[It's the middle of the night. While Eren's a lot of things, irresponsible isn't one of them. So if he's got a shift scheduled, he's up and preparing for it. What he doesn't expect is the wake up text.
So, after frowning down at it for a moment, (this might actually be the first time someone's :)'d at him in a whole year of CDC text bullshit, congrats, Amber)—]
["Tiny and cute. . . . " Are you sure you have the right number.
After frowning at the screen again, he gives up on finding a way to actually respond to that (that isn't some form of ??!???) and instead pockets his blackglass to finish pulling his boots on and arming himself for their shift on the borders of camp. It's radio silence for a few short minutes before the hatch on the rover opens and he hops down out of it and to the ground.
If nothing else, she's pretty easy to find. Camp's mostly quiet at this time of night.]
Amber?
[They'd met during the elder god fight, he'd been aware of her peripherally after she'd been announced as one of Red's team leads. But they hadn't really been properly introduced until they'd been partnered up.]
[ She triplechecked the rover number okay, this is totally cute kouhai central.
Amber doesn't make herself difficult to find either, practically crouched by the door while seemingly talking to a white and peach furball the size of a rugby ball or so. It's buzzing back at her and she's poking at its nose in reprimand, stopping only when her name is called. At least her expression easily changes to a friendly smile when she turns to Eren, rising to her feet and linking her hands behind her as she does. He's familiar. She may or may not have been watching him.
Just for a few days or so. You know. ]
Eren. Did you sleep at all?
[ Meanwhile the furball starts scooping handfuls of soil and grass and depositing it in its mouth. ]
[The furball gets a slightly baffled stare as it decides to start eating the dirt. (Literally.) But it's summarily disregarded after a few seconds when he recognizes the thing for what it is—Red team's been walking around with them for days, for one odd reason or another. He hadn't asked. Instead of paying it any more mind, he lifts his head back up to Amber with a frown and a stupid, reflexive squaring up of his posture when she asks if he's slept. (He's not a kid, he doesn't need checking up on.)]
I'll be fine.
[They've got a job to do. So time to go do it. He starts for the edge of camp without further preamble, though he does, at least, look back over his shoulder after a few paces to see if she's following. He's seen her around, over the past few months. The crew isn't that big. He hasn't forgotten the strange things she'd done during the fight with the harpies and the thing in the sky.]
[ Look, Eren, some days she can't even tell if your balls have dropped if not for your voice. But then she pretends to fuss over those much older than him too, though it's hard to say whether any of it is even genuine.
Amber watches him walk on for a while before bending over to scoop the furball in an arm and hurrying to follow, keeping pace just a few steps behind him. All business, are we? That doesn't stop her from chattering on at him while trying to clean the dirt off of the furball's face with nonchalance. ]
Nothing's keeping you awake, right? It wouldn't do to sleep too little. That could mean the difference between life and death here.
[You sound a little like Mikasa, Amber. Stupidly, it's less aggravating from another source (because it's less constant, less familiar, because there's less history,) but he brushes it off just as quickly. He's used to needing to prove himself, to keep moving forward, and he does it as a reflex. Back straighter, salutes stronger, head held high and teeth bared against the world.
His mouth presses into a thin line when she persists, shoulders a little tense, answer a little impatient. He doesn't sleep particularly easy in the first place—but that's not news. He never has, even before the wall fell, before he'd enlisted, before he'd seen his first battle or shifted the first time. He's had plenty of cause for nightmares, since, and he's mostly used to it. He slows down to look back at her over a shoulder.]
I'm not gonna hold you back, if that's what you're worried about.
[He'd signed up to help protect the edges of camp because he doesn't want to stand for a repeat of the Neraki ambush. He'd screwed up once. He's not letting it happen again.]
[ Eventually she catches up to him, walking side by side with the furball cradled in her arms like a very small baby. She gives it little attention otherwise, eyes fixed on Eren as if staring at him longer might help her read him like a book. Nobody ever succeeded in telling her that staring is impolite. ]
I know you won't.
[ Her answer is immediate. Simple. She has seen how he fought before and he's nothing to scoff at. His file mentions a few useful notable skills, with his only weakness being his emotional volatility, in her opinion, but that's also what makes him so fascinating to her. Righteous, Annie said. The file says the same. That's something she has trouble grasping, the idea of righteousness and justice, and why one would fight so hard for either. ]
Can't I accept that you're strong but still want to protect you?
[Eren's not a hard read most of the time, anyway. The shifts in his mood happen in broad and earnest strokes, often clearly written in the set of his jaw, the angle of his shoulders, the furrow in his brow or the clench of his fists.
Case in point—his brow knits in a consternated way that isn't even entirely directed at her. (Now you really sound like Mikasa. More so, less so. It's complicated.) Rather than answer—]
You mean like the other day?
[During the battle, when she'd frozen everything around them.]
[ That's precisely why Amber really really likes Mikasa. She understands the need, absolute and unshakable, to protect another person at any and all cost. It doesn't matter how strong they are or how much they despise being protected or how many others would have to die in their stead. ]
The other day, I wasn't protecting you.
[ Now she is, when they are the ones walking toward the outskirts of camp until they reach the shoreline. It would probably work just as well to walk a few meters away from the water, but where's the fun in that? She gestures for Eren to follow when she walks on to where the waves lap at the sand, stopping just short of letting the water get over and into her boots, even as she feels herself slowly sinking into the damp sand. Her eyes are on the horizon that's near invisible in the dark, if not for the array of stars above and the pitch black of the sea below.
[He follows, steadily. (And where Amber watches the horizon, the stars, Eren watches the water. The sort of impossible expanse he'd only dreamed of seeing for years and years. Finally get to see that sort of thing with his own eyes, and it's the wrong planet, the wrong reasons.)
He looks back over at her. People have never been his strong suit, but he's missing something in this conversation.]
What d'you mean?
[That she wasn't protecting him back then. If ever she'd wanted to do it (she'd insisted, just seconds ago) it would have been then. She'd stopped the harpies from moving at Mach-5 speeds, stilled the tentacles long enough for him to get a strike in. Right now, she's walking along the beach with him. It definitely feels far more the other way around.]
[ It's just like her to start an answer and then stop to take a few steps back away from the shoreline so that she can try to rub the wet sand from sticking to the bottom of her boots, only it just results in getting sand everywhere. On her hands, around her ankles. She claps her palms together in a last attempt to be rid of it. ]
I gave you a chance. But I was protecting someone else.
[ She turns to him then, smiling with a secret behind her eyes that she expects him to share. You know. ]
ugh, sorry for the delay I literally just waffled on what name he even knows hei by for ages
[You know. Only he doesn't, really. He doesn't quite get her. But to his credit, he's trying. (To follow, if not to understand. Because the latter might be beyond him, for one reason or another. Eren's goals tend to be greater than one person, more ambitious goals, grander ideals.)
Amber steps back, but he stays where he is, watching her knock the sand from his boots. In the fight, there'd been the harpies, the tentacles. There'd been him, and her, and—]
You mean Li? [(Hei?) They'd been fighting side-by-side.]
no probs! i'm just now getting to my tags after a week anyway . . .
[ Her affirmation comes instantly. Li isn't a name she uses for him, because by now that feels more like a cover than his callsign. Hei. That's the name she knows him by, the name she thinks fits him better now. Li is an illusion. Make believe.
Amber decides that a little sand here and there can be tolerated, turning around to find the furball that's tugging on the hem of her pants for attention. Like a little child. Sometimes she doesn't know how to deal with it, when she feels unable to give it the kind of care and warmth that it may expect. Children like Eren is what she's more accustomed to. Children who play at being adults. ]
[No one explains these things to him. Back before he'd died-and-come-back, Eren was only really aware of Hei through crew rosters, brief meetings. Obituaries. It's not uncommon, around here. November had introduced himself with two names. Tiger is also Kotetsu. Generally he just picks one until someone tells him he's wrong.
She doesn't. And he frowns at the confirmation, (thinks again, of Mikasa,) but he doesn't ask. He's curious, not nosy. And maybe it's the strange familiarity of it that has him keeping his distance. (Circumstances that breed that sort of thing, forge those sorts of bonds, are very particular ones. No one in training had ever flat out asked how Eren and Mikasa had met.)
Hei has hardly struck him as someone who really needed protecting. But then.
While he turns it over, she turns the course of conversation again. And he blinks, backsteps away from the water as it creeps over his boots. They're supposed to be watching the edges of camp, not staring at the water. Catching back up—]
[ Amber is nosy, more than curious. It's compounded by the fact that Eren is sharing a rover with Hei too. Partly it's to ensure that there are no threats lying in wait for him that she isn't aware of and another part is wanting to know whether she can recruit the boy to her cause. Her most noble cause of protecting Hei, too. He's certainly capable of it, the question is how to make him willing. ]
Your spirit, I should say. You're not the most powerful here.
[ That's not saying much considering the Neheda's roster, but then she's never been the most tactful. ]
[Ah. It's a weird thing to hear. Mostly in that they're not terms he likes to think in. Outliving the crew. He's had to try to accept that sort of thing, before. When he'd been a lynchpin in the war against the titans, had to accept the protection of his comrades, abandon them to near-certain death so the expedition could continue. (He'd regretted it, since.)
His jaw sets.]
We're getting out of this alive.
[All of them. Not just him. He'll do what he has to to make it happen.]
[ Eren wasn't the first she has heard expres the same sentiment, even if not using those same exact words. What was it Hei said? Shut up. None of you are going to die. The reminder brings a smile to her face, amused and proud, because that wasn't up to him to decide but to her. The similarities are uncanny, but then she sees him in everything and everyone, doesn't she? ]
You and me, maybe. Not too many of the others I should think.
[ When she turns back to him, her gaze doesn't relent, intent on gathering any change in his expression at her question. ]
[He's been proven wrong time and time again, over the past year or so. He hasn't yet given up his resolve. It's a point of view he's had to defend more than once, from familiar and unfamiliar sources, just the same. Jean, on Ajna. You still talk like we're all gonna survive this.
Amber, right now. Bringing up Mikasa specifically draws out a particular reaction. A sharp narrowing of his eyes and his attention. A combative clench of his jaw.
It's a thing that isn't always apparent about them, on the surface. Mikasa's devotion is a clearly demonstrated thing, as obvious and natural to her as anything else, but Eren's frequent impatience with her is just as clear. Because for all they are important to each other, they do not necessarily get along, or understand each other at all.
(Except for when they do, when things come down to blood, a mutual knowledge that the world is a cruel one. He'd killed for her before they'd even exchanged names. Fought off a titan for her before regaining his sense of self in Trost. In a future he has not yet lived, he will face down the titan that killed his mother with his bare hands for her. They're only alive because of each other.)]
You shouldn't. [Wonder about her. Mikasa's strong. She fights. They're alive, because of each other. Nothing the CDC can do will change that. He won't let that happen.]
[ Unconditional devotion of the sort that Mikasa seems to exhibit for Eren is the only kind of love that Amber understands. All or nothing. It doesn't matter to her if they are friends or lovers or just comrades in arms, it's the willingness to die (or kill, which for some is much, much worse) that intrigues her, that she can relate to even if only in the most rudimentary of manners.
That the boy responds with an expression others may view as negative is noted, stored for later use. He seems angry, perhaps because of her meddling, because he is protective of Mikasa. Perhaps because he doesn't want to be protected by her. ]
She would die for you, wouldn't she? Without hesitation.
[ It was a lie, maybe, when she said she thinks she would survive this along with Eren because she doesn't think she would when Hei's life is constantly threatened. That's all she's been getting at all this while. ]
[He's afraid of that, and that makes him angry. Frustrates him to no end, because he doesn't want it. He never asked it of her. He didn't find her, fight for her, convince her to fight for herself, just so she could devote herself to his wellbeing. That wasn't the point.
And now. With things as they are.
He grits his teeth, impatient with the continued line of questioning and unhappy with the topic. What the hell is she getting at?]
Mostly she beats around the bush until whatever secrets stowed in there jumps out, but then Eren seems like an open book. It really is difficult to stop making the comparisons. The similarities far outweigh the differences. She smiles to herself in amusement, linking her hands behind her back and walking on as if she's about done with the conversation topic, only to lull him into a false sense of security. ]
For some people, it is better to die than lose the one thing worth everything.
[ It's now that she turns back to the boy, hoping to catch his gaze. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
DAY 111 HOUR 71:50
Wake up! Rise and shine! :)
no subject
So, after frowning down at it for a moment, (this might actually be the first time someone's :)'d at him in a whole year of CDC text bullshit, congrats, Amber)—]
FROM: jaeger.eren@cdc.org
something up?
no subject
FROM: amber@cdc.org
Not yet. Are you ready? I'm coming over.
no subject
FROM: jaeger.eren@cdc.org
I can meet you outside
[He's not a little kid, Amber, you don't need to come fetch him.]
no subject
FROM: amber@cdc.org
I'm outside.
no subject
After frowning at the screen again, he gives up on finding a way to actually respond to that (that isn't some form of ??!???) and instead pockets his blackglass to finish pulling his boots on and arming himself for their shift on the borders of camp. It's radio silence for a few short minutes before the hatch on the rover opens and he hops down out of it and to the ground.
If nothing else, she's pretty easy to find. Camp's mostly quiet at this time of night.]
Amber?
[They'd met during the elder god fight, he'd been aware of her peripherally after she'd been announced as one of Red's team leads. But they hadn't really been properly introduced until they'd been partnered up.]
no subject
Amber doesn't make herself difficult to find either, practically crouched by the door while seemingly talking to a white and peach furball the size of a rugby ball or so. It's buzzing back at her and she's poking at its nose in reprimand, stopping only when her name is called. At least her expression easily changes to a friendly smile when she turns to Eren, rising to her feet and linking her hands behind her as she does. He's familiar. She may or may not have been watching him.
Just for a few days or so. You know. ]
Eren. Did you sleep at all?
[ Meanwhile the furball starts scooping handfuls of soil and grass and depositing it in its mouth. ]
no subject
I'll be fine.
[They've got a job to do. So time to go do it. He starts for the edge of camp without further preamble, though he does, at least, look back over his shoulder after a few paces to see if she's following. He's seen her around, over the past few months. The crew isn't that big. He hasn't forgotten the strange things she'd done during the fight with the harpies and the thing in the sky.]
no subject
Amber watches him walk on for a while before bending over to scoop the furball in an arm and hurrying to follow, keeping pace just a few steps behind him. All business, are we? That doesn't stop her from chattering on at him while trying to clean the dirt off of the furball's face with nonchalance. ]
Nothing's keeping you awake, right? It wouldn't do to sleep too little. That could mean the difference between life and death here.
no subject
His mouth presses into a thin line when she persists, shoulders a little tense, answer a little impatient. He doesn't sleep particularly easy in the first place—but that's not news. He never has, even before the wall fell, before he'd enlisted, before he'd seen his first battle or shifted the first time. He's had plenty of cause for nightmares, since, and he's mostly used to it. He slows down to look back at her over a shoulder.]
I'm not gonna hold you back, if that's what you're worried about.
[He'd signed up to help protect the edges of camp because he doesn't want to stand for a repeat of the Neraki ambush. He'd screwed up once. He's not letting it happen again.]
no subject
I know you won't.
[ Her answer is immediate. Simple. She has seen how he fought before and he's nothing to scoff at. His file mentions a few useful notable skills, with his only weakness being his emotional volatility, in her opinion, but that's also what makes him so fascinating to her. Righteous, Annie said. The file says the same. That's something she has trouble grasping, the idea of righteousness and justice, and why one would fight so hard for either. ]
Can't I accept that you're strong but still want to protect you?
no subject
Case in point—his brow knits in a consternated way that isn't even entirely directed at her. (Now you really sound like Mikasa. More so, less so. It's complicated.) Rather than answer—]
You mean like the other day?
[During the battle, when she'd frozen everything around them.]
no subject
The other day, I wasn't protecting you.
[ Now she is, when they are the ones walking toward the outskirts of camp until they reach the shoreline. It would probably work just as well to walk a few meters away from the water, but where's the fun in that? She gestures for Eren to follow when she walks on to where the waves lap at the sand, stopping just short of letting the water get over and into her boots, even as she feels herself slowly sinking into the damp sand. Her eyes are on the horizon that's near invisible in the dark, if not for the array of stars above and the pitch black of the sea below.
Amber sighs, content. ]
no subject
He looks back over at her. People have never been his strong suit, but he's missing something in this conversation.]
What d'you mean?
[That she wasn't protecting him back then. If ever she'd wanted to do it (she'd insisted, just seconds ago) it would have been then. She'd stopped the harpies from moving at Mach-5 speeds, stilled the tentacles long enough for him to get a strike in. Right now, she's walking along the beach with him. It definitely feels far more the other way around.]
no subject
[ It's just like her to start an answer and then stop to take a few steps back away from the shoreline so that she can try to rub the wet sand from sticking to the bottom of her boots, only it just results in getting sand everywhere. On her hands, around her ankles. She claps her palms together in a last attempt to be rid of it. ]
I gave you a chance. But I was protecting someone else.
[ She turns to him then, smiling with a secret behind her eyes that she expects him to share. You know. ]
ugh, sorry for the delay I literally just waffled on what name he even knows hei by for ages
Amber steps back, but he stays where he is, watching her knock the sand from his boots. In the fight, there'd been the harpies, the tentacles. There'd been him, and her, and—]
You mean Li? [(Hei?) They'd been fighting side-by-side.]
no probs! i'm just now getting to my tags after a week anyway . . .
[ Her affirmation comes instantly. Li isn't a name she uses for him, because by now that feels more like a cover than his callsign. Hei. That's the name she knows him by, the name she thinks fits him better now. Li is an illusion. Make believe.
Amber decides that a little sand here and there can be tolerated, turning around to find the furball that's tugging on the hem of her pants for attention. Like a little child. Sometimes she doesn't know how to deal with it, when she feels unable to give it the kind of care and warmth that it may expect. Children like Eren is what she's more accustomed to. Children who play at being adults. ]
I should have you know that I was impressed.
welcome back!!!
She doesn't. And he frowns at the confirmation, (thinks again, of Mikasa,) but he doesn't ask. He's curious, not nosy. And maybe it's the strange familiarity of it that has him keeping his distance. (Circumstances that breed that sort of thing, forge those sorts of bonds, are very particular ones. No one in training had ever flat out asked how Eren and Mikasa had met.)
Hei has hardly struck him as someone who really needed protecting. But then.
While he turns it over, she turns the course of conversation again. And he blinks, backsteps away from the water as it creeps over his boots. They're supposed to be watching the edges of camp, not staring at the water. Catching back up—]
With what?
<3!
Your spirit, I should say. You're not the most powerful here.
[ That's not saying much considering the Neheda's roster, but then she's never been the most tactful. ]
But you can easily outlive us all.
!!!
His jaw sets.]
We're getting out of this alive.
[All of them. Not just him. He'll do what he has to to make it happen.]
no subject
You and me, maybe. Not too many of the others I should think.
[ When she turns back to him, her gaze doesn't relent, intent on gathering any change in his expression at her question. ]
I wonder about Mikasa.
no subject
Amber, right now. Bringing up Mikasa specifically draws out a particular reaction. A sharp narrowing of his eyes and his attention. A combative clench of his jaw.
It's a thing that isn't always apparent about them, on the surface. Mikasa's devotion is a clearly demonstrated thing, as obvious and natural to her as anything else, but Eren's frequent impatience with her is just as clear. Because for all they are important to each other, they do not necessarily get along, or understand each other at all.
(Except for when they do, when things come down to blood, a mutual knowledge that the world is a cruel one. He'd killed for her before they'd even exchanged names. Fought off a titan for her before regaining his sense of self in Trost. In a future he has not yet lived, he will face down the titan that killed his mother with his bare hands for her. They're only alive because of each other.)]
You shouldn't. [Wonder about her. Mikasa's strong. She fights. They're alive, because of each other. Nothing the CDC can do will change that. He won't let that happen.]
no subject
That the boy responds with an expression others may view as negative is noted, stored for later use. He seems angry, perhaps because of her meddling, because he is protective of Mikasa. Perhaps because he doesn't want to be protected by her. ]
She would die for you, wouldn't she? Without hesitation.
[ It was a lie, maybe, when she said she thinks she would survive this along with Eren because she doesn't think she would when Hei's life is constantly threatened. That's all she's been getting at all this while. ]
no subject
And now. With things as they are.
He grits his teeth, impatient with the continued line of questioning and unhappy with the topic. What the hell is she getting at?]
That's not gonna happen.
[It's not an outcome he's willing to consider.]
no subject
Mostly she beats around the bush until whatever secrets stowed in there jumps out, but then Eren seems like an open book. It really is difficult to stop making the comparisons. The similarities far outweigh the differences. She smiles to herself in amusement, linking her hands behind her back and walking on as if she's about done with the conversation topic, only to lull him into a false sense of security. ]
For some people, it is better to die than lose the one thing worth everything.
[ It's now that she turns back to the boy, hoping to catch his gaze. ]
Don't rob that of her.
(no subject)