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Eren sat on an overpass's ledge, looking down at the road below. Cold, grey, unforgiving concrete that was just like the stuff Eren remembered he hated playing on as a kid because of how much it hurt when he tripped and fell too hard on it was now something he was staring straight in the face–not exactly happy to see, but not exactly unhappy to either. Every now and then, a car would pass through the bridge underneath, the colours orange and red from the headlights slowly getting smaller and smaller against any surface they happen to touch before they finally disappeared completely, the sound of the engine getting quieter the farther it got away from him. No cars had driven across the road he was beside yet. He didn't think any would.
A chill ran up the teenager's spine, fall's wind occasionally coming to brush the hair away from his eyes and dry the odd tear off his face. He'd already cursed himself for leaving the house an hour ago without a jacket on, but to be honest, he hadn't thought he'd need one. Summer had only recently bled into fall, August falling to September. Eren had done much the same, bleeding through to the change of the seasons, stumbling through life with no direction, unsure of when things started to get this bad. He didn't think it'd be this cold outside. He didn't notice he'd become so cold inside.
He thought about his bed at home, waiting for him to come back. He knew the covers were folded neatly, despite how filthy they were, how long it had been since he'd washed them–how many crimson stains marred the white sheets underneath them. He thought about his room, how it may've been so perfect looking to his parents and friends, decorated to fit the rest of the professionally designed home. But to him, it felt impersonal and cold, no matter how many warm colours were in the palate. He thought about his bathroom, and the collection of rusty razors that sat in a little silver tin underneath some tissues in a tissue box he never took tissues from. His leg still stung from the pick-me-up he'd allowed himself the night before.
Eren Jaeger wasn't numb. Depression had seeped in through every pore in his skin, and resigned in every bone in his body. But he wasn't numb. He'd gone through tumblr and Whisper and any other place he could think of where people describe how they feel to the world hidden by the mesh blanket of the internet, and everyone just said how…dead they felt inside. How desensitized. How devoid of emotion they were. But that wasn't how he felt. Sure, life wasn't great. But he could feel. When he met with his friends, he smiled. When he tasted good food, he was animated. When he saw something funny, he laughed. But Eren Jaeger wasn't happy. Eren was mostly just sad.
Eren always took sad for an emotion reserved for upsetting times, like when someone dies, or when you lose something you loved. He didn't know that it could be a standard emotion.
To him, depressed was numb. Sad was just normal.
He didn't think any of his friends had noticed when his mood started to decline, and he didn't mind. It wasn't their job to monitor his every move as a person. Though if asked, he probably would've told them everything. Eren was lonely. It was one of the many reasons his resting face was a frown and half-lidded eyes.
A broken sob came out of his throat choked, mist building back up behind his eyes, so he closed them tight. He whined lowly in the back of his throat, grabbing his head and ducking into himself, trying to will the onslaught of thoughts that came crashing into his train of thought.
Your friends don't really care about you, they pity you.
You're a lazy piece of shit who can't even bother to ask someone for help.
You thought you were weak for turning to a blade, but now you're on a bridge. How much of a bitch does that make you now?
"Please…"
He rocked forward, feeling a bit lightheaded for a second as he almost slipped, his hands still occupied and his brain still cluttered. Another car about to drive under the bridge honked long and loud, snapping him back so hard he physically almost fell backwards onto the sidewalk. His hands quickly regained their place on the ledge, sweat almost sure to stain the rough brick underneath.
His heart hammered in his chest and he resisted the urge to shake his head, knowing it would only make him more nauseated. I can't believe I almost just did that.
The sound of screeching tires came down the road behind him for the first time that night, cutting his own thoughts off. Eren didn't look up for the noise, keeping his head down even when the car's door slammed shut and a set of footsteps started coming towards him, getting much closer than he thought they would.
"Hey, you!" a man's voice called, deep and calming, but still slightly rushed.
The brunet didn't answer him. He could've just as easily been talking to someone else on the bridge after all; why should he think he'd be the centre of attention? So few people voluntarily want to talk to him these days. He wasn't special. He wasn't interesting. Even if he knew there was no one else around, he also knew not to make assumptions. I have time. I can still do this. He pushed himself forward an inch–
"Kid on the ledge, hey," the guy said, this time obviously right behind him and very much speaking to him and him alone.
He sighed inwardly, slumping outwardly, Suppose that idea's out the window. He turned his head slightly, trying to avoid giving himself vertigo by looking up too fast. He couldn't really see who was talking to him, but now that he'd acknowledged the man, he couldn't just go back to ignoring him.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
Eren took a second, trying to silently clear the "normalcy" out of his tone, "Yeah." But it still came out rough.
His shoes clicked as he walked the rest of the way over to the ledge, leaning against it when he got there, right beside Eren.
No. He slid off suddenly, letting his feet hit the couple of inches of floor on the outside of the ledge.
"Woah, hey," the man beside him said, "don't worry, I'm not going to grab you."
Eren nodded, but still didn't get back up onto the guard, instead leaning back into it as he practically sweat through his shoes.
There were a few moments of silence after that. He assumed the man was trying to find the exact right words to say to him, hoping the boy wouldn't just jump at one wrong mention. Eren wouldn't. He was scared pretty shitless of dying, but living might be worse. It was why he was waiting on the side of a bridge for a burst of confidence. He wasn't sure yet if he was angry or happy for this random stranger taking time out of his own life to try and save his.
You're wasting his time.
"I'm sorry I dragged you into this." Eren said. He spared a glance over at the man, only briefly catching a glance of his short black hair.
He scoffed, calmer knowing he wouldn't have to start the conversation. "How could you drag me into this if you didn't even know me to begin with?" he asked.
He knew the man hadn't actually said it, but Eren could've sworn he heard the word "moron" tacked onto the end of that sentence. He felt like one.
"Right, sorry."
The man sighed and they lapsed into another silence. Maybe he'll leave when he realizes how boring I am.
"Why are you up here?" he asked.
Eren shrugged, figuring any answer he gave would be stereotypical or obvious. He said as much, looking over to the man. This time for longer. He watched as he shook his head, his pale skin a stark contrast to his charcoal coloured hair, the sharp angles in his face somehow complimenting his soft eyes. Eren had a feeling those eyes were usually colder. He couldn't help but think that his face matched his voice perfectly.
"Doesn't matter. Everyone's shit is different, even if it's the exact same as another person's. The shit itself may be exactly the same in every way, but it will be different because it came from someone else." he said monotonously.
Eren chuckled a bit, and the other man smirked, "Are you talking about life experience? Or actual shit."
He huffed, his breath making a small, almost invisible cloud in front of him, disappearing almost as soon as it came. "Both, I guess. That's usually how it is for me."
Eren hummed, "Shit and life. The words are almost synonymous."
The man snorted and they stopped talking. Both their gazes pinned to the cityscape across the horizon. It was sometime past midnight, and downtown's nightlife had long since begun to show its glittered face. Lights in apartments and office buildings shone from different rooms, the lights that weren't on creating a pattern that was both irregular and familiar. Eren had always longed to live in the city, around bustling people with high-end jobs and important lives. He had a feeling he wouldn't fit in, though. His lost mind wandering amongst the successfuls as an impostor.
"Hey," he looked over at the other man next to him, almost having forgot that he was there, "stop looking like that."
Eren frowned. "Like what?"
"Like you've got nothing left. You're smiling like an old man in a wheelchair watching his healthy grandson playing soccer from the sidelines."
Eren raised an eyebrow, "I look like an old man? You're probably three times my age."
He glared, "Watch it, brat."
Eren smiled for the first time that night, small but genuine. It didn't last long. His smile stayed, but the light in his eyes burnt down to a dulled shine. "Everything just seems so far away. Every time I work for something, it's the last thing I could possibly end up getting. Sometimes, when I specifically try to stay away from something, it's the first thing to come to me. I stopped trying and things still come to me; good, bad, whatever. I don't have to do anything anymore. If I try, I'm guaranteed to fail."
The man listened quietly while he talked, looking over at him, even though Eren wasn't looking back.
"I just don't think things are worth trying for anymore. And if that's true, then what's the point of living?"
The older looked back to the city, lightly scraping his finger along the guard's edge, "The point to living is finding the point, not throwing in the towel and pretending you tried all you could."
Eren's mouth twisted to one side, his eyes flitting back down to the road as another car passed through the tunnel, "I don't think I care about finding the point."
"That's because you haven't found it yet."
He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. The man looked at him when he scrunched his eyebrows and said, "I don't know if what you're saying is insightful or completely stupid."
The man chuckled, "Probably stupid." He lifted himself up from the ledge, leaning away and taking a step back. Eren turned his head to watch him as he did, "I don't know the meaning of life, kid. No one does. But I do know this: nothing will ever get better until you actively try to make them. That's one thing you can work for and find the pay off in."
Eren looked down. His feet were barely perched on the edge of a bridge at probably one in the morning now, his hands like blocks of ice and his face crusty and stiff from dried tears. When he looked down, all he saw gave his heart a start with fear, adrenaline telling him he was too far up. And while he still wasn't sure about wanting to get down, he did, swinging one foot at a time over the ledge until his feet were safely back on solid ground. He thought he heard the man beside him sigh before he stepped closer and pulled Eren into a hug. There was an obvious height difference between the two, and the teenager wasn't sure what to do in the first place anyway, so it was… awkward, to say the least. But he didn't care. The stranger was warm, and his embrace was comforting.
"Thank you…" Eren whispered.
"Levi." he supplied.
Eren smiled as they both pulled away. "Thank you, Levi."
A small smirk tugged at the corner of the older man's lips, "Want a ride, kid?"
He thought for a second, nodding when he realized his alternative would be to walk all the way back home in the cold. "Yeah, thanks."
"Stop thanking me, brat."
And Eren smiled again, thankful for the first time for failing at doing something he'd set out to do.