"Everyone is equal when they're dead."
Armin isn't expecting to hear a voice with him, and when Levi's voice drifts, quiet and stern behind him, the blonde's head whips to the side to eye him. The words take a moment to register with Armin, and when they finally do, he can't find it in himself to properly sum up a response. He exhales quietly and moves from his standing position into a crouch, shifting so that his elbows rest on his knees. He doesn't trust himself to stand for much longer, really, so it's safer to sit like this, even if discomfort settles onto his shoulder's with Levi's presence behind him. Resting his chin on his hands, Armin opens his mouth to speak, but closes it with a quiet clack of his teeth only seconds later. Words still do not seem to come to him properly.
It's only after a few minutes have passed that Armin finds the words, one hand reaching out to trace the gravestone in front of him. The headstone is fresh, far too much so - Armin's being vibrates with the intense unfairness of it all, with the realization that no matter how much he traces the inscription, nothing will change. The death date will remain, although its sharp edges will wear with the rain.
"I guess that's how he would've wanted it." Armin murmurs. It's not much, nothing profound - for once, he feels as if he doesn't have something lined up and ready to go. His mind is empty in such a way that he thinks that he might start to grieve very soon. He's somehow managed not to break down yet, not to cry, a miraculous feat for him. The funeral is over now, however, and organizing it with Mikasa had been no easy task, but it had kept him focused and level-headed. That's over with, now, his mind as clean as the fresh soil beneath Armin's black dress shoes, which he had to buy for the funeral anyways.
Staring down at the ground, Armin thinks for a moment that it's started to rain, but he realizes as soon as the thought has come that he's crying instead, tears falling so rapidly to the damp soil that they start to puddle on the surface. He takes a hand and removes his glasses, where the tears have collected on the lenses, and feels his shoulders heave with sobs before his mind has even managed to catch up with him. He's running on no sleep and his mind pays the price, struggles to comprehend and calculate.
He knows that Levi stands behind him, and he tries to speak again, tries to cover up the sound of his desperate sobs with the slightly more desirable noise of his choked words. "Equal. That's all Eren ever really wanted for any of us. Such an ignorant, rose-colored, stupid, childish, loved, wonderful--" He thinks of more ways to describe Eren's view on the world, but he can't, the lump in his throat too great for the noise to even make it past now, so he sits back on his haunches and continues to cry.
