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snk2014-05-26 09:47 pm
anarhichas) wrote in snk2014-05-26 09:47 pm
Fic - How to Feed a Cannibal [chapter 8]
Title: How to Feed a Cannibal
Creator: Anarhichas
Pairing: Armin/Eren, Armin/OC
Rating: Explicit
Contents: Armin, Eren, Mikasa, graphic non-con & underage, rape recovery
Spoilers for: up to chapter 49
Read chapters 1-7 on AO3
For this chapter: Armin, Eren, non-explicit rape recovery, teen, no spoilers
‘He’s angry with you,’ Mikasa had said. ‘And himself.’
That was three days ago. Armin found Eren alone for the first time since then as he walked to the hall for a theory lecture, seeing him up ahead in the corridor.
His throat stuck with Eren's name in it, the sound too hard to make out. Armin's hands clenched into nervous fists. He'd thought about what he needed to say – over and over, reciting the conversations like digging in the fields with bare hands. He’d picked at the outcomes like picking out stones from the dirt, all shapes and sizes, turning the skin on his fingers hard and thick. What could he say? What would make Eren see?
‘He's angry with you.’ Mikasa's voice rang in his head and wouldn't stop.
‘Eren,’ Armin called, and hurried the metres between them to catch up. ‘We need to speak.’
‘Yeah? What if I don't want to?’ Eren's face was stony, closed, but only just. He turned away and Armin grabbed his wrist.
‘Let go,’ Eren hissed, shaking Armin off easily. He looked away, jaw clenched, and made to carry on walking.
‘Eren!’ Armin snapped. ‘Stop acting like you're the victim here!’
Eren tensed like Armin knew he would, freezing still and hard. Armin took the opportunity to grab Eren's wrist again, similar to but not really holding hands at all. There wasn’t time to draw this out, or dance around the topic. Eren would only be irritated by anything but bluntness.
‘Eren,’ he said. ‘What I did, it was to save you. Back in Trost, don't you remember? When you pulled me from that titan's mouth and got swallowed instead? That's no different, or if it is, it's worse because you should have died. Don't you see?’
‘It’s not-’ Eren began, but slow enough that Armin spoke over him, cutting him off.
‘So with Hasek – you wouldn’t have done it for me?’ he said, and watched Eren flinch minutely. ‘If it'd been the other way round and he'd asked you instead, you’d have said no? To save me?’
‘What kind of stupid question is that?’ Eren snapped.
‘Would you want me to hate you for it, then?’
‘I don't hate you!’ Eren turned to fully face Armin for the first time. His voice was vehement, then it faltered. ‘I just – I – why did you have to, afterwards? When you, you know. Why? It wasn't because you actually wanted me. It was a rebound thing or something, you wanted to get back at me, I don't know –’
‘Do you really think I'd do that to you?’
‘Why then?’ Eren's voice was getting desperate, and loud. ‘You never wanted me before.’
Armin shook his head. He couldn’t stop thinking that at any moment someone could interrupt them. Standing directly in front of Eren, looking up at him straight in the eye, he let earnestness bleed into his voice.
‘Eren, listen to me. You know what the survival rate of the Survey Corps is. Even less for people like me. No, let me finish. You being what you are means you’ll survive, but I probably won't and if I do, what about the next expedition, or the one after that? At best I'm only ever going to live another year or two. In Trost – we were so confident and look what happened. And it's not that I just don't want him to be my only experience.’
His words picked up pace without him meaning them to, but he couldn’t slow down. ‘I do want you. I like you, Eren, and trust you. It’s just that I only realised how little time I have left.’
He finished in a rush of breath. Armin could feel sweat prickle cold on his skin, his blood pumping hot beneath. What would Eren do? Would he argue? He shouldn’t, but what if he did?
Eren didn’t argue. He looked away, mouth thin and eyes tight. ‘We should go or we’ll be late,’ he said after a long pause, and before Armin could reply he stepped back, walking away.
Armin sat far away from him in the lecture, next to Bertolt, who looked down at him nervously but didn’t say anything.
That evening Armin pointedly did not look at Eren as they sat in the mess and ate, though he itched to. What was Eren thinking? Was he speaking to anyone? Eren needed space – interruption would only make him angry, set him off before he could reach the natural conclusion, but... Armin ate without tasting. He wanted Eren to decide now.
For the first time, the thought of how few days he had left gnawed at his mind. He’d known it before – why did it bother him now?
The next morning, on laundry duty, Armin dawdled as they finished up. Was half a day enough for Eren to decide?
Eren didn’t approach him but walked off with Reiner and Bertolt, heading straight to the training fields.
They weren’t on the same lunch shift. Dinner progressed the same as the last.
What if what he’d said wasn’t enough? What if Eren just didn’t ever forgive him?
Eren approached him, finally, the day after, late at night. Too dark in the lonely corridor to see properly, Armin jumped as he heard the footsteps close behind him, turning and bursting out in embarrassed laughter as he saw who it was. The memory of just why he wanted talk to Eren cut the laughter short.
‘Armin,’ Eren started, hard and unsure. ‘I'm sorry. What I said, I didn't mean it. If – if you did want us to be together I wouldn't mind. I’d like it. And–’ Eren stopped, hesitating before starting again, making up for the lost time with sincere harshness. ‘You won't die. I don't care what the stupid statistics are, I'll defend you. And Mikasa will look out for you. You won't die.’
Armin shook his head but couldn't bear to argue. His mouth had split into a grin that wouldn't leave. His heart beat heavy, fast, his head light with relief. He'd done it. Eren was still his.
Armin couldn't really see Eren's expression in the shadows, but he didn't care. He stepped forward and with his hands on the back of Eren's head, hair tangled and peppered with dirt, Armin pulled him down into a kiss.
Eren’s lips opened in surprise, but he wrapped his arms around Armin’s waist and pulled him close, chest to chest and Armin’s hips pressing against the muscle of his thighs. Armin pressed harder, holding them tight together. His heart raced. He could taste Eren, feel his tongue move tentatively underneath his own. Their chapped lips scraped against each other. Eren’s abdominals were hard through his shirt, his hands strong as they moved across Armin’s back.
Eren radiated heat in the chilly air. Armin could feel his cheeks flush and sweat start to tickle on his skin. He sucked the tip of Eren’s tongue, taking it into his mouth to nip, causing Eren’s breath to stumble hot over his face. As Armin pushed Eren back into the wall, Eren’s fingers gripped his waist more tightly, then again until it almost hurt as the two of them slid down to the floor. Armin broke the kiss long enough to clamber inelegantly onto his lap.
Eren was hard. Not fully, but still noticeably through the thin material of his night clothes. Armin sat down firmly and pushed Eren’s legs apart, grinding down against him, and at the motion Eren stuttered a drawn-out moan. His hands clenched in the fabric of Armin's shirt, and Armin couldn't stop himself from grinding down harder. There was a thrill lighting up his blood, a fierce and possessive triumph, a head rush that made him grin and grin into the kiss.
He wanted to feel like this forever.
Eren bucked up with a bitten-back expletive. Then he grabbed Armin's waist, holding him almost too tight.
‘Wait,’ he said, a gasp. ‘Armin – can you stop, just a second–’
For a single moment Armin didn't want to. The possibility of not stopping, of gagging Eren's mouth with kisses as he forced the orgasm out of him, of not stopping until Eren lay boneless on the floor beneath him, flickered across his mind. Then Armin caught his breath and sat back quickly.
Eren's face was flushed, his lips wet and red. His mouth was open to breathe heavily. He looked at Armin, a strange expression in his eyes.
‘I – not that. Can we just kiss, for now? Please?’
Armin didn't reply. His own breath dried out his throat. He wanted – he wanted to pin Eren down. Wanted him sobbing out his release, unable to say no. But the thought came with a tightness behind his eyelids, a sharpness between his ribs, and suddenly Armin couldn't meet Eren's eyes.
He ducked his head, bowing down to press his forehead against Eren's shoulder. He removed his hands to his own thighs, fisted tightly and pressing down on the thin muscle. Eren's hands, faltering a moment, curled around his back.
‘You're not comfortable?’ Armin asked, quiet, flat.
‘No. I mean, it’s not me – no, I'm sorry, we can if you want to.’ Eren's words were forcefully light, badly done.
As they sat there, the noises of the castle echoing around them distantly, Armin chuckled, low and tired sounding to his own ears. His lower legs were cold where they pressed against the stone floor, his back chilly except where Eren's hands warmed him. They weren't exactly being subtle, sitting like this out in the corridor. It might be remote enough that no one should be passing, he knew, but he also knew that letting chance decide was never the better option. Armin buried his face deeper into the creases of Eren's shirt, pressing his nose flat against the hard collarbone. He breathed in. Eren smelt of sweat, leather and soap, earthy and alive.
Eren's hands traced up his back, pulling him back by the shoulders until they were face to face.
‘It's okay,’ he said, wide eyes keenly honest. ‘I swear.’
He pulled Armin into a kiss, but before they could touch Armin blocked him, putting a hand up to push Eren's face to the side.
‘Stop,’ he said, the air tight in his lungs.
Eren didn't move, still as stone from behind Armin's hand, save for the slowing rise of his chest. Armin let his hand drop to cradle Eren's jaw, feeling the brush of stubble on his palm. He turned Eren's head back slowly and kissed him, easing his lips open and searching out the expanse of his mouth, but gently this time, carefully.
Did Eren still have an erection? Armin couldn't tell any more, and didn't dare move to find out. Self-conscious, he combed his fingers through Eren's hair, letting them tangle in the knots instead of pulling them out. Eren's hands were moving again, up and down his back, slow motions like soothing a child. Armin closed his eyes and let them.
Eren's breath still smelt, leaving a sticky, faintly sickly taste in his mouth. Did all kisses always taste bad? Armin broke away to kiss the side of Eren's lips, trailing across the plane of his cheek to his ear, then down along his jawline. His hands roamed across Eren's shoulders, down his chest to graze his nipples, and tucked in under his shirt to splay on his bare stomach. When would Eren stop him? Would he at all?
Armin took his hands away, returning his mouth to press, closed-lipped, against Eren's. He brought up his legs, knees brushing Eren's armpits and feet curled around Eren's body until he was all but clinging. He didn't want to move. Didn't want to part, but to merge into him like he'd seen the flesh of Eren's titan form cling to Eren, cradling him wholly. He put his head back down into the crook of Eren's neck.
He could hear a heartbeat in his ear. Eren's ribs rose and fell rhythmically, and Armin switched his own breathing to mirror it.
They sat there for a while longer, then got up with stiff legs. Eren reached out, hesitant to hold Armin's hand, and Armin pretended not to notice as he took it.
Lying in bed the next morning, in the prized amount of time between waking and having to rise, Armin counted off the days he had left. Fifteen. Fifteen days until the expedition in which he’d probably die.
It wasn’t enough. Armin pressed his forearm over his mouth, covering up his lips, almost smothering his nose. He wanted to scream. Fifteen days wasn’t nearly enough.
When he sat next to Eren at breakfast he ignored the look Mikasa sent them, smiling back mildly around the porridge. When he slowed his team down in training he got up from the ground and tried harder.
Cornering Eren in their lunch break, trailing with lips and tongue down his chest as far as the shirt would allow, he let Eren’s hands halt him from pulling the offending clothing up and off completely. They kissed instead, hot and heady and not quite thrilling.
Ten days until the expedition. Should he tell anyone about Annie?
Armin’s shoulders ached as he hauled buckets of water down from the well to the stables, pausing a moment to stand and catch his breath, watching the horses drink. Annie should have reported it if she’d taken anyone’s gear, which could have happened if her own had broken or run out of gas. And yet she hadn’t. She’d never shied from following protocol before, despite her obvious disdain for it. Why now? Maybe it was simply a mistake on his own part. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Jean on mucking out duty, covered in straw. Perhaps he could ask him if Marco’s gear had been there when he’d been found.
Eren remained busy training with Captain Levi and his squad. That evening Armin sat out behind the tool sheds, on the long, stalky grass, and with bent legs splayed open he masturbated with his mouth wide open, sucking in the cold air. He pressed the back of his head against the old wooden shed, grinding the heels of his boots into the dirt, and arching his back he came into his hand, silent save for his panting breath.
Five days left.
He thought of titans. The softness of the tongue when he’d almost been eaten, wet and hot, turning the whole world red. He wondered whether Hasek would scream as he got eaten, or if he’d be the sort to freeze up and go silently, like himself.
There were battle formations to learn, technique impossible to train for enough. Sleepless nights. He watched his friends and hands start to jitter with nerves. He watched Eren from a distance, where he sat and talked with his new squad, and thought he might hate them if he wasn’t so exhausted, if he didn’t just want this expedition to be over, one way or another.
When they finally rode out it almost felt like an anti-climax.
Creator: Anarhichas
Pairing: Armin/Eren, Armin/OC
Rating: Explicit
Contents: Armin, Eren, Mikasa, graphic non-con & underage, rape recovery
Spoilers for: up to chapter 49
Read chapters 1-7 on AO3
For this chapter: Armin, Eren, non-explicit rape recovery, teen, no spoilers
‘He’s angry with you,’ Mikasa had said. ‘And himself.’
That was three days ago. Armin found Eren alone for the first time since then as he walked to the hall for a theory lecture, seeing him up ahead in the corridor.
His throat stuck with Eren's name in it, the sound too hard to make out. Armin's hands clenched into nervous fists. He'd thought about what he needed to say – over and over, reciting the conversations like digging in the fields with bare hands. He’d picked at the outcomes like picking out stones from the dirt, all shapes and sizes, turning the skin on his fingers hard and thick. What could he say? What would make Eren see?
‘He's angry with you.’ Mikasa's voice rang in his head and wouldn't stop.
‘Eren,’ Armin called, and hurried the metres between them to catch up. ‘We need to speak.’
‘Yeah? What if I don't want to?’ Eren's face was stony, closed, but only just. He turned away and Armin grabbed his wrist.
‘Let go,’ Eren hissed, shaking Armin off easily. He looked away, jaw clenched, and made to carry on walking.
‘Eren!’ Armin snapped. ‘Stop acting like you're the victim here!’
Eren tensed like Armin knew he would, freezing still and hard. Armin took the opportunity to grab Eren's wrist again, similar to but not really holding hands at all. There wasn’t time to draw this out, or dance around the topic. Eren would only be irritated by anything but bluntness.
‘Eren,’ he said. ‘What I did, it was to save you. Back in Trost, don't you remember? When you pulled me from that titan's mouth and got swallowed instead? That's no different, or if it is, it's worse because you should have died. Don't you see?’
‘It’s not-’ Eren began, but slow enough that Armin spoke over him, cutting him off.
‘So with Hasek – you wouldn’t have done it for me?’ he said, and watched Eren flinch minutely. ‘If it'd been the other way round and he'd asked you instead, you’d have said no? To save me?’
‘What kind of stupid question is that?’ Eren snapped.
‘Would you want me to hate you for it, then?’
‘I don't hate you!’ Eren turned to fully face Armin for the first time. His voice was vehement, then it faltered. ‘I just – I – why did you have to, afterwards? When you, you know. Why? It wasn't because you actually wanted me. It was a rebound thing or something, you wanted to get back at me, I don't know –’
‘Do you really think I'd do that to you?’
‘Why then?’ Eren's voice was getting desperate, and loud. ‘You never wanted me before.’
Armin shook his head. He couldn’t stop thinking that at any moment someone could interrupt them. Standing directly in front of Eren, looking up at him straight in the eye, he let earnestness bleed into his voice.
‘Eren, listen to me. You know what the survival rate of the Survey Corps is. Even less for people like me. No, let me finish. You being what you are means you’ll survive, but I probably won't and if I do, what about the next expedition, or the one after that? At best I'm only ever going to live another year or two. In Trost – we were so confident and look what happened. And it's not that I just don't want him to be my only experience.’
His words picked up pace without him meaning them to, but he couldn’t slow down. ‘I do want you. I like you, Eren, and trust you. It’s just that I only realised how little time I have left.’
He finished in a rush of breath. Armin could feel sweat prickle cold on his skin, his blood pumping hot beneath. What would Eren do? Would he argue? He shouldn’t, but what if he did?
Eren didn’t argue. He looked away, mouth thin and eyes tight. ‘We should go or we’ll be late,’ he said after a long pause, and before Armin could reply he stepped back, walking away.
Armin sat far away from him in the lecture, next to Bertolt, who looked down at him nervously but didn’t say anything.
That evening Armin pointedly did not look at Eren as they sat in the mess and ate, though he itched to. What was Eren thinking? Was he speaking to anyone? Eren needed space – interruption would only make him angry, set him off before he could reach the natural conclusion, but... Armin ate without tasting. He wanted Eren to decide now.
For the first time, the thought of how few days he had left gnawed at his mind. He’d known it before – why did it bother him now?
The next morning, on laundry duty, Armin dawdled as they finished up. Was half a day enough for Eren to decide?
Eren didn’t approach him but walked off with Reiner and Bertolt, heading straight to the training fields.
They weren’t on the same lunch shift. Dinner progressed the same as the last.
What if what he’d said wasn’t enough? What if Eren just didn’t ever forgive him?
Eren approached him, finally, the day after, late at night. Too dark in the lonely corridor to see properly, Armin jumped as he heard the footsteps close behind him, turning and bursting out in embarrassed laughter as he saw who it was. The memory of just why he wanted talk to Eren cut the laughter short.
‘Armin,’ Eren started, hard and unsure. ‘I'm sorry. What I said, I didn't mean it. If – if you did want us to be together I wouldn't mind. I’d like it. And–’ Eren stopped, hesitating before starting again, making up for the lost time with sincere harshness. ‘You won't die. I don't care what the stupid statistics are, I'll defend you. And Mikasa will look out for you. You won't die.’
Armin shook his head but couldn't bear to argue. His mouth had split into a grin that wouldn't leave. His heart beat heavy, fast, his head light with relief. He'd done it. Eren was still his.
Armin couldn't really see Eren's expression in the shadows, but he didn't care. He stepped forward and with his hands on the back of Eren's head, hair tangled and peppered with dirt, Armin pulled him down into a kiss.
Eren’s lips opened in surprise, but he wrapped his arms around Armin’s waist and pulled him close, chest to chest and Armin’s hips pressing against the muscle of his thighs. Armin pressed harder, holding them tight together. His heart raced. He could taste Eren, feel his tongue move tentatively underneath his own. Their chapped lips scraped against each other. Eren’s abdominals were hard through his shirt, his hands strong as they moved across Armin’s back.
Eren radiated heat in the chilly air. Armin could feel his cheeks flush and sweat start to tickle on his skin. He sucked the tip of Eren’s tongue, taking it into his mouth to nip, causing Eren’s breath to stumble hot over his face. As Armin pushed Eren back into the wall, Eren’s fingers gripped his waist more tightly, then again until it almost hurt as the two of them slid down to the floor. Armin broke the kiss long enough to clamber inelegantly onto his lap.
Eren was hard. Not fully, but still noticeably through the thin material of his night clothes. Armin sat down firmly and pushed Eren’s legs apart, grinding down against him, and at the motion Eren stuttered a drawn-out moan. His hands clenched in the fabric of Armin's shirt, and Armin couldn't stop himself from grinding down harder. There was a thrill lighting up his blood, a fierce and possessive triumph, a head rush that made him grin and grin into the kiss.
He wanted to feel like this forever.
Eren bucked up with a bitten-back expletive. Then he grabbed Armin's waist, holding him almost too tight.
‘Wait,’ he said, a gasp. ‘Armin – can you stop, just a second–’
For a single moment Armin didn't want to. The possibility of not stopping, of gagging Eren's mouth with kisses as he forced the orgasm out of him, of not stopping until Eren lay boneless on the floor beneath him, flickered across his mind. Then Armin caught his breath and sat back quickly.
Eren's face was flushed, his lips wet and red. His mouth was open to breathe heavily. He looked at Armin, a strange expression in his eyes.
‘I – not that. Can we just kiss, for now? Please?’
Armin didn't reply. His own breath dried out his throat. He wanted – he wanted to pin Eren down. Wanted him sobbing out his release, unable to say no. But the thought came with a tightness behind his eyelids, a sharpness between his ribs, and suddenly Armin couldn't meet Eren's eyes.
He ducked his head, bowing down to press his forehead against Eren's shoulder. He removed his hands to his own thighs, fisted tightly and pressing down on the thin muscle. Eren's hands, faltering a moment, curled around his back.
‘You're not comfortable?’ Armin asked, quiet, flat.
‘No. I mean, it’s not me – no, I'm sorry, we can if you want to.’ Eren's words were forcefully light, badly done.
As they sat there, the noises of the castle echoing around them distantly, Armin chuckled, low and tired sounding to his own ears. His lower legs were cold where they pressed against the stone floor, his back chilly except where Eren's hands warmed him. They weren't exactly being subtle, sitting like this out in the corridor. It might be remote enough that no one should be passing, he knew, but he also knew that letting chance decide was never the better option. Armin buried his face deeper into the creases of Eren's shirt, pressing his nose flat against the hard collarbone. He breathed in. Eren smelt of sweat, leather and soap, earthy and alive.
Eren's hands traced up his back, pulling him back by the shoulders until they were face to face.
‘It's okay,’ he said, wide eyes keenly honest. ‘I swear.’
He pulled Armin into a kiss, but before they could touch Armin blocked him, putting a hand up to push Eren's face to the side.
‘Stop,’ he said, the air tight in his lungs.
Eren didn't move, still as stone from behind Armin's hand, save for the slowing rise of his chest. Armin let his hand drop to cradle Eren's jaw, feeling the brush of stubble on his palm. He turned Eren's head back slowly and kissed him, easing his lips open and searching out the expanse of his mouth, but gently this time, carefully.
Did Eren still have an erection? Armin couldn't tell any more, and didn't dare move to find out. Self-conscious, he combed his fingers through Eren's hair, letting them tangle in the knots instead of pulling them out. Eren's hands were moving again, up and down his back, slow motions like soothing a child. Armin closed his eyes and let them.
Eren's breath still smelt, leaving a sticky, faintly sickly taste in his mouth. Did all kisses always taste bad? Armin broke away to kiss the side of Eren's lips, trailing across the plane of his cheek to his ear, then down along his jawline. His hands roamed across Eren's shoulders, down his chest to graze his nipples, and tucked in under his shirt to splay on his bare stomach. When would Eren stop him? Would he at all?
Armin took his hands away, returning his mouth to press, closed-lipped, against Eren's. He brought up his legs, knees brushing Eren's armpits and feet curled around Eren's body until he was all but clinging. He didn't want to move. Didn't want to part, but to merge into him like he'd seen the flesh of Eren's titan form cling to Eren, cradling him wholly. He put his head back down into the crook of Eren's neck.
He could hear a heartbeat in his ear. Eren's ribs rose and fell rhythmically, and Armin switched his own breathing to mirror it.
They sat there for a while longer, then got up with stiff legs. Eren reached out, hesitant to hold Armin's hand, and Armin pretended not to notice as he took it.
Lying in bed the next morning, in the prized amount of time between waking and having to rise, Armin counted off the days he had left. Fifteen. Fifteen days until the expedition in which he’d probably die.
It wasn’t enough. Armin pressed his forearm over his mouth, covering up his lips, almost smothering his nose. He wanted to scream. Fifteen days wasn’t nearly enough.
When he sat next to Eren at breakfast he ignored the look Mikasa sent them, smiling back mildly around the porridge. When he slowed his team down in training he got up from the ground and tried harder.
Cornering Eren in their lunch break, trailing with lips and tongue down his chest as far as the shirt would allow, he let Eren’s hands halt him from pulling the offending clothing up and off completely. They kissed instead, hot and heady and not quite thrilling.
Ten days until the expedition. Should he tell anyone about Annie?
Armin’s shoulders ached as he hauled buckets of water down from the well to the stables, pausing a moment to stand and catch his breath, watching the horses drink. Annie should have reported it if she’d taken anyone’s gear, which could have happened if her own had broken or run out of gas. And yet she hadn’t. She’d never shied from following protocol before, despite her obvious disdain for it. Why now? Maybe it was simply a mistake on his own part. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Jean on mucking out duty, covered in straw. Perhaps he could ask him if Marco’s gear had been there when he’d been found.
Eren remained busy training with Captain Levi and his squad. That evening Armin sat out behind the tool sheds, on the long, stalky grass, and with bent legs splayed open he masturbated with his mouth wide open, sucking in the cold air. He pressed the back of his head against the old wooden shed, grinding the heels of his boots into the dirt, and arching his back he came into his hand, silent save for his panting breath.
Five days left.
He thought of titans. The softness of the tongue when he’d almost been eaten, wet and hot, turning the whole world red. He wondered whether Hasek would scream as he got eaten, or if he’d be the sort to freeze up and go silently, like himself.
There were battle formations to learn, technique impossible to train for enough. Sleepless nights. He watched his friends and hands start to jitter with nerves. He watched Eren from a distance, where he sat and talked with his new squad, and thought he might hate them if he wasn’t so exhausted, if he didn’t just want this expedition to be over, one way or another.
When they finally rode out it almost felt like an anti-climax.