eren is a poo [eren & armin]

Armin Arlert

Cats are nocturnal creatures. Of course Mikasa’s guard cat would be roaming about at this hour; it was engraved in her instincts to hunt and explore when darkness was at its peak. It was only natural. Perhaps Eren had forgotten out of accidental spite toward the feline, or maybe he just didn’t know. Armin’s face scrunched up as more chinaware clattered to the tiled floor, splitting shards into even smaller fragments to create more unpleasant noise. It looked as if a miniature tornado had made its rounds in their kitchen, and in this case Eren was the storm and this was all his aftermath. Worst of all, Eren couldn’t come up with a feasible excuse for his actions. Falling could not account for this disorder. The act of lying to his face – and he was a crappy liar on top of that – was disappointing, but the fact that it was a terrible lie made it even worse.

”You fell,” he repeated it back to him, convinced that if Eren heard it again – this time from a different mouth with a stronger sense of logic attached to it – he would realize how stupid it sounded. He seemed to get the picture, because as soon as he was finished Eren opened his mouth again. ”L-Look Armin, promise me you won't tell Mikasa, okay? You can't tell her if you do I die and you die and everything will go to hell." Actually, if he were to tell Mikasa right now she probably wouldn’t react badly compared to if he kept this a secret and she discovered everything by accident. However, he didn’t actually know what “this” was just yet. He had his suspicions, but he couldn’t confirm anything until he heard it from Eren’s lips.

"You have to promise me, okay?"

Armin nibbled the inside of his cheek and caved quicker than he thought he would. ”I promise I won’t tell her anything,” he said, and he could already feel the guilt like an anchor in his chest. Eren was his best friend, a man he had trusted since they were children playing in the schoolyard. After every adventure they had shared and after every bully Eren had tried (and usually failed) to chase away from him, Armin couldn’t deny him a simple promise. He owed him everything. Mikasa would inevitably uncover the secret and brutally murder them both, but there was no way he could turn away from his best friend.

”But you have to tell me what you’re doing,” he continued, pocketing his pepper spray and walking over to the broom closet. It was too early in the morning for him to be cleaning up after Eren’s messes, but he felt a long conversation lurking in their near future and they might as well start it now, because there was no way Armin could sleep peacefully after witnessing this. He had been wide awake from the initial horror of hearing crashes in the night, then it had been the concern and slight edge of irritation that drilled him into a state of full alertness.

He grabbed a broom and dustpan from their supply closet and handed Eren the broom. ”And you have to think of a good excuse to explain the mess. Mikasa won’t be happy that you broke almost everything.” They would also have to purchase a new set of chinaware. Mikasa wouldn’t let them get away without punishment, no matter what Eren’s fake excuse was. ”Unless you plan on replacing these with an identical set before she notices.”

Armin Arlert

Armin couldn’t suppress the smile that lightened his face. His best friend was pouncing on the possibility that yes, they could buy a new set and replace the ruined one right under Mikasa’s nose, as dangerous as it was to lie to her. He seemed to dance around the idea of Armin’s involvement, uncertain of whether it was legitimate or not, and it broadened his grin. ”We can pull it off if we find an identical set,” he said. If he was keeping secrets on Eren’s behalf then he was already in too deep to dig himself out, so he might as well help him with the kitchen mess. If he let Eren handle it alone there was a higher risk of screwing it all up, and it wasn’t just his skin on the line now. Armin would have to walk him through this so they could double check everything and make sure every piece of this remained an absolute, unsuspicious secret.

He grabbed a broom of his own and started sweeping shards into the pile accumulating at the center. He listened to his best friend ramble about the poor quality of the plates – about the stains some of them carried, and he remembered that red stain in particular because he had tried countless times to scrub it out with a sponge. He would probably have to soak it in bleach to erase the mark permanently, but now that everything was shattered it was too late to fix anything. He scooped more fragments off of the counter tops and dumped them into the trash. As soon as they were finished they would have to replace this garbage bag with a new one, or else Mikasa would likely stumble upon the discarded mess and start asking questions.

The guard cat was busy grooming herself on the kitchen counter; he could hear Eren nagging at her, and glanced over his shoulder to watch the two of them. She was completely ignoring his demands like she always did, and he was yelling about cat hairs and allergies. Armin was the only one who knew about the allergies aside from Eren himself. Neither of them had the heart to tell Mikasa that keeping her furry friends would pose a hazard to his comfort. It was another secret the two of them shared, one that couldn't escape Armin when he had noticed Eren’s constant sneezing after the first cat was introduced. They had to vacuum fur from furniture and carpets more often to prevent excessive sneeze fits. Fortunately the cats hardly bothered Eren, and Eren hardly bothered them.

He calmed the pace of his sweeping when Eren finally decided to answer his demands. He fixed his gaze upon one particular shard sitting in the corner and listened to everything quietly, absorbing every last word without muttering a peep in-between. The basement, Eren’s father, the suits – this was all news to him. He should’ve known that Eren hadn’t been completing schoolwork on those Fridays when they were children. How hadn’t he noticed? There had to have been signs. Or maybe he had just wanted to trick himself into believing that his best friend valued schoolwork as much as he did, because he too would scribble in his notebooks and scan his textbooks on Friday evenings when Eren wasn’t by his side. It had been Grisha Jaeger all along, the man who abandoned Eren without another word. Suddenly he was back – not in person, but in spirit, haunting them both with his past teachings.

A vigilante, huh? His suspicion was confirmed. Eren was wearing that suit for dangerous purposes. He wanted to control justice like it was malleable putty in the palms of his hands, but that was not how the system worked. He could be arrested for this, or worse – he could be murdered at the hands of some criminal because he was doing this alone, of course Eren was doing it alone he would never shed his stubbornness or the hero complex that led him straight into the face of death. He always wanted to take things into his own hands on impulse, and always without considering consequences. Armin sighed after the explanation ended, scanning the floor for any forgotten pieces. There were none. ”You’re right, it is dangerous and it is stupid.” He shoved the broom back into the closet and looked back at him. He knew he wouldn’t be able to convince Eren to stop these nighttime adventures, not after hearing the passion in his voice. It sounded like he really wanted this, like it gave him a stronger sense of purpose.

”How many criminals have you apprehended?” he asked. He wondered how Eren’s system even worked. Did he sneak them into cells? Tie them up and pose as an anonymous caller to inform the Peacekeepers? ”How do you even find them, and how do you catch them?” He needed to know everything.

Armin Arlert

A few months? He had been sneaking around for that long right under their noses? Perhaps he had underestimated Eren’s abilities after all, but it appeared that after performing these stunts repeatedly he had grown careless, which was why they were currently standing here in the kitchen next to a garbage bag stuffed with broken glass. All it took was one instance of overestimation - one slip up - and it had led him straight into the clutches of Mikasa’s guard cat, who was smugly licking her paws on the counter-top as if to mock Eren for his mistakes. Now Armin was involved in his affairs, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it yet. Ignorance was bliss, they say, and in many cases it was true. But he didn’t regret prying into Eren’s dark secrets or promising to keep the information to himself, even if Mikasa was likely the only person alive who could actually stop him from carrying on. Besides Captain Heichoiu, of course, but there was no reason for him to find out about this.

Armin tried to dissect Eren’s supposed “system” in search of flaws. According to him he was tuning into the Capitol Police’s private line on one of their scanners, listening out for cases that they would neglect to handle until several hours later (Are they really that negligent?), then tracking down the described criminals to corner them and apprehend them with whatever gear he brought along, which didn't appear to be anything other than the suit itself. He was grateful to hear that Eren was disarming them first – he hoped with an added pat down so they couldn't escape his restrains with any concealed trinkets – but he knew the phrase “rough them up” was an understatement. Knowing Eren he probably beat the ever-loving hell out of them, then left them to the authorities with enough fractures and bruises to keep them idle. Eren always did have an issue with suppressing rage and strength.

”It’s not a fame thing, it’s a justice thing.” He nodded. As long as nobody caught Eren on camera without his mask he was safe from discovery. He had gloves to seal his fingerprints, a mask to keep his hair from shedding and falling into Capitol Police hands – it sounded foolproof, but he wouldn’t believe that. No plan was ever perfect. What about blood, for example? Did any of the criminals ever scrape him with a knife or punch him in the jaw to draw blood? If his blood was anywhere near the crime scenes he was a goner. He didn't appear scathed by anything but a few cat scratches, so that was promising. And if Eren had ever been severely injured there was no way he could’ve hidden it for so long.

He watched his best friend go for the button, ready for a demonstration of this strange piece of technology. When nothing happened, Eren’s expression instantly changed. Something was wrong – maybe he had forgotten where the button was? No, the panic warned him otherwise. There was a malfunction. ”Armin the button’s stuck.”

Great, that was just what they needed.

”You mean you can’t get out?” He stared in disbelief at the impressive suit of armor that had just become a complete and utter burden due to its flawed design. Judging by Eren’s reaction this had never happened before, which meant he likely had no idea what to do next. ”Why is your entire suit controlled by one button?” He stepped closer and started to examine the armor. If he was trapped in there then this was going to be a serious problem, because peeling armor off of a human’s body could not be an easy task, especially with Armin’s feeble strength. Cutting him out would be too dangerous, so that was an idea he would have to discard. What the hell are we supposed to do now?