Lucky | Reader x Armin

Chapter 10.

For the next few hours, you paced. Since you started to drive yourself mad after a while, you spent the rest of your time doing chores. You tried to push down your feelings and distract yourself but nothing worked. You thought of nothing but him. You shouldn't care so much. If he died out there it shouldn't affect you. In fact, it should be a good thing, shouldn't it? The more Paradis Eldians got killed the better chance you had of getting home. But what was waiting for you there.....?

As much as you tried you could never bring yourself to think that coldly. Even though you had been raised to believe that they were devils and even worse devils that the Eldians on Marley, you knew it simply wasn't true. They were doing whatever they could to stay alive. How could anyone fault them for that? You had always resented Marley and after seeing what traveling here and back had done to Reiner, your suspicions were confirmed. They were just fucking people. The only difference between you and them is that they didn't have an army behind them.

You walked outside to take down the laundry. Before going to the line, you walked to the end of the driveway. You stood there for a few minutes, looking up and down the street, hoping to find him coming home safely. The sun had gone down and you couldn't see very far. The road was swallowed up in darkness on either side, a canopy of trees shading the path from the moonlight.

As you stood there you also thought of how you must look, standing out here like this. You looked as if you were contemplating running away. Planning your route. But you didn't want to. Even if you did, you couldn't. Where would you go? Maybe you could make it as far as the wall but after that, you'd be fucked. You'd be eaten in a matter of seconds. Maybe you could time it so that you left at nightfall and traveled as far as you could before the sun came up. But even then, how far could you make it? You were a researcher, you were in no shape to make a trip like that, especially not alone.

You shook your head. There was no point in thinking about it. You thought maybe you were forcing yourself to because it seemed like the appropriate thing to do in this situation.

Of course you didn't want to leave. Look at you. While one person might look on and think you were planning your escape route, another might think you were an obedient housewife, waiting dutifully for your husband to get home.

You sighed and rubbed your eyes as you turned around. You walked back to the sideyard to start working on the laundry. You were regretting your choice not to wear shoes. Your feet were getting cold as you walked through the cool, dewy grass, but it wouldn't take long, you only had a few sheets to deal with.

The wind kicked up as you reached for the clips of the clothesline. You tackled the first sheet down into a ball as you fought the wind, one sheet in your arm you reached for the second when something caught your attention. Hooves. Armin. You thought, relieved as you turned around.

There he was, but not as you expected. You thought you'd find him heroically riding on his horse, but instead, he looked exhausted, and something dark soaked the left side of him completely.

Your eyes widened and you dropped the sheets you were holding. "Armin!" You rushed over to him. Armin hopped off of his horse with surprising agility considering his state.

He was covered in blood. It completely soaked through his shirt and covered his chest, shoulder, and the side of his face.

"What happened!?" You asked frantically. You had to stop yourself from grabbing onto him.

Armin looked at you and placed his hands on your shoulders. You looked up into his eyes and realized how calm he was. For some reason, it did little to help your panic.

"Armin!" You said again, "We need to get you inside!" You said shakily. Your vision was starting to blur. You couldn't imagine how badly he was hurt to produce this much blood. Just losing that amount of blood looked like enough to kill him alone. Your eyes found his chest and arm again. His shirt was ripped to shreds.