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[neighsaying]

INBOX (UN: OMNIDIRECTIONAL) text / audio / video / action This is Jean. Leave a message, and I'll reach back out when I'm available. [ Previously was thunderspear ] code credit

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[neighsaying]

Eren is the sun to his moon, Jean sometimes thinks. Always orbiting each other but never actually crossing. People are drawn into his orbit - people like Floch, and Mikasa. Others from other worlds too, like Aubrey. Armin is charismatic but Eren has his own energy, as flawed as it might be.

And, one day, he's read, the sun will go out. He's already lived through it once. The sun can't be contained no matter what they do - and Eren will never accept anything he thinks of as a cage.

He's trying, that much is obvious to Jean. He's trying to be content with the situation. Sooner, or later, he'll burst like a powder keg. The only question is how large an impact it will make. Will it just be a small fight, or something bigger?

Levi's words, though, offered seriously - words he's sure the Levi of the future had time to say as well - make him exhale sharply. The fingers holding the cup tighten, but he sets it down before he could even dream of doing any damage to the set.

The clink of porcelain against counter feels loud, in the quiet of the house. Jean shifts his gaze to meet Levi's, expression pained but just as determined. An expression Levi has likely seen before, in the young man resolving to kill to defend his friends.

Jean tries to find words, fails; swallows and starts again. "Thank you," is what he ends up managing to say. It feels like not enough for the grief Levi offers to shoulder the burden of. There's so much pain in Levi's future that he genuinely hopes it never comes to that here, to having to put Eren down. For everyone's sake.

end?

[reviling]

That memory is less further away for Levi than it is Jean; perhaps only Mikasa had been able to accept that reality so readily. He readily remembers that resistance, and later moving to full comprehension when that time so quickly came to pass. It is not a bad thing, to be resistant to killing another person, but their survival had depended on his young team being willing to do what's necessary.

Killing someone you care for, love, can feel even more unfathomable.

Jean doesn't have to say anything more; the weight of that understanding and shared burden passes easily between them. They both have held more than their fair share of pain in their lives, but also in this Levi is well adapted to carrying it. It'll never make it hurt any less, and some wounds will never heal. But it is something he knows he can do better than most. Much like violence. Much like killing.

If it's within his power to do it so someone else doesn't have to, he will. For Jean, it's never a question.

Eren is trying; even Levi can see it. Truthfully, he's never seen anyone more tenacious, perhaps outside himself. But it might not be enough.

Perhaps nothing will be.

He reaches to set a hand on Jean's shoulder (someday he'll grouse at how much they've all grown, even though the fact that he'll get to do that at all is precious in and of itself), and just offers a brief, affirming squeeze, gray eyes solemn and intent, before going back to his tea.