Ribs (Armin Arlert x Reader)

10 :: And I've Never Felt More Alone

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Fun fact: Pieck's dorm room shown in this chapter is based on my own bedroom.

WARNING: This chapter contains depictions of violence.

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"Nngh, my head."

Armin's pupils shrunk rapidly as his eyes were met with the everlasting glare of the midday sun. His hair, shirt, and jeans were soaked and stuck to his skin as thick, foamed, salty gushes of water surrounded him in intervals. There was a breeze dusting the air and the sound of screeching seagulls rang his ears alongside the crash of waves whilst he rolled onto his side, hoisting himself into a sitting position.

White sand, soft and finely woven along the ground to create the beach he laid on, had latched onto his pale, almost gray complexion. He looked sickly with his fading skin tone, drooped and darkened eyes, and almost bruise-like bags settled above his cheeks.

"Sweet boy, have you been drinking enough water?"

Armin squinted through the glare of the sun and crusted tears around his eyes at a woman crouching before him. She was absolutely angelic. Her hair, an unkept and layered bespattered blonde, rushed around the frame of her round cheeks in the wind; only held down by her overbearing white beach hat. She peered at Armin with large, doughy brown eyes decorated in little crinkles around the edges and painted in barely-there brown pencil eyeliner, which brought out the rich honey tint around her hue.

"Why don't you stand up. Let's go for a walk." She said.

Armin blinked at a rapid pace as his head tilted off to the side and he peered back at the woman. The shadows that adorned her face from the coverage of her beach hat paired with him attempting to see through the sun's bright facade made it difficult to make out the rest of her face. Nonetheless, he had no time to discern her features on his own as she took hold of his wrist tightly and pulled him up with a surprising amount of force.

As Armin stood next to her, he noticed how incredibly short she was, which is quite a lot coming from him considering he himself was noticeably below average height for men. She had to just be barely scraping past 5 feet tall. Though her height was miniscule, her build was nourished and plump much like her rounded, plump, upturned nose, which Armin could see through the shadowing of her hat.

"You're distressed and you're trying too hard when you don't need to. I can feel it."

"Um, w-what?" Armin asked rhetorically, his eyebrows turning downwards and wrinkling the skin between them as the woman had pulled him forward; the two of them taking slow steps along the wet sand and coating their feet in the golden specks.

"For someone who tattooed their mother's advice on their body, you sure don't listen to it."

She turned to Armin, ceasing his feet from moving forward. Her hand, tiny, soft, and decorated with plainly cut nails, held Armin's cheek firmly as her thumb stroked over the skin of his cheeks before moving down to his neck and tracing the letters of his tattoo with her fingers.

"Mom–"

He should have known better by the way she spoke to him, the way her nose was shaped, and how since he was just eleven his height always looked down upon hers. He should have known he'd see his mother at a time like this.

"My baby, all grown up. It sucks, doesn't it?"

Armin, unable to discern whether this was reality or a figment of his imagination, either way couldn't bear to let his mother see his cracking skin giving way to a weakening will. The best he could do would be more optimistic for her, as he always recalled her love for a dreamy approach to life.