they’ve been trying on a new version of themselves recently – a version where they laugh in one another’s faces, where they smile with too much teeth. they’ve proven enough to one another that they’re each capable of clenching down on a bite, but they are too soft to relish in the taste of blood.
granted, erwin doubts that zeke ever relished in the taste of blood - the way it left the stain of metal on the tongue & bits of death on the teeth. he watches zeke sometimes in the teacher’s workroom or in the hallway.
zeke carries himself strangely, sauntering & a little crooked. he treats himself abstractly, as though he were looking at a shadow of himself & were amused that it were larger than life. he chortles as a caricature when he’s uncomfortable, grows irritable when he hasn’t smoked recently enough. a man like that makes a face at unpleasantness, even if he were never an optimist.
still, erwin knows that he was some kind of enemy. he knows that he was always capable of some kind brutality. so he does not take all of zeke’s frivolities for granted –
in fairness, too, erwin had never relished in the taste of blood himself. it’s true that sometimes he forgot the taste of blood because victory was a much more potent spice, but cruelty was never meant to be seared against his name. of course, he ended up being cruel anyway, but it was to be expected. there is a price to all things.
erwin had paid it for the sake of curiosity, one time around. so far, he has been subject to the same sin in this life – & it has not come without consequence, but at least the consequences have not been as dire.
though erwin & zeke bare their teeth at one another, they have not spoken recently.
conversation had stopped abruptly, when it was apparent that they each recognized one another for what they had been.
before that had been a sweeter commiseration between them. zeke had been insufferable, & so too had erwin. they pretended to listen to each other & managed to hear one another by coincidence – they had been fascinating together, rather than human. & it had been clear to them through shared cigarettes, morning coffee, the way that zeke’s eyes fluttered shut when erwin’s fingers crept up the back of his neck to settle in his hair.
it had been an accident that acknowledged recognition of the past. erwin had said something, passing & fleeting, about something he had ‘dreamed’ once – zeke had never been a part of the things he had remembered, & so he had never felt the need to disguise it too deeply.
zeke had answered cryptically, vaguely as he always does — he speaks without mentioning himself at all, & he speaks with fascination of his own shadow. but something in his conversation had hit the sun just so, & erwin understood that they had seen pieces of the same world.
he does not remember zeke, & so it is telling that zeke must stand for a mystery.
zeke does not want to speak to it.
they spend weeks like this, pretending to be the men they were.
it breaks only in the aftermath of a meeting they were meant to co-sponsor. zeke keeps coughing as though it were a formality, as they tidy their books & repack their bags, & erwin is anxious to be a catalyst.
erwin is sure that zeke is eager for a smoke, so zeke looks at him with weary eyes. he takes the offering, though, & they step outside. erwin hums his praise, & zeke refuses to relax.
once they’re private, erwin watches zeke take a drag. ‘ won’t you tell me what you know ? ‘ he asks, a casual thing & charming.
zeke does not flinch, but he does shutter into something else.
erwin understands the point. he thinks he might be possessed right now too. ‘ shall i tell you what i know ? i think that we have spoken little – & that you are familiar enough with the things that i dreamed, that you had seen them too. not all of them. i was never familiar with your name – you knew more of me than just a name. i assume that we were shared prominence, & that you have mattered. i think it is likely that you were from the outside, beyond the recorded history. so tell me – as if it were just we two, ‘ he says.
zeke closes his eyes, imagines too much or too little. he recites something half from muscle memory, half something true : don’t make me choose between my duty and you. [ sent by @warche1f ]
erwin retracts. he steals the cigarette, takes a drag. even if there is grey area between the versions of themselves that were & the ones that are – it doesn’t feel right infiltrate the space where it is grey, where two identities are blurred.
of course, it makes him curious – enough so that something cruel is incinerated again at the pit of his stomach.
‘ no choice to be made, ‘ he finally says & speaks to common ground. ‘ we were both duty bound, then. ‘
sweetness, just like that.
erwin casts his gaze sideways.
‘ i would say you were not the man you were before – but i worry that i could be the same man. i share same vices, and i’m not sure about the virtues. but that said - even if we are not positioned kindly, i have the instinct that we might have been positioned equally. is that true? there is no betrayal to say. we are here. ‘ he hums & passes the cigarette back. ‘ & we might be terrible. ‘
