Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/2122998.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage, Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Shingeki_no_Kyojin_|_Attack_on_Titan
  Relationship:
      Armin_Arlert/Eren_Yeager
  Character:
      Eren_Yeager, Armin_Arlert, Armin_Arlert's_Parents, Armin_Arlert's
      Grandfather
  Additional Tags:
      Loss_of_Parent(s), Alcohol_Abuse/Alcoholism, Friendship/Love, precanon,
      Self-Harm, Depression, Suicide_Attempt, Masochism, Pity_Sex, Loss_of
      Virginity, Anal_Fingering, Pain
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-08-12 Chapters: 1/? Words: 1538
****** Please Be Careful ******
by AddisonZhang
Summary
     After his parents' death, a grief stricken Armin suddenly becomes
     suicidal. Eren will stop at nothing to protect and help his best
     friend return to his former, happy self. So when Armin expresses his
     desire to explore sexually with him, Eren goes along with it, hoping
     that it will help Armin heal.
     However, that's not at all what Armin has in mind.
Notes
     Yeah...idk what the hell this is, just suddenly wrote it. So love it,
     hate it, whatever. Right now idek what to think about this weird
     one...*shrugs*
I was excited when they announced that they were finally going to do it. All of
my life, my strongest, happiest memories of my parents where those moments when
they would talk about the outside world. My dad would ruffle my hair when he
put me to bed and wish me dreams of the ocean and the forest bigger than I
could even imagine. In the evenings after dinner, I would sit in mom's lap and
watch her thin fingers flip through the pages of our favorite book.
"One day, you'll finally be able to go outside of the walls and explore the
world, sweetie," she would say pleasantly, pressing her soft lips against my
temple. And I remember smiling at the thought.
And then on that sunny Sunday afternoon when dad was smiling down at me, a bag
half my size slung over his shoulder and his other arm wound loosely around
mom's waist, she saying, "When we get back, I promise we'll tell you all about
it. Every single detail," I remember pressing my face against her tummy and
begging,
"Please be careful."
For a week or two, I sat up at the kitchen table through most of the night,
twiddling my thumbs, smiling like a fool, trying to imagine all of the
wonderful things that they must have been seeing and counting the seconds until
they would return to tell me about it all. Grandpa sat in the rocking chair in
the living room, and he would tell me to go to bed earlier and earlier each
passing night.
After a month he said to me, belly full of gin, "Quit waiting around, kid,
nobody's coming through that door." But I didn't believe him.
"They've been gone for awhile," Eren said to me one day after six weeks or so.
I got mad. I shoved him--the first time ever--and he just stared at me with
big, shocked eyes and furrowed brows, letting me run off. I didn't cry until I
got to my front door. Grandpa was there, in the chair, holding the bottle. I
hated him for being there when they weren't.
At eight weeks, two men came to the door with a wagon. "Caught them trying to
go outside of the walls," one said to my grandpa, who had opened the door.
Grandpa shook his head and offered the men a drink. He apologized, said that
they were lunatics, said that it was goddamn shame, promised that we'd never
give the government any trouble ever again...promised to make sure I didn't end
up as deranged as they were.
In the morning he told me to get a shovel and come with him, and he said to be
thankful they left us the wagon. And as I shoveled dry dirt over the wrapped
form of my father, I had to fight the urge not to vomit down into the hole
along with them. They never even made it outside, they were never even in
danger of being attacked by Titans. It was the humans who had stopped them. I
felt cold. I was lost. But I just blinked back the tears, trying to fight them
off although they kept on dripping down.
I stayed in my room for a long time, rubbing the blankets through with fingers
that wouldn't stop twitching. And when the blankets were all worn out I dug my
nails into my forearms and watched the wall remain white and unblemished as the
red began to permanently stain my arms.
Grandpa never even came in the room. He would knock twice a day and leave some
slop in a bowl in the hallway with a glass of water next to it. Only Eren tried
to get in. He was annoying, he didn't stop trying to see me, but I never
answered the pleas he whispered through my door. Never once.
He didn't stop for a long, long time. Two months maybe, everyday coming and
trying to get me out of there. But my arms stung and they liked the way the
wall looked and the tears that had dug rivers into my cheeks liked the way the
holey blankets looked, all crumpled up in my lap like dead animals. Finally he
stopped coming. Two days after that, when the silence on the door became too
much, I decided that I was too lost to come back anymore. I was lost and
wandering but going no where, just like my parents. I realized that that was
exactly what I wanted. To live just like my parents. To die just like my
parents.
When I walked out of the house in the middle of the day, straight past my
grandfather in his rocking chair, he didn't say a word to me.
I talked as loud as I could to anyone that I could--about the walls and the
outside world and humanity's potential--anything to make them hate me, to make
them hit me. I wanted to get hurt. I had already hurt myself as much as I
could, I needed help now. It didn't take long.
The forearm crushing my windpipe, smashing my skull back into a brick wall, the
boots slamming into my stomach, my sides, my crotch, the fists pulling at my
hair until my scalp was bleeding, hands slapping my face, mouths calling me
names, calling my a heretic--just like them--yes, just like them. I could
almost smile through the sobs of pain.
But it stopped too fast and then I really started crying. I couldn't try any
harder than I just had, and I was still a little bit too proud to straight out
ask them to kill me...after all, that wasn't something my parents would ever
do. I was about to say something else to goad them back into pulverizing me,
but his voice stopped me dead in my tracks.
"Armin, are you ok? I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," he tried picking me up,
looping my arm over his shoulder, dragging me to my feet. "Are you ok? Hey,
come on, talk to me?"
Eren. I choked on the spit and blood that coated my mouth and throat. Damn it,
Eren and Mikasa had come to 'help' me. Why couldn't they have just let them
keep going? It was almost over...
I struggled against them, trying to tell them that I didn't want their help,
that they could leave and I could take care of things on my own, but they
wouldn't listen to me and my mouth was quickly failing to work properly.
Ignoring my protests, they took me back to my house. My mouth had swelled up
enough to make speaking embarrassingly impossible, so I couldn't even beg them
not to bring me back there. Before my spinning brain could even catch up, I was
being brought into my living room.
I could see him there through swelling, mostly closed eyes, just sitting. He
didn't even get up. "What happened?" he drawled. I realized that I was groaning
unconsciously as Eren shifted my weight slightly.
"I don't know, sir," he said. Mikasa was on my other side, helping to carry me,
and she said nothing. I tried talking again and the high pitched gargling that
came out of me made my grandpa cringe.
He muttered, "God...pussy can't even go outside for five minutes without
getting his ass kicked..."
I closed my eyes and hoped that they would just swell shut and never open
again. I didn't try to talk again either, not until two or three days later
when Eren still hadn't really left my bedside and I was starting to hurt a
little less, which made me cry bitterly."Don't cry, Armin, please don't cry, I
hate to see you cry," Eren said to me, clutching my hand with soft pressure and
stroking my fingers with a tenderness that made me internally scream. "It'll
stop hurting soon," he promised me. But that only made me cry harder.
I knew, deep down, that Eren wouldn't let me do that again. Whether he knew
what I had been trying to do or not--I suspected that he didn't--it was obvious
that he would never let me get beaten up like that again. He had sworn it to me
countless times over the past few days.
"I know there was nothing that we could do to protect your parents, but I
swear, Armin, I swear I will never ever let anyone hurt you like that again.
Okay? I'm going to keep you safe. I promise." And my heart sank more and more
with every word he spoke.
I had to think of another way. I had to.
After a week in bed, occasionally glancing up from the new blanket that he had
brought me, to see his warm, green eyes staring back at my blood-shot, blue
ones, I realized that if Eren wouldn't let anyone else hurt me again, then the
only thing to do was to somehow make Eren do it himself. And by the loving
glint I saw shining in his face every time he looked at me, I figured that it
wouldn't be too difficult.
 
 
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