commander, please Prolouge
commander!eren x scout!reader
Summary: Your Commander was never one to let loose or lose control. You admire him for his strength and commitment. He's determined, cold, and strict, which makes him almost unapproachable.
But after you're forced to come under his command, the mask he has built for himself throughout the years slowly starts to fall apart.
Warnings: blood
1. prolouge
The world you lived in had never been merciful. Not to weakness, not to hesitation, and certainly not to fleeting fragments of happiness that tried, however briefly, to take root. Even the smallest sense of peace was fragile here, easily torn apart by the brutal reality beyond the walls. This life - this path he had chosen for himself - allowed no space for emotion, no room for attachment, and no tolerance for anything that might steal his focus, unravel his thoughts, or cloud his judgment to the point where he could no longer think clearly.
He had never been a man of words. He had never allowed raw emotion to break through the carefully constructed restraint that defined him, never let it interfere with progress, with strategy, with the execution of a plan that could mean the difference between survival and annihilation. He could not afford that. Not when humanity balanced on the edge of extinction. Not when soldiers relied on him to remain unwavering, precise, and unbreakable.
They needed him. Humanity needed him.
And yet... Why does his gaze linger on you longer than it ever should?
Why, during missions beyond the safety of the walls - where Titans roam and death can descend in an instant - does he keep glancing back, again and again, just to make sure you are still there?
Why does he track every step you take, watching you as if something might happen at any moment - and if it does, he would already be moving, already at your side within seconds?
He hates it.
He hates himself for it.
He despises the way your mere presence makes something inside him feel unsteady, as if the solid ground beneath him has shifted without warning. It feels like weakness, and weakness is something he has spent years carving out of himself with ruthless precision. He cannot allow it. He should not allow it.
And yet, he cannot stop it.
What he hates even more is what happens at night-those rare, quiet moments when exhaustion should drag him into a deep, dreamless sleep. Instead of strategies, instead of formations, instead of calculating survival odds and contingencies...
It is you.
Your presence lingers behind his closed eyelids, vivid and unrelenting, replacing the plans he should be refining, the tactics he should be perfecting. You occupy the space that was never meant for anything but war.
So he tried to fix it.
He did everything.
Everything in his power to push you out of his focus, to erase you from the edges of his awareness. He forced distance between you, sharpened his tone, hardened his behavior. He became stricter, colder, more unforgiving than necessary. Stubborn. Harsh. At times, deliberately hurtful-anything that might make you step away, anything that might sever whatever this was before it could grow into something worse.
But none of it worked.
Because now...
Now, as he sees you lying there; unconscious at the base of a tree, your body limp, your head bloodied against the rough bark.
Everything inside him stops.
For a single, suspended heartbeat, the world seems to fall silent. The noise of the battlefield dulls into something distant and hollow, as if he has been pulled out of it entirely. A cold wave crashes through him, sharp and suffocating, stealing the breath from his lungs.
And for the first time in a long time. He hesitates.
He stands there, caught between the discipline that defines him and the instinct that threatens to break it apart.
His orders, plan, the mission that demands precision, obedience, and absolute focus.
Or you.
The urge to move, to abandon formation, to ignore every command, every rule he has ever followed, and run to you as fast as he possibly can.
He does not immediately know which one to choose.
But after a few brief seconds of hesitation, he forcefully turns his head away from you.
.
.
dividers: @uzmacchiato
