the face that looks back at him now, even wrapped half beneath a swath of bandages, is unmistakably familiar. the first time zeke saw him, he'd said his brother looked nothing like their father, their shared stain, the withering, poisonous branch of the family tree. that same statement isn't necessarily true now, is it? beneath eren's gaze, too near to the ghost that haunts them both, he is suddenly relegated back to that place, shrinking in his seat at the table, turning back behind him at training to catch the disappointment, the disdain that rolled off his father in waves, washed over zeke's head and swallowed him beneath it, filling his eyes, his ears, his lungs. in eren's face, there is the man he has always hoped to avoid in his own.
he does not ever want to turn to his brother and find that same glint of disgust, sharp as a blade, cutting, in his eyes. the world has done nothing but teach zeke to be someone else, someone colder, to make a second self, but eren is the one who can split him open. he is the match in the dark, the missing piece where zeke has broken himself long ago.
he has tied the string of fate between them himself, when he vowed to come back for him. he will save him from their father's planted parasite, sever the ties that bind. the same way ksaver had done with him. zeke has always been fated to be the messiah, the one who will come to deliver eldia from her suffering. but since that day, salvation has seemed more singular: he will save eren, and then together, they will save the world. written in blood, it was always meant to be this way.
@praesidi says: i don’t want you to save me. i want to save myself.
it's as if eren can see through him, down to the marrow of his making. perhaps he's grown too transparent, his eagerness to trust turning him raw, exposing the tendons, flaying him. he takes it as their father speaking, the years of brainwashing slipping from his tongue. or maybe it's the stubborness of a mother, a woman zeke never knew. eren is headstrong, young. he thinks he does not need to be saved, thinks he can survive their shared poison alone. he does not know zeke is the antidote.
he hums thoughtfully, watching his expression. his own does not shift, is steeled against any disappointment at his words. " how about we save each other? " he smiles, tossing the baseball in his hands from one palm to another. brothers, he thinks. this is how they're supposed to be, isn't it? eren will come around soon enough. he will let zeke make him whole again. he chuckles, " i think that sounds much better, don't you? poetic, isn't it? "
