Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1145406.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Choose_Not_To_Use_Archive_Warnings, Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Major
      Character_Death, Underage
  Category:
      Gen, M/M, F/F
  Fandom:
      Shingeki_no_Kyojin_|_Attack_on_Titan
  Relationship:
      Levi_&_Eren_Yeager, Levi/Eren_Yeager, Krista_Lenz_|_Historia_Reiss_&_Ymir
  Character:
      Levi_(Shingeki_no_Kyojin), Eren_Yeager, Armin_Arlert, Krista_Lenz_|
      Historia_Reiss, Ymir_(Shingeki_no_Kyojin), Jean_Kirstein, Grisha_Yeager,
      Carla_Yeager, Marco_Bott, more_characters_as_need_be
  Additional Tags:
      Yaoi, Alternate_Universe_-_War, Angst, Humor, Fluff, Eventual_Smut,
      Eventual_Romance, Military, Violence, Blood_and_Gore, nonblood_related
      incest?, ereri, Emotional_Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic_Stress_Disorder_-
      PTSD, more_to_be_announced_-_Freeform
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-01-20 Chapters: 1/? Words: 2523
****** Bring Me Home ******
by XxstrifexX
Summary
     WAR AU -
     Armin works as a housekeeper at a nursing home - A new resident, one
     Eren Yaeger, peeks his curiosity. The seemingly happy elder shares
     with him a past of trial and hardship, of love and despair. Despite
     all he has gone through, the one who saved him, the one whom brought
     him home, even though he has long since past, allows him to live on
     without regret.
     -- Told in past/present narrative --
     Eren volunteers to become part of the military as war rages - when he
     is finally free of his contract he discovers a new member of their
     household one of which he will someday credit for bringing him home
     to loving arms.
Notes
     This first chapter begins in the present - but ---- Not all chapters
     will be told in the present - The writing will come back to the
     present every so often but for the most part the narrative will be
     set in the past ~ <3
     Please enjoy!
See the end of the work for more notes
“Good Afternoon!”
The gentle greeting called his attention from his cleaning cart. The blonde
placing his roll of paper towels and disinfectant spray down to respond with a
greeting of his own. Offering a wide smile and a short wave, Armin called after
the slow approaching elderly woman, a short ways down the hall from himself.
“Good afternoon Christa, how are you today?”
“I’m well, yourself?”
“I’m goo…”
Armin paused in his response as he tilted his head to the side. He never
recalled Christa owning any beige pants…
“That’s a funny thing to say,” Christa laughed behind her left hand, still
using the opposite to help steady herself with the support of her walker.
“Oh my god…,” Armin blushed as he whisper to himself, realizing that she,
indeed, did not own such pants. As a matter of fact, the problem not lie in
what she did not own, so much as what she was not currently wearing.
“Ah, Christa hunny,” he spoke a little louder, clearing his voice.
A bit embarrassed and he tried his best to fight back the red hue spilling to
his cheeks. Pointing down as he spoke, he did his best to keep his eyes level
with her own.
“I think you may have forgotten something today…”
Christa blinked at him owlishly before following his finger to glance down at
him, and then herself…
“Oh my!”
Armin couldn’t help but chuckle to himself. Christa was becoming more forgetful
as of late. Despite how sad it was, he couldn’t help but find a bit of humor in
it; it was often something they joked about lightly. Doing so helped to keep
the idea of her spilling memory from dampening her spirits.
“Oh my indeed.”
“It seems I forgot pants today…,” if she was flustered she didn’t show it.
Armin didn’t have the heart to remind her that pants were not the only item she
was currently missing.
Perhaps to hide her embarrassment at the mistake, she inquired with him.
“I don’t suppose I could borrow your pants?”
Armin laughed awkwardly, smile still just as wide, “I’m afraid I’m wearing them
at the moment.”
Christa nodded, looking up the hall than back down, holding back her laughter,
“Well, I suppose that’s no good. Then you’ll look as silly as me. Do you mind
helping me dear?”
Armin was already approaching as she said this.
“Well, I can help you to your room, but I’ll have to find a nurse to help dress
you.”
Linking his arm with hers, they walked back to her room at a leisurely pace.
She pat the arm linked with hers and soothed over it with a back and forth
motion before stilling, “Thank you dear.”
At eighty two, she was well enough into her years that getting around took
quite some effort. Though slower than most, and despite her acute loss of
memory, she remained mostly independent in the home.
Armin had met her during his second week on the job, and made fast friends with
the elderly woman and her friend Ymir. While Christa tended to be softer,
kinder, Ymir in contrast seemed to be more abrasive and sometimes flat out
rude. But over time, as he came to know Ymir better, he found her to be the
complete opposite with Christa. She was patient and gentle, in her eyes and in
her actions. Everything Christa would do or could do, Ymir would silently offer
her support; or sometimes not so silently; which tended to be the more
entertaining cases.
It was easy to spend the spare time he had during his shifts sitting with Ymir
and Christa. Christa would usually push a tin of cookies in his direction as
Ymir and herself bickered and teased each other over fond memories they had to
share with him. And though they’d never admit it out loud, it was plain as day
to see they were closer than they were willing to let on.
He couldn’t really blame them. At the time, a relationship like theirs would
have hardly been acceptable. Rather, they would have been shamed and prosecuted
for it. And though Armin, himself, could cry at the injustice they faced, he
was grateful that these two women, after all these years, through childhood
into well into their senior years, still remained just as close and by each
other’s side.
There was a photograph, in particular, which sat on a white knitted doily atop
her dresser that sealed the idea in his mind that these two truly were nothing
short of soul mates. In the aged black and white photo with a couple diagonal
creases through the center and corner, stood Ymir next to Christa.
In the photo, they couldn’t have been any older than their early twenties,
Christa perhaps even younger than that. Ymir was leaning forward in the
picture, hand rested on Christa’s shoulder as a smile stretched from ear to
ear. Her eyes upturned like a cat in their mirth, and clothing so inexplicitly
Ymir’s style; brown trousers and a white collared button up with a pair of
suspenders and a hat to top it all off. Likewise, Christa sported an
illuminating smile, albeit softer and eyes focused on the girl standing above
her instead of the camera. Her own small figure wrapped in a light sundress
adorn with, what seemed to be, a vibrant floral print.
It was a beautiful picture, one that spoke volumes of their relationship that
they, themselves, could not. However, unlike the photo, wrought with age, the
bright smiles they shared for one another had not dulled in the slightest.
~
Returning to his cart, Armin set himself upon the next few rooms. The rest of
the day, seeming to fly by uneventfully. The only real news being a new
resident would be coming into the home the following day, and therefore, he
would have to prepare the room in preparation of the man’s arrival.
From top to bottom and everywhere in between, he scrubbed every inch of the
room and its furniture; inside and out. With everything satisfactory, he was
finally able to clean up his own work station and clock out for the day. He
briefly wondered who would be coming into the home the next day, but didn’t
bother to ask in favor of heading home to get something to eat and a good
night’s rest for tomorrow.
~
The next few days didn’t exactly reveal much of the new resident. Each day
Armin had cleaned the room the man, himself, had been out. He did, however,
spot him on a couple brief occasions, but they hadn’t given him much of a
chance to introduce himself. What he knew about him, he was told from the
nurses and CNA’s in the building. From what he heard, the man always wore a
smile and could be quite the flirt. Other than his apparent friendliness, it
came to light that he loved spending his afternoons out in the sun. He was
confined to his wheel chair, but that hadn’t deterred him from going outside to
the garden every chance he’d get.
This, at the very least, explained why he always seemed to be missing from his
room. With Armin’s shift stretching from seven in the morning till four, it
wasn’t much of a surprise he’d miss him.
The one time Armin had walked by him, he tried to offer a welcome but the man
had responded with a simple hello and a brief wave of the hand. The perplexing
part, was the words he departed with as he rolled down the hall.
“Can’t talk now,” he’s said, “I’ll miss happy hour at the bar!”
Armin was sure, the man probably suffered dementia or something akin to it. Why
else would he think there was a bar in the nursing home?
Three days later, he was asked to clean the nurses’ station. To his surprise,
seeing a bottle of whiskey and an open 24 pack box of beer, he was proved quite
wrong about his earlier assumptions of the new resident. When he asked about
the alcohol stored in the room, the nurse confirmed it was for the new resident
and offered a boisterous laugh; her voice nearly ringing his ears at the
volume.
“Oh honey no,” the nurse laughed as she simultaneously jotted down some numbers
in her log book, “When he says bar, he’s talking about coming here. That man’s
a nut but he isn’t crazy yet. Mr. Jaeger’s a character alright, but the only
reason he here is cause’ there’s no one to take care of him at home.”
It was shed to light, that up until recently, the man cared for himself in a
small home outside the city. How he cared for himself, alone up until this
point was a mystery. Even more so, how he ended up in the nursing home at all.
Perhaps a distant relative or the state?
Whatever the case, unlike many other residents, much of Mr. Jaeger’s story was
kept in the dark. It wasn’t until a few days later that he finally had an
opportunity to speak with him personally.
The blonde had cleaned the near empty room a few times, but found, oddly
enough, he didn’t have much to clean. Save for the floors and windows, much of
the surfaces in the room seemed to be spotless. Short of a little polish, the
furniture didn’t need any further attention.
This day, however, some of the empty spaces had been filled. What seemed to be
a small nicked music box, sat alongside a couple framed photos on top of the
dresser. The photos themselves were a bit particular. Usually, any photos kept
in the home would be of family portraits or of themselves, but many of the
photos, save for one in which he suspected it contain an image of Mr. Jaeger in
his youth.
With the exception of that one particular photo, the rest all seemed to be of
the same male. It couldn’t have been Mr. Jaeger. The height was off. It wasn’t
as though he’d had much of a chance to get a good look at Mr. Jaeger, but even
in his wheel chair, his legs were much longer and he did sit taller than this
man in the photo could have possibly hoped to.
Armin mauled over the image as he pulled the frame from the dresser to get a
better look. The male was certainly short, much shorter than himself. His dark
hair was pushed back; the sides appeared to be clipped short to the scalp. He
features looked to be fairly sharp, and his expression rather flat, but the
blur in the photo made it challenging to get a clear look.
Pulling the frame closer to his eyes, trying to make a fruitless attempt to
clarify the fuzzy grains in the image, he was caught completely off guard by
the gentle voice behind him.
“His name was Levi.”
With an embarrassing squeak, Armin nearly jumped out of his skin. Fumbling with
the photo, and finally getting a good grip on it, he set the picture back down
very carefully. Much more carefully than probably necessary; as if the frame
and glass would shatter between his fingers if he didn’t place it down with
enough finesse
“I-I’m sorry,” Armin turned to see Mr. Jaeger smiling.
It was odd though. The smile wasn’t nearly as exaggerated as all the nurses
said; rather, it looked solemn; sad even. Nothing like the bright, flirtatious
grin he was apparently infamous for.
“It’s alright.”
“There are a lot of photos of him,” Armin stated more than asked.
With a soft chuckle, the older man nodded, “I suppose I do don’t I?”
“He must have been important.”
Wrinkled hands reached to push the wheels forward as the smile faded into a
softer expression; one of both fondness and melancholy. Armin could have kicked
himself for the series of questions. He wanted to strike a conversation with
him, but certainly he could have found a more tactful approach. With his mouth
gaped open, like a fish out of water, he tried to search for any sort of
apology.
Before he had a chance to speak, to find some way out of the awkwardness, Mr.
Jaeger chose to speak up first. With a gesture of the hand silently asking for
the photo, Armin followed suit by removing the image where he so cautiously set
it down to hand it to the elder man.
“I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for him,” as the man held the frame
between his boney fingers, ripe with age, his eyes seemed to light with life,
despite his years.
Sensing the slight confusion, the man patted Armin’s arm with a prideful grin.
“All these years I’ve had to enjoy,” he paused as his eyes seemed to glow with
pride; matching his ear to ear grin, “he’s the one who granted me them.”
With a soft hint of laughter in his voice, he looked down at the image before
him; at the black and white values of a face he could never forget no matter
how much time had passed between them.
“I-I’m sorry,” Armin muttered, not quite understanding or following along, “I’m
not quite sure I understand. If you don’t mind me asking… what do you mean
exactly?”
“I fought in the war between Maria, Sina, and Rose. I was stationed with a
group that ended up fighting in the battle of titans, had it not been for Levi
I would’ve been forced to march…”
Armin fell silent, not really knowing what to say. The battle of titans was by
far one of the most well-known battles between the three countries, and by far
the bloodiest If somehow this Levi managed to get him out from the battle, it
would have been without surprise that he’d save the man’s life.
Hesitant to ask, but curious none the less, Armin posed his question, albeit
closer to a whisper than he’d meant.
“Your troop… did they…”
“Survive?”
With a pause, Armin nodded.
With a withering smile that still managed to cling to his lips the older man
shook his head, “None of my troop made it, no.”
Wheeling backwards, he placed the photo on his nightstand rather than handing
it over to Armin to place back on his dresser.
“But he brought me home. Not directly mind you; he never did like the credit I
gave to him. He was awful at taking praise or complements.”
“How did he…?”
“Men with dependents either engaged or not engaged in work essential to
national defense are given pardon from duty under the draft,” the man cut in,
“He didn’t like that I gave him credit for something out of his control.”
“Regardless, directly or not, he brought me home. As for the lengthy
explanation, that’ll be a story for another day. In the meantime…,” he gestured
to the back of his chair.
“Why don’t you help me get down to the bar for a drink? All this talkin’s made
me thirsty kiddo, and call me Eren would ya?”
End Notes
     Next chapter -- We will cover Eren's enlisting - training - and war
     time and finally his return after his first tour --- where he'll meet
     his new adopted YOUNGER adopted brother
     if it's requested -- I'm thinking of turning this into a series where
     we can explore the minor characters/their relationships a bit more -
     - maybe -- <3
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