errand, leaning in closer to see your eyes. He wanted to see if you were stoned- but the only red was around your eye. Puffy and swollen lids from crying, not weed. "Are you okay?" He followed up his observation.
You nodded, biting your lip. When you and Eren got ice cream it usually meant you two were stoned, or one of you was upset. This time, it was the latter. You were not having a good day. Only having just fully calmed down from your morning panic. Armin had been able to tell.
"Do you wanna talk about it?"
"No, not particularly Armin." You didn't want to talk about Jean to him, or anyone.
Armin nodded, understanding your hesitancy to confide in him. His eyes, however; told you that he was still worried about you. His lips curved downward as he looked at you with sympathy. You let out a sigh, you hated worrying him.
"I didn't even tell Eren what happened." You started. Armin's ears perked up, intrigued that you were spilling things to him. You might as well talk about it a little, without exactly sharing what happened. Armin was a good friend.
"You don't have to tell me." He didn't want to push you to talk, the last thing he wanted was to force you to do something like that. Although, he wanted to know what happened. Armin was always in the know about all the drama, a little walking diary of the dirty secrets of your group. What kept him apart from the rest though was that he kept it to himself. Unless he needed to use a secret for his own sake, or Eren's.
You learned fast not to cross him, he would fuck you over in an instant.
"I know I don't." You knew you didn't have to. You continued on; "I got into this stupid situation."
"That's unfortunate." He sounded empathetic, you wondered if his reaction was real. "I hope it passes, do you want a glass of water?"
"Yes please." You accepted his offer. You had no plans to tell him more.
He filled up two cups of water. One for him, the other for you. He pushed the glass over to where you stood, then leaned forward and rested his head in his hand. Elbows digging into the countertop. "All things pass if not detrimental to a relationship." He tried to make you feel better about whatever happened.
Somehow it made you feel worse.
"Unless this time that's not the case?" He raised the glass of water to his lips, raising his blonde brow at you as he sipped the cold liquid.
"I'm not sure." You replied shrugging your shoulders, you were being as vague as possible. You took a sip from your own glass, slowly letting the cold water trickle down your throat. Jean was so different this morning, what if he went back to his old way of treating you?
You didn't want that.
"How recent was is?" He questioned further, trying to put together the puzzle pieces himself. Armin, however; already had a good idea what happened. You knew if you kept going all the gears in his brilliant brain would click into place if they hadn't already done so.
"Recent enough." You dodged the question, taking another sip.
Armin sighed standing straight up. "Don't let Jean get to you."
You choked. Of course he figured it out. Sputtering out droplets of liquid, you pounded at your chest trying to get what went down the wrong pipe out.
Armin had no change in his facial expression, his poker face unchanging as he revealed that he knew what was up. You stared at one another, both refusing to be the next person to speak up. You desperately wanted Armin to explain further, you wanted him to tell you how his brain figured it all out. But he wouldn't, he would never tell.
"It's hard not to." You eventually squeaked out. You swallowed hard, trying to keep your erratic emotions in check.
Armin bit the inside of his cheek, holding back what he wanted to say to you. He saw that you were hurting but by all means he didn't want to mettle. He took another sip of his water to lessen the pause. It wasn't his fault that he was able to figure it out.
"I don't like feeling like this." You admitted, not explaining what exactly happened but explaining how you felt. "I put on this facade that I don't care. Honestly Armin, the littlest things can shatter me at times."
Like Jean being a complete asshole to you.
The thought of Jean ignoring you.
Jean telling you to forget about it.
"I don't think it's little. I think it's human to feel like this, you're entitled to feel how you want when things happen. However, you can't just let it consume you or even control you. Brushing it off, and ignoring talking about it might be hurting you even more."
You turned away not wanting to look the blonde in the eye. Armin was right, as always.
You didn't want to talk about it. For the simple reason you didn't want everyone to gossip about what happened, because it all came down to a kiss. A kiss with Jean, that you wanted to keep private. If you sat down and told Sasha or even anyone in the house you lived in; they would look at you different.
Maybe if your friends could keep a secret you would be talking right now. Maybe if you didn't have deep rooted trust issues, you could be honest with the people you loved.
You wished you could tell Eren what happened, but that would cause the most problems. Eren was always annoyed that you became friends with Jean after how he treated you. You feared that telling him that Jean kissed you again would result in another Yeager brawl, rivaling the first he had with Reiner.
Silence drifted through the room, the only sound heard was from the TV you had left on. You looked down, eyes boring into the countertop; you became overwhelmed once again.
You were so zoned out you didn't notice Eren had gotten back
"Yo, dumbass, why'd you leave the front door open?" He called, looking first at the TV room and then the kitchen. "Oh Armin! You're back." He spotted the two of you inside.
Had Eren just called you a dumbass? "Wait, does that mean I'm Dumbass?" You pressed your question, pouting at the boy.
"Course." Eren shrugged placing a plastic grocery bag on the counter. "Couldn't be Armin, kids a genius."
"Eren." Armin spoke his name, the blondes cheeks turning pink from the complement.
"You know you are, just accept it." He clasped his hands together loudly, turning to fully face you. "Okay so I got us two flavors of Ben and Jerry's, I got The Tonight Dough since it's your favorite and I also got Totally Baked, since that's what we're doing before we eat these."
"Eren!" Armin scolded him. "You're gonna ruin dinner!"
"I always have room for dinner Armin." He opened one of the drawers pulling out 3 spoons.
"Ramen." Armin defended.
"That was a one time thing."
"I'm not having any, we're going over the girls to eat in two hours." Armin frowned at the utensils, arms crossing over his chest.
Eren did a full body eye roll as he opened the drawer back up, putting one spoon back. "I have one word for you Armin." He looked up at his roommate, his best friend.
"Oh enlighten me, Yeager" He crossed his arms. You watched in amusement at the childhood friends interact. This was getting good
"It's an acronym, okay?" There was a glint of mockery in Eren's eyes- his lips curled up in a devilish smirk.
"Okay." Armin grew more frustrated by the second, Eren's childish behavior ticking him off.
Eren took a deep breathe in, ready to give the blonde his amazing word. "Yolo."
You let out a snort. You clamped your hand over your mouth, embarrassed by your reaction. Eren had a grin on his face, pleased at himself. Armin on the other hand had hypothetical steam coming from his ears.
"You know what, when Mikasa sees you two not eating you'll be sorry."
"But mom-"
"I'm going to my room." Armin grumbled, cutting off the whine. Eren was so exhausting for no good reason. He slumped off to his own room, closing the door behind him.
You heard the click.
Eren extended out the spoon to you, sliding the pints down to the edge of the counter top. "I was half joking about the getting baked part." He admitted, peeling open the tops of the two pints. "I know-" He stoped himself, biting his tongue. He was trying to form the most sincere sentence to you. "I know something happened, and you don't have to tell me about it. I get it, really, I do."
He sighed digging his spoon into the first pint, you did the same with the other holding the cold cardboard in your opposite hand to sturdy it.
He fed himself the spoonful of ice cream. "I wanna smoke." He licked his spoon clean, the metal sliding out of his mouth, tongue darting around to clean it off. "But." He stuck it down back into the container. "Smoking when you're upset isn't fun, and I don't want you to be alone in your thoughts while I get stoned." He shoveled another mouthful of ice cream into his mouth.
You had only taken one spoonful, the spoon resting in your hands and half in your mouth as you stared at the long haired brunette.
"You can smoke." Muffled due to the spoon, you responded back. You pulled it out of your lips. "I just won't."
"I wish you would let me know what happened." He sighed, putting his down. "This. This-" He gestured to his couch "-can't keep happening."
You looked away from him, unable to meet his green eyed gaze. You were here almost every time something went wrong, the amount of nights you had stayed over in the past few months was too damn high. Eren had somehow become the only person you wanted to see after any slight inconvenience.
He was wildly unlucky in the fact that this was the second time this happened this week. The first being when you got scolded by your professor for being late. Professor Ackerman has ridiculed you to the point where you couldn't breathe you were sobbing so sard. The scary man lecturing you, for your own good and gain. Eren picked up the pieces of you then, just like he was doing now.
"I'll never say it's exhausting, because that sounds mean. But honestly, if I can say one thing without upsetting you is that I'm exhausted."
You felt a pang in your chest. A deep feeling of regret consuming your chest. It hurt you to let him out, it really did.
"I'm exhausted because you let me see it, but you won't fucking let me in." He reached his hand out, placing it over your own. "Please, just this once try and-"
"No!" You pulled your hand away, clutching it to your chest. Why did you have to be so dramatic. He was being so kind and gentle. Eren was always so good to you.
He looked hurt by your response, the boy slowly pulling his hand back. His green eyes watched you, sympathetically gazing at your hurting spirit.
All Eren wanted was for you to just let him in.
You never let anyone in though, never telling your friends what was hurting you. You kept it in, always.
"I can tell there's movement in your brain. What's up?" Eren softly spoke out again, his eyes looking sad. All because you wouldn't open up. Eren was holding himself back from snapping at your stubborn personality. Under his sincere gaze his mouth was pressing down so hard to keep his rash tongue down. He knew you wouldn't forgive him if he snapped at you now. No matter how much he wanted to yell at you to tell him what was fucking wrong, he had to control his temper for you.
"I'll tell you." You let out a huge blast of air that you were holding in your lungs. "After dinner tonight i'll talk, and you can't tell soul." You added, because that's why you couldn't talk in the first place. You were tired of your friends spilling your secrets, but maybe Armin was onto something when he talked about holding it all in.
Eren's face lit up, and then fell as he realized your timeframe. He gave you a skeptical look.
"No, I promise!" You reached out, grabbing his wrist. "I just..." you softly rubbed your thumb against his wrist, circling his soft skin. "I'd rather be someplace where it's private, and i'm in control. Like my room. And uh, some place where you can't get too mad."
"What's that supposed to mean?" He attempted to pull his hand back a little but your grip hardened on him, holding his wrist down in the same spot.
"If you try and do anything crazy, I've got Mikasa there to hold you back." You knew that just mentioning Jean would bother him, kissing him- a complete different game. Eren would yell at you, only because he knew what had happened in the past.
"Christ." His loose hand covered his face. "What the fuck are you gonna to tell me?"
You gave him a weary smile, "that's for me to know, and you to find out."
A/N:
Bonjour! I'm making tiny edits rn, and it is so crazy to see how much my writing style has changed in a year oh man.
Anyways, thank you for reading up until this point! A fic only goes as far as it can due to its readers :p
-Erc