One horrifically pleasant spring day, his mother in bed in pain and hard of breathing, face blotchy with red and slick with sweat, sores under her clothing, his father calls for him and tells him to fetch the mortar and pestle from the kitchen. Eren goes, because four going on five, his mother is everything in his small Shiganshina world, the one who wakes him in the mornings wand watches him fondly when he helps her tend to the herbs in the small back plot behind the house, the one who hugs him and teaches him that homecooked meals are the best. His father, brow pinched, face pale, takes the heavy stone instruments from his toddler's hands, and sets it on the table side.
He shifts Carla gently on to her side and she makes a pained sound that, trapped and rattling in her chest, rattles unsettlingly. Grisha tells him, in a rasp of a voice, that he needs Eren's help to make Mommy better, and all Eren has to do push firmly at this spot on Mommy's nape, and these couple place on her back too. Eren does what he's told, and Grisha takes the time to administer another shot to his mother's arm. His father draws him close, old stethoscope digging against his chest, and tells him again, Eren, Mommy needs your help, all you have to do is go into the garden...
Eren does as he's told.
It's not long after that that Eren begins to go with Grisha to his appointments, learns more spots to push, some that block pain, some that inspire pain, some that stop people from moving, and the places to rub and unknot for relief. He takes special pleasure in rubbing the stress from his mother's sickened frame when she's well enough to get of bed; the neighbors whisper about them behind their backs, about how Doctor Jaeger was able to fix the plague single-handedly, wasn't that a close shave, his wife catching it as well, and lucky for him not little Eren as well. Little Eren thinks they talk too much, and when his father takes him to the back plot and into the woods to learn about different plants and what they do, he wonders if his father will teach him how to poison annoying neighbors as well.
It's how he meets Armin. They visit his grandfather, who has a bad spot of arthritis; Eren can almost hear his joints creak as they move. As the adults talk, he looks out the window and spots the boy huddled in the backyard behind a thick tree trunk. He puts together a small poultice on his own for the first time that day, from the sap of the selfsame tree and the flowers growing on the windowsill, and Armin smiles at him when Eren holds his hand and asks him if he feels better. Then Eren asks about his book, and its smooth sailing from there, a world beyond the walls blossoming and opening before his eyes.
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Bang-up Job
FanfictionSo, Grisha Jaegar was a medical doctor, right? Imagine if Eren learned some of the ins and outs of treating wounds/illnesses when he was a child. He did go with his father on house calls sometimes, we know from how he met Mikasa. I would love to a s...
