Ein Riese, der Fliegen Wollte

Nothing to Lose (Everything to Lose)

Alexander has been under the tent for a week now. The deep trance took him days ago and yet still, Hanji tinkers. Each day, Eren dutifully assists with the scientist's observations and doesn't mention that no amount of loud noises or delightful smells are going to make him stir.

He feels almost bad for the Titan. Without access to the sunlight, he must be starving at this point. Eren wonders if Hanji would feel bad if they knew. Probably.

The memory of Hanji crying over Alexander's pain makes his chest warm. To think he'd find a human who sympathized with them...

And not only in his Titan form, either. While many humans were quick to decide he was nothing more than a dumb brute-useful for heavy-lifting but not much else-Hanji was quick to listen to his ideas and hypotheses. They nodded earnestly as he talked, writing his words down with a promise to look into them. It's been hard to keep his "theories" vague and nonspecific with that kind of earnest attention on him. Too big a part of him yearns for their approval. It doesn't help that Hanji has been very keen on getting as many ideas out of him as possible lately. He'd asked Armin about it once in passing, but the human had avoided his eyes.

'You see things differently than most people,' Armin had said, fiddling with a button on his uniform. 'Hanji's probably just...trying to get another point of view.'

Neither had spoken after that, choosing to finish their training in silence. Eren was perturbed, and Armin was...well, Eren's not sure what Armin was feeling, but he couldn't meet Eren's eyes for an hour afterward.

Steam wafts in front of him as the sample he's holding begins to disintegrate. The new preservative Hanji and the rest of the research team had come up with only lasts a second, not nearly enough time to do anything worthwhile. Maybe he could spit on the sample and allow his salivary enzymes to keep it in stasis. He glances around to see if anyone is watching and is just in time to see Moblit enter, wiping sweat from his brow. Back from training, then.

The soldier's eyes flit around the science stations, likely looking for Hanji. Those two liked to have eyes on each other.

"Eren." Moblit gives him a polite nod. "Not in the tent today?"

Eren shakes his head. "Timing new preservative."

Moblit hums, looking over Eren's shoulder. "I guess it was only a matter of time. Hanji likes to do tissue samples during sunlight trials." A look of fond exasperation filters across his face. "Since we don't have any kind of Titan anesthetic, it's the only way we can get a painless biopsy."

Oh, Hanji, Eren thinks fondly. He won't mention that Titans aren't really unconscious during their night-trance. Unlike humans, with their nightly lapse into unconsciousness, Alexander is aware of every cut.

"Speaking of, where is Hanji?"

"Outside doing take-down," he says, nodding at the other door.

Moblit blinks. "Already?"

Eren nods. "Part of experiment." Hanji had been interested to see if short "days" would have an effect on Alexander's recuperation time in the long run.

Moblit laughed once, nodding. "Of course. I don't know why I asked."

Eren smiles, turning back to the experiment log. He compares the symbol on the bottle to the ones on the log, noting down a shaky 'X' next to the corresponding number. Grabbing the log, he looks at Moblit who seems to be waiting for him.