The Turquoise Cure (Eren X Reader)

Chapter 56: The Bloody Table

    The sound of the rusty door creaking open flooded your ears as the bright fluorescent lighting of the storage room burned your eyes. You stared at the floor as Eren walked in first, you slightly behind him. The white tiles of the floor had a kind of shine to them as the sound of your feet trudging over them dulled them. You heard an audible gasp as Armin saw Eren walk in. The quiet buzz that the room had once held was completely forgotten, the silence overwhelming as Eren stood at the front of the table. You refused to look up, too embarrassed to look at Mikasa or Armin. 

    "E-Eren!" Mikasa exclaimed, her tone concerned and dark. "I just want to talk," Eren said, his calm voice never faltering. You sensed his movement and turned to see him raise up his right hand, the same one that was coated in a thick layer of blood from the gash he had cut into it earlier. 

    "(Y/N), why-" Finally, you looked up. Admin was staring at you with a look of pure disbelief. Surely, he had expected you to apprehend Eren on sight, not walk into a room with him with your pinky finger loosely held in his grasp. "I can explain," you said, now looking at Mikasa. "We'll get to that later," Eren interjected, hiss tone so overwhelming that nobody dared to challenge him. 

    Looking around at the room you were in, you noticed Gabi for the first time. She was visibly shaking as she stared at Eren in utter horror, the smock she was wearing shaking in time with the flinches of her legs. Her eyes were massive with tears welling up inside of them, so different from the Gabi that you had pictured her as in times before. The way she looked at Eren as though he were a monstrous titan hovering above her, it reminded you so much of how you had felt as a child: overpowered and at the mercy of the beings of the world that reigned over you. 

    "Well," Armin began, clasping his hands together, "what do you want to talk about?" "Firstly," Eren began, "I expect everyone to have their hands laid open on this table." Seeing everyone at the table comply, he pulled out a seat at their circular dining table and sat down. He tugged at your pinky finger, but you remained standing. "You don't want to sit?" he asked, his eyes gazing up at you with a wide-eyed curiosity. "No," you said, finally finding your voice after it had been dormant for so long. "(Y/N), why are you-" Mikasa began, but Eren interrupted her once more. "I said that we would get to that later." He finally dropped your finger as he laid his hands on the table, the blood silently dripping onto the white tablecloth, staining it like wine. 

    "So," Armin began, his voice shaking ever so innocuously, "have you really let Yelena and Zeke convince you to join them?" Eren inhaled slowly as he stared at the tablecloth before him, the blood extending in a circular band from his bleeding hand. "I-" he began, slowly starting to look back up at Armin, "I am free." "No you're not," Mikasa said, her voice raising for the first time thus far. You couldn't help but look up at her as she spoke, desperate to make eye contact, desperate to make her see that you were with her, but she only stared at Eren. "You're being manipulated!" she shouted, "The Eren I know would never get innocent people involved in his tactics, and that's exactly what you did! You love us; this isn't you!" Mikasa's eyes were growing frantic as she began to sweat. You had to look away when she subconsciously grabbed her scarf, reminding Eren of how he'd saved her in their youth out of his own kindness. 

    "I said to leave your hands on the table," Eren growled, his voice so deep and passionless that you winced, digging your fingers into your palms. It was then that you realized that Mikasa had stood up, her knees wobbling as she clutched her scarf. She slowly sat down, placing her hands on the table once more. 

    "Armin," Eren began again. "Yes," Armin said, trying as hard as he could to conceal his shaking voice and trembling fingers as they delicately stroked the coarse fabric of the tablecloth. "I assume you're still seeing Annie?" Eren asked, his inhuman looking eyes boring into Armin's crystalline ones. "I-" Armin began, but Eren cut him off. "Who's to say that you're acting of your own free will and that the memories you inherited from Bertolt aren't to blame for your newfound muse?" "Eren," Mikasa said, her voice antagonized. "You're just the same, Mikasa," Eren said, drawling out the syllables of her name. "You and the rest of the Ackerman clan are sworn to follow orders, and you've done that for me ever since we were kids."