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Armin knows that it isn’t required that he knock. He always knocks, but Erwin doesn’t answer when he does. It’s a futile attempt to be polite. He has outgrown many things over the years – his maneuver gear harness, his shirt, his inexperience – but he hasn’t outgrown his gentle personality. Sure, once he became second-in-command he bucked up and got to work, but he is still nice. He still has his friends.
Not that they account for much of anything nowadays. No matter how much she denies it, Mikasa is still clinging to Eren as though he is the only thing keeping her alive. Eren has retreated into himself, the guilt and horror finally catching up to him. Everyone else, those that grew up with them in the training corps and beyond, is either dead or dying. Armin wouldn’t be surprised if he were the only one with any sense of self left. And even that is a stretch.
Commander Erwin was lost some time ago. After he lost his arm, he was barely able to stand up straight in his gear, so the higher-ups thought it best if he either retire or move to a research team. Armin was certain that he would choose the team, but as usual, the man surprised him and chose to retire. The younger boy was livid for a long time –how could his inspiration, the man he looked up to, give up so easily?
Now, Armin still doesn’t understand why he left. Is he just like Eren? Too traumatized by everything he’s done and encountered to bother moving on? Or is he just not as strong as Armin thought? Whatever the reason, Armin is still sensitive about it, though he knows he has no right to be.
This time, he doesn’t knock.
When he enters the small apartment (really just a single-roomed flat at an inn on the edge of town), it is dark, as per usual. The curtains are drawn on the window across from the door, and though there is a candle on the two-chair table, it isn’t lit. There is an empty plate next to it, dirtied with what looks like just bread crumbs. Armin begins to wonder what his ex-commander has been eating.
Speaking of the man, Armin glances around the room again before finally spotting him lounging on the couch, the arm that isn’t a stump draped across his eyes. The younger one holds back a sigh. He steps over carefully, setting his stack of papers on the table next to the dirty plate.
“Comman-?”
“Don’t call me that.”
Armin sets his jaw, slightly squared with age, and stares at the other blonde. “You’re still my commander, no matter what you decided to do with your life.”
A rough hand moves away so that Erwin can glare back, though the effect is lost in the dark circles and chapped lips. Armin watches intently. The man hasn’t really changed in physique from nine years ago. He is still tall and thick, his hair still kept short. His face is still firm, though his jaw is riddled with stubble. The difference is his expression. Defeated, sad, angry, done with life. It really is a wonder that the man hasn’t tried to kill himself. Armin wouldn’t put it past him. He’s known several.
“I brought some information from the newest research project. Hanji wanted to come but they had to take care of some minor details. I wanted to go ov-“
“Ha! What makes you think I have anything to contribute?” Erwin is sitting up now, pushing himself off the couch with his one arm. He stands before Armin, still towering over him, though the younger now only a few inches shorter, rather than the foot or so he was when he was fifteen. The ex-commander reaches up and rests his hand on the back of Armin’s head, fingers tangling in the half-ponytail he keeps his hair in. “I haven’t been worth shit for nine years. If I were being more pessimistic, I‘d say I haven’t been worth anything since the moment I let my first man die. What…” His grip tightens. “…makes you think I can help? Why do you keep coming back?”
“Because you’re still a soldier,” Armin replies, his voice shaky. He isn’t scared, he just doesn’t know what to do. This is the first time in a while that Erwin has actually touched him, and he is hyper-aware of the strength the man still possesses in the left side of his body. The younger blonde steels his voice. “You’re still a soldier, and I still admire you. I still think you’re worth something. You got us past that first wall and you kept us alive for as long as you could. There was nothing you could do beyond that.”
“I could have saved everyone! I could have… I could have stopped those Titans from slaughtering my men. Those children, those fathers, those mothers. I could have spared each and every one of those lives but I didn’t, because I wanted to see how far we could go. I was an idiot and a jackass and I killed those people.”
Something snaps in Armin and he pushes forward, forcing his commander back onto the couch and pinning him there with his hands pressed against the collar of his wrinkled dress shirt. Erwin’s expression is shocked, but Armin has his teeth bared and his knees on either side of him and an itch in his hand to punch the daylight out of him.
“Don’t you say that! Don’t say that ever again! I’m sick and tired of hearing this from Eren, and now you! You did what you had to, you weren’t given any other choice. You didn’t have any options other than to do what was handed to you, even if it meant sacrificing those people. They died protecting the rest of us and this is how you treat that? You wallow in your own self-pity in a dark room, drinking who knows what and eating away at yourself.
“I admired you,” Armin continues, his grip lessening on Erwin’s chest, “I thought you were the best commander we could have been given. Everyone makes mistakes and sure, things never go as they’re planned, but that’s what you get when you mess with Titans, Erwin. Everything is fucked up when at any split second you could be dead. You did what you could.”
Erwin’s face is inches from his, and he can see the creases from age in his skin and the bloodshot whites of his eyes. When the older man sighs and closes his eyes, Armin allows the anger to dissipate from his body and he settles in the other’s lap, letting his forehead rest against Erwin’s shoulder. There are tears staining his shirt before he realizes the commander has tangled his hand in his hair again, his body held close to the other’s chest. It rumbles with the man’s voice as he breathes against his cheek with sorrow-filled words.
“No, Armin. I didn’t. I really… didn’t.”