The Turquoise Cure (Eren X Reader)

Chapter 40: Open Your Eyes

    "Shhhh; I think she's waking up..."

    You squinted your eyes in the smallest bit, a fraction of light flooding them, before you rolled sideways and retched. "Oh god," someone near you whispered as you continued to vomit. Your eyes were squeezed shut from the pain, and your head was swimming so fast that you couldn't recognize the voices surrounding you. The only senses you could rely on was smell and touch. When your retching ceased, you inhaled the air around you like it was the last air you'd ever breathe. Sucking it in, you smelled the clean linoleum floors and creased bed sheets that you remembered waking up in after you'd gotten back from outside the walls. 

    Hands were pushing you back down onto the bed; it was warm from where you'd been in it for what seemed a very long time. You pinched the sheets between your fingers, rubbing the threaded texture back and forth over your thumb like a mantra. "Where?" you barked suddenly. You felt the atmosphere of the room tense. "I'm sorry?" a voice that sounded like Historia's whispered. She was gentle even after vowing to burn the world. Historia... The last memories of the crystalized cavern and the massive titan washed over your brain, drenching it in ice water. But what happened after that? "Where- where am I?" you asked, rubbing the fabric between your fingers all the while. "Um," Historia paused, "you're in a cell in Orvud District." "I- I'm in a cell?" you asked, squeezing your eyes shut as a wave of pain split through your head. 

    "Do- do you know why you're here?" Historia asked. You vaguely heard he sit down on the cot near your feet, careful not to disturb you. Flashes of memory shot through your mind. It felt like they came as quickly as they went, yet somehow you were able to remember if you concentrated hard enough. The one picture that stuck in your mind, though, was that of a tall, skinny boy standing up to his knees in a sea of crystal clear blue water, his hair trailing down to his shoulders, and his eyes impassive. Eren. "I think so," you whispered, reaching your shaky hands up to cup your face. You winced at the initial pain, but as you rubbed your fingers into the skin, you felt some of the tension release. "Can you try to open your eyes for me?" Historia asked, her voice gentler than you wanted. You nodded your head, shaking the contents of your brain a bit more. You raised your eyebrows, hesitant to experience the sharp pain behind your eyes again. Regardless, you knew you had to. You opened them. 

    It was almost like you were blind. You could feel that your eyes were open; the gasp from Historia had more than solidified that. The shapes of the contents of your cell slowly began to materialize as you kept your eyes open, not daring to blink. "You should eat," Historia said, turning her back to you and facing the bars of the cell. A guard was standing outside of it with a gun wrenched around his arm, his fearful eyes boring into yours. When Historia turned again, she had an apple clenched in one hand as well as a loaf of bread. "I'll have to go back out to get the water," she said, placing the food on the table beside you. "I'm really not hungry," you mumbled, rubbing your forehead with your thumbs. "You have to eat," she said, her voice harsher this time. "It's been almost a week, and you haven't eaten a thing." "A week?" you asked, cocking an eyebrow. "Shit," you realized, your mind becoming less foggy as you looked at Historia, "is Rod Reiss-?" "Yeah," she said, her eyes stony and mature. "I was the one that did it," she said, "the details don't really matter; he's dead." "I wasn't going to ask," you said, feeling vulnerable and exposed. "You're fine," she whispered, leaning closer to you. "So what's going on?" she asked, careful to keep the guard in the dark. 

    You leaned closer to her as well, your cheek on hers. "God I wish I knew," you mumbled. "Eren's frantic," she said, glancing toward the guard who was now fiddling with the buttons on his rifle. "Yeah?" you asked. You winced as the memories poured through- him touching your hand, the awful pain that you felt, the memory you saw. "He's not here because Armin figured that your reaction was affected by him," she said. "I figured," you responded. You hated feeling resentful toward him when there was no way he could've known what would happen to you. All the same, you felt a rivet in your feelings for him; nothing too dangerous, but another shift could tear the whole thing down. "Hange's still recovering, but Erwin and Levi filled her in on what they saw." "What they saw?" you asked, fearful to know. "Ah, well, at first we just thought you'd passed out from exhaustion, but then Eren touched you, and you sort of got electrocuted by this neon lightning bold, kind of like the ones that happen whenever someone transforms, and then your eyes sort of like glowed this insane color. Then you sort of started mumbling weird stuff that we could't really understand before you passed out again."  "And clearly," Historia whispered, moving her eyes to indicate the guard, who was now peering through the bars, "it's not being taken lightly."