#alternative-munster

A figure suddenly collapsed in front of her window with a grunt, coughs racking their body. She flinched, frozen and staring wide-eyed at the person who was struggling to get on their hands and knees. And the little air in her lungs rushed out when he turned his face towards her, the features of it all too familiar even if barely visible. He croaked her name out, the syllables sparse and dry and she rushed over, pulling her window up as high as it could go. 

“Eren? What are you doing here?” she whispered harshly, confused and even more worried at his state. “Oh my god — what happened to you?” 

“I…” he began, staring up at her almost as if he didn’t know how to answer her question. “I need your help. Please, can I come in?” 

Wordlessly, she removed some items from her desk and began helping him over it and into her room, practically carrying him in while he hissed in pain. As gently as she could, she eased him into her chair, looking over what she could see of his injuries. The skin on his knuckles looked like they’ve been scraped raw, blood drying where it split. His face was no better off, bearing cuts that were small but numerous, bruises blooming purple over the edge of his jaw and it appeared as if he had been tossed and dragged with the way his clothes were torn at his chest and legs. It was obvious that he had been in more than just a fight. 

“Where… where are you going?” 

She doesn't stop in her step, talking over her shoulder. “I’m grabbing the first aid kit.” 

He moves to sit more comfortably when she enters the room again and immediately gasps, clutching his ribs as he sinks back down defeatedly, a bead of sweat trailing down his temple. At this, she realizes that his injuries are a lot more serious than just cuts and bruises. 

“What happened to you?” she tries again, hoping for an answer but he says nothing, reaching up and wiping at his brow. Why won’t he tell her? If he was in serious trouble, she could help him, or get Levi involved. Or maybe... he wasn’t saying because he didn’t want to get them involved. He’d always been like that, trying to handle everything on his own. And even like this, beaten down and physically unable to stand, she knew it was pointless trying to get that answer out of him. At least for now. 

She dampens a cloth with alcohol, carefully dabbing at the cuts littered on his face and hands, apologizing when he flinches at the sting. “Where else are you hurt?” 

He closes his eyes, leaning his head back. “Everywhere, it feels like.” 

She places gauze over his knuckles and begins to wrap them, using the last of the roll. “Does anything feel broken?” 

He moves a free hand over his ribs, grimacing. “Right here... might be fractured.” 

“If that’s the case, I need to get you to a hospital.” She rises, ready to gather her belongings to leave but he catches her wrist, his grip surprisingly strong for his condition. “No. No hospitals.” 

“What do you mean ‘no’? Eren, you need to see a doctor if you broke your ribs -“ 

“Fractured –”

“That’s something I can’t just fix for you.” 

“There’s no need. It will heal, I just need a little bit of time.” 

“You’re not making any sense –”

“Just trust me,” he insists. “It will be fine. I don’t need a doctor.”

They stare each other down, waiting to see if the other will relent. She does eventually, breaking eye contact and continuing to clean his wounds. It’s useless to argue with him. If he’s so against getting professional help, then fine. But she just wants to know why. Though she knew he could be reckless and impulsive, she didn’t think he’d be illogical. 

“Where’s Levi?”

She peers up at him with the sudden shift in topic, then breathes a soft sigh. “Working. He won't be back until tomorrow morning.”

“Oh.”

The silence that follows is almost uncomfortable, and he must feel it too because he shifts awkwardly, clearing his throat as she continues to dress what she can of his wounds. He doesn’t look at her until she pushes aside the tangled hair hanging in front of his eyes, exposing the cut on his forehead. She keeps her fingers there, holding the strands back as she finishes cleaning his face and he stares at her, uninhibited, until she speaks up again.

“How long?” she asks. He’d been behaving suspiciously these last few months, running off suddenly, missing the classes they had together, his seat vacant at their team meetings. He never explained what he was doing or where he was going. When she tried, she could never find him or contact him and truthfully, it worried her. She’d been in denial about it when she first recognized him outside her window, but the evidence was so glaringly obvious that she’d have to be an idiot to think otherwise.

“How long…?” he parrots back, confused. 

She gives an exasperated look but elaborates anyway. “How long have you been doing... this?” Her hands gesture over his injuries, eyes fixated on the tattered symbol at the center of his chest. Eren sighs in response, head lowering guiltily. 

“I didn’t want you to find out this way,” he murmurs, his tone apologetic. 

“How was I supposed to find out then? Was I ever supposed to know?” 

He says nothing to answer her. Again. Frustrated, she opens her mouth, intending to scold him for ignoring her questions but she never gets to. He stands, albeit slowly, and starts towards the window with the support of her desk. 

“If this is too much, I should probably go. Thank you for helping me, Mikasa. I’m sorry for scaring you, and… and for everything else.” He watches her a few seconds longer and then turns away, attempting to climb over her desk and failing miserably. He cringes and kneels over in pain the moment he lifts his foot onto the edge of the desk, slowly sinking to the floor and she eases him down, supporting his back. His small cry of pain is enough to cut the tension in the air, to make her forget her frustration and instead, direct her focus on taking care of him. He was probably having the roughest night of his life, and here she was trying to force answers out of him. They’re both overwhelmed. And they also had time to talk things out later. 

“Stay here for tonight, you shouldn’t be moving around too much.” 

His brow furrows. “Are you sure about that? What about...” he trails off, wincing. “What about Levi?”

“What about him?” 

Eren’s cheeks redden, and he can’t meet her gaze. “Well, um, what if he comes in tomorrow morning and finds me in your room? He might get the wrong idea…” 

She catches onto what he's saying and feels her face flushing pink, turning away to hide her embarrassment. “He won’t come in here. Levi usually goes straight to his room to sleep once he gets home after working night shifts. I doubt it’ll be any different in the morning.” 

“Oh.”

“Yeah...” 

“Well, okay then.” 

She sees movement in her peripheral and she looks back, watching as he makes himself comfortable on the floor. “I’ll stay then. I should feel a lot better after I rest a little.” She puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him from laying back and he pauses, questioning her with his expression. 

“You can take my bed.”

“What? No, I can’t do that, not after you -”

“I have to stay up anyway. It’s fine. 

“Mikasa,” he breathes pleadingly, trying to assure her that he’s fine on the floor but she’s already helping him onto the mattress. She leaves once more to get him some water and a change of clothes, things he graciously accepts. The color in his cheeks returns when she offers to help him change and after some insistence from his part, she turns to give him privacy, shaking her head as she listens to him struggle. 

“...Are these Levi’s sweats?” 

She turns around and sees him tugging at the cuffs of the pants that reach just before his ankles. A smile pulls at her lips, and she briefly wonders the look Levi would have if he saw Eren and heard what he was implying. “No, they’re mine. Sorry that the pant legs are too short.” 

“Oh, no it’s cool. I don’t mind.” 

After he finishes the contents of the glass and he’s laying down with a couple more blankets piled on him, she settles back her desk with another uncompleted assignment laid out in front of her. As much as she tries to focus, her mind was still reeling from everything that just happened, and not even the stillness of the night could help as it had earlier. The sudden tug on her sleeve doesn’t help either. 

“Hey… are you really upset with me? For, you know, this? 

She thought about it for a moment. “Honestly, I wanted to be. Because you were acting weird for so long and I was worried that you got caught up in something shady. I thought that you were throwing your future away, and I wanted to help, but…” she trails off and he nods in understanding, looking guilty again. She sees this and continues. “In a weird way, deep down, I always kinda hoped that it was you behind that mask.”

He peers up at her in disbelief. “You hoped?”

“I didn’t really realize it, but yeah, I did. You are the kind of person who would put yourself at risk for others… like you did for me when we were younger. You’re not fighting for the sake of fighting, but rather to help others. And that’s the person I knew you’d become someday, in some way.  I know we aren’t as close as we used to be, but I still care about you a lot Eren. So please… if you’re going to keep doing this, be careful.” 

Her eyes, after having drifted off at some point during her explanation, meet his and the emotion shining in them surprises her. His hold on her sleeve tightens. “I can’t promise that nothing will happen to me, but I promise that I’ll do my best to be careful. And even though we drifted apart, I knew I could still trust you. That’s why I’m here. There’s no way I could’ve made it home. Really Mikasa, thank you.” 

Unsure how to reply, she simply hums and offers him a smile that he immediately reciprocates. 

“You should really take a break from schoolwork, at least every once in a while,” he yawns as he tugs at her sleeve again, lightening the conversation. “You helped us win nationals, you deserve to let loose...” 

“I will some time, but not right now.” She gently takes his hand and removes it from her forearm, placing it back at his side. “Get some sleep.” 

The soldier gave a simple salute and turned to leave, not bothering to ask any further questions because he knew Floch would refuse to give him any answers. Instead, he decided to follow the few directions that were given to him before he left.

He ends up wandering into a bar. It is one that he has passed by many times but never actually entered because he had no reason to. Even if he were of age to drink, he would never step foot in such an establishment unless he absolutely had to. Compared to the new pubs opened by Marleyans that carry gin and rum from overseas, this tavern is unrefined and has little to offer aside from the Eldian beers that have been around for centuries. Still, it manages to attract a decent amount of customers every night, drunken patrons who come for a cheap bottle of wine to share with friends…but not tonight.

The soldier is surprised when he approaches the bar and notices that the loud cheers and laughs are nowhere to be heard. Cautiously, he reaches for the door and pushes it open, wondering if there will anyone at all inside. The sight astounds him.

There are bottles of every liquor imaginable on the floor – vodka, whiskey, rum, gin. All are empty, not a single drop remains inside. The soldier isn’t quite sure how to walk without stepping on them, so he treads carefully, making sure to sweep away the empty bottles to clear a walkway as best as he can. He nearly has a heart attack when he almost treads on someone’s fingers.

Looking around, he realizes that the pub is not only covered in empty bottles but also drunken patrons who couldn’t hold their liquor. As he walks in further, he wonders what caused these men to drink so much. People are slumped across the floors and tables, their mouths hanging open and with sweat and beer staining their clothes. They’ve done this to themselves, he knows, but he still can’t help but pity them as he glances over at their sleeping forms. He’s sure that they’ll all be waking up with a wicked hangover in the morning.

He wonders if Eren Jaeger is among these people, and he hates the thought of sifting through these bodies to find the leader of the revolution. He’s about to begin looking, but he looks up and sees that there are still two people sitting at the bar. As he steps closer, he sees that both are awake. One is the bartender, a stoic expression on his face as if he’s seen this sight before. The other is a man with long dark hair, his back turned to the soldier.

The soldier isn’t sure what he had thought Eren Jaeger would look like. He’s only heard of him from others about the man’s quest to find freedom for everyone, the sacrifices he’s made for them, and the immense power he holds. If he had to conjure up an idea of what such a revolutionary would look like, he would come up with the image of a man with a strong jaw, dark hair that’s slicked back, and bright eyes that are able to see further than anyone else could imagine. This haggard man, thin and tall with dark hair down to his shoulders, doesn’t look anything like what a revolutionary leader should look like, and yet the soldier’s breath still hitches when the man turns around and looks at him with piercing gray eyes. He stares at the soldier so intensely that the soldier is sure the man’s not drunk at all, and he wonders if it’s because the man has hardly had a drop or if it’s because he’s managed to outdrink everyone in this bar and doesn’t feel a thing. Somehow, the soldier knows it’s the latter.

The soldier tries to speak, but he seems to have lost his voice. He stares at the man in front of him, opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water. It’s only when the man turns back around, tapping the bar in front of him to signal the bartender for another drink, that the soldier finally manages to find his voice. “Are you…are you Eren Jaeger?” the soldier asks.

The man does not reply right away. Instead, he waits for the bartender to pour his whiskey, and it seems as though a century has passed. “I am,” the man replies, picking up his glass. He does not look at the soldier when he speaks nor does he ask for his name. He simply taps the bar once more, and the bartender places down another glass and begins pouring. It is only then that the man turns his head, gesturing for the soldier to join him. “Care for a drink?”