Naive and Damned

Chapter 13: Heritage

Falco

"Vice Chief Braun!" Falco called, approaching the solder. It was still early in the morning, and Mr Braun was walking to headquarters. Falco kept his eyes firmly pinned on him, distinctly avoiding gazing away. "Could I talk to you for a moment, please? Alone?"

Mr Braun sighed, looking both tired and a little miffed. "I have to be at headquarters in fifteen minutes, why didn't you ask another time?"

"I'm sorry, Mr Braun, but this really is important... please can we go?" he winced, knowing it came out far more desperate than he'd intended.

At the very least, it worked in his favour as Mr Braun finally agreed, and let him lead him away. He bit his lip as guilt quickly hit him, but he brushed it to the side: the alternative was so much worse, after all.

He quickly guided his superior to a bench, not out of sight, but out of any passerby's hearing. He did not look back so that he did not have to fake a smile. Mr Braun had known him long enough to make him worry doubly so over being caught out.

Quickly looking around, he confirmed the area was quiet before he began.

"Uhm, Mr Braun, before we go any further, can I ask you something?"

"Falco... what exactly are you trying to do here?"

Not knowing how to answer that, Falco simply hesitated before continuing, "You were on Paradis Island for five years, weren't you?"

If his superior didn't seem happy before, his deepening frown confirmed it. Eyes narrowing slightly, the man ensured firm eye contact.

"You need to stop this, Falco. I don't know what's been going on lately, or why your suddenly so interested in this, but asking too much about that island will only lead to trouble." The boy got a similar feeling to when he disappointed his parents. All at once, eye contact was almost impossible. Almost. He looked back up and met his eye.

"They aren't really devils, right? Like Jean Kirstein... he's actually really nice."

The reaction to the name was immediate. Mr Braun's face completely froze, staring at him without blinking. It was a face Falco had never seen on the Warrior, even in the worst of war – an emotional stabbing unable to be replicated by physical threats. Once more, guilt ate at him. Nevertheless, this was to protect Gabi and everyone else, so he could only pray the Warrior would understand how irrational he was acting.

"Falco," the man began, voice far too shaken to carry its usual authority, "... tell me everything."

"I met him," he admitted quietly. "Mr Kirstein. He told me so much about what happened on Paradis... what you were like there."

As the morning light lost the remaining shades of the sunrise, Falco continued to talk, telling the man before him everything as quickly as he dared. Despite the looming time-frame, his conscience forced him to wait until everything seemed to sink in before he told him more. He oversimplified the parts with Eren, both to avoid talking about his family situation and because that name seemed to shake him even more than the initial name-drop. It felt as though each word that he spoke dug in another needle into his superior, yet he simultaneously knew trying to wait for the pain to ebb way for each jab would be more painful than just getting it over with.

Falco may not be able to begin to imagine what the other was feeling at that moment, but he wasn't much better off himself as he forced himself to hurt his superior assiduously, someone he respected and had looked up to for four years now.

When he finally finished explaining the new plan, he was shaking all over, fists clenched to his sides as he took in a needed deep breath.

Reiner was not as visibly shaken, but despite towing over Falco, he seemed so small: shoulders slumped and eyes dreary. Now finally free of the largest burden, Falco allowed himself to breathe.