(Eren x Reader) Dead Hearts

Dead Hearts

--

A name slipped through his vocals, remaining unnoticed. The unspoken fatigue coursed roughly through his limbs, yet he gritted his teeth, choking silently. A numb quietness chilled the smoky air, an interesting combination.

Stupid to assume he had lost everything that ever mattered, yet his mind told him otherwise. He had lost almost everything. And why was he spared? This thought had loosened his clenching fists, raw from slamming into everything clumsily. Clumsily. Angrily. Carelessly.

Just somewhere under rubble of stone, you lie. Though, where? This was the solo vivid image his mind could not even portray correctly. Not knowing whether you were safe, helpless, or deceased. Impossible. The mere reasoning of you dead, torn apart from the massive beings, he mindlessly blanked. Eyes unable to focus through smeared sight, swords clattering on the stone paved ground. The front of any possible danger.
Could it matter still? Like it didn't even matter who he, himself was anymore? Eren Jaeger.


Eren Jaeger. 

A proud determined boy wishing painfully to fulfill his goal. Realizing the risk of death, of himself, others, he never possibly thought of it.
Did he even know where you were? No, probably not. 
Because you were dying. But now, you knew what exactly he was.
He was alive. Breathing, pulsing, strong, everything a soldier strived for.
Everything you were losing right now.


Eren Jaeger, he repeated, unspoken words flying. A useless incautious child that will die before killing all titans. Even if he did, this would mean death for everyone.
He doesn't even know where his lover is, who was with him all up to the moment to break free to split off, another direction.
He couldn't have possibly changed his motives, through all these years of building. With her, standing by his side ever since he stepped up. Stepped up high enough to know everyone he liked, admired, loved, encouraged, could die. Painfully, in a reckless dishonoring way that no one would ever choose for. Wordless to say, no matter what happens, Eren was to destroy every living Titan off the face of earth.
At what cost? At the cost of basically a large portion of what was left of humanity preserved all those years, until, perhaps, there wasn't any point in going further.

At the very moment, Eren agreed to this defeat, almost unaware of this. He caught himself hastily- the probability formula.
His heart promised him her life was stashed away, to avoid being utterly crushed, still relentlessly glowing genuinely. The almost obvious way she'd smile at him, painfully limping from physical harm, but thought the agony was all worth it to live with him.
Yet, his mind. 
Eren's mind assured her silent slumber, where no one would see her ever again, and no one would aid her, much less see her through the cracks and crevices that hid the fallen. The beaten, dead that risked their own lives for humanity. At this rate, more people die anyway, whether reinforcements are ready or not at all.
In an instant, he felt the adrenaline of anger. Immediately he pressed his blades back into their rightful sheath, and began running. His boots hitting the ground recklessly, a clench of unraveling sadness spilling out of every footstep, along with the leaking hope Eren kept for you. And only you.

Running back where he lost you- her.

No one could match his stride, not Mikasa, not Armin, not Corporal Levi, not anyone. Because they didn't feel what he felt. An utter helplessness of no one's blame, but himself.

The roof where he stood was partially in ruins, half the building crumbling to the dirt and steaming furiously.

Where....

Without thinking, rushing over to toss away rubble that seemed to be the most lifesaving option, and thus he did until his hands became scratched and bled, the blood mingling with dust at every scrape.
Eren yelled your precious name until his voice became nothing more than a hurt whisper, whereas anyone could feel the tremors of coarse anger webbing through the dry air.

Shouts were directed toward him, and he felt a pull that stumbled him. Whipping around, no one was there. This embedded frustration along with the veins of anxious trauma, that triggered his exhausted limbs to drag away refuse once more. Swiveling his gaze, he saw it.

The silent scream that widened your eyes, your bruised fingers, and the blood that ushered over it all. He saw everything.

Eren felt the world fall underneath his feet, his knees hitting the ground at such a enormous force, and flinched with a crushing despair.


--

His eyes flickered in the heavy darkness, fumbling for the light with one hand.
His ghostly fingertips felt a dampness of cold sweat at his neckline, while his flushed cheeks dotted droplets of water, that splattered onto his tear-sodden covers.
How stupid.
He tried so hard to wipe these images out of his head- the risk of you ever getting injured was unbearable, to the degree he felt completely vulnerable whenever you weren't in his line of safety, of utter care.
Eren swallowed, his parched lips murmuring apologies, his blinking eyes staring hard at the room incasing him.

"I'm so sorry, _____."

"Sorry, _____."

"_____?" 

The hollow inquiry echoed back at him somberly, no reply available.
If only it had been merely a dream, a scathing nightmare.

Instead, a memory beheld him.

After all, the dead can't speak, and there's nothing left to say anyway.




[ ... dead hearts are everywhere. ]