Freedom Fighters League of the Exiled

Pins and Needles

As much as I knew I should sleep I just couldn't, I know Marco wasn't sleeping well either. We both kept fidgeting around. It wasn't until I had given up and just sat back up leaning against the wall when I finally noticed only about an hour had passed.

"Jean, you really need to get some sleep," Petra whispered to me as she was sitting near where we were all lying.

"I can't," I mumbled before looking over to Eren and Levi. It was hard to get their faces out of my head. They had so much blood on them before. What scared me more was the fact that the blood on their faces affected me more than the piles of bodies on the floors. What did that say about my humanity?

"You look like you're still in shock," Petra mumbled, waving a hand in front of my eyes. "You need the rest."

"It's bugging me," I finally mumbled out. She followed my gaze, seeing my eyes on Eren and Levi.

"What's bugging you?"

"We couldn't get all the dried blood off their face," I said before prying my eyes off of them and back to Petra.

"Oh hun," she said, pulling me into a hug. After a moment she let me go and gave me a comforting smile. "They're okay, I mean some water and a good scrub might do the trick," she said before looking around.

Marco sat up and grabbed my hand before pulling me over towards them. A part of me wanted to pull them close and not let go, and a part of me wanted to avert my eyes and get away. Every time I looked at their faces I just kept seeing their bloody faces staring back at me. It was a painful sight, one that I knew would stick with me for a while. I mean last time this happened it was in my nightmares for days before it stopped, even then the images never left my mind. This time it was so much worse. There was way more blood, and the look on their faces before they passed out I thought they were dying.

Marco sat us down right next to them and he pulled the plain black mask out of his pocket before pulling some water out of the pouch and pouring some on it. He looked at me and I pulled out my mask and he poured some water on it. He started wiping off Levi's face and I turned to Eren's. I looked down at him and froze for a moment. I took a deep breath before I started lightly wiping the blood away.

How can Marco do this? How can he look at them like this? It's too hard. It hurts too much. Earlier I thought we were all going to die. Seeing them like this it feels almost like they have. They look so lifeless and fragile.

"If you can't, don't worry I'll get them all cleaned up," Marco said, pressing his hand to my back. I didn't even notice that I had stopped moving and was just staring at Eren's face.

"No I can do it," I said, taking a deep breath and looking back down at him. At least I thought I could but the second I looked back down at his face I froze again.

Marco brought his hand over mine and moved it away from Eren's face. "Baby, it's okay you don't have to."

"But I want to help. I couldn't help before, but this I can do."

"If you want to help, then here," Marco said, moving over and moving Levi's head to lean on my lap. I froze for a moment and he looked up at me, "I need you to keep his hair out of his face for a minute," Marco said looking up at me. God, he knows me too well. He knows I can't do this. He knows even though I can't, I will still try. So instead of me feeling useless, he gave me something I can do.

I nodded and lightly pulled his hair back, being careful. He looked so fragile, they both did. After we finished cleaning up Levi's face we moved onto Eren. Before we did I took off my jacket and placed Levi's head on it gently making sure his head wasn't just laying on the hard floor.