go ahead and laugh (even if it hurts) || Connie & Mikasa || ✔️

Part IV

Once she finds the right room number, Mikasa knocks once and then twice on the thick door frame. She pauses and says, "It's me."

She hears some shuffling behind the door and it opens just an inch. He gives her a glare. "You are the last person I want to see right now."

"So I've been told," Mikasa responds wryly and with the little Ackerman strength she has left in her, she pushes the door wider and walks in, leaving Connie to stare in shock at her insistent form.

His room has a bed and a two person couch, so Mikasa settles herself down on the couch and looks him straight in the eye.

Trying his best to avoid eye contact, Connie takes a long drink straight out of his bottle and plops himself on the bed so that he is resting across from her. "What is it?"

"I hate him too," Mikasa blurts out. "I hate Eren."

Connie pauses, surprised to hear those words from her mouth, but then he shakes his head and lets out a bleak chuckle. "No, you don't."

Yeah, she didn't really believe herself either.

"I should," is her response.

A hum is what she hears back from Connie as he's too busy trying to drink himself into oblivion to give her a proper response.

"If you could bring back your entire family or you could bring back the rest of the world, what would you do?" Mikasa asks. "Who would you pick if you could bring back Sasha or the rest of the world?"

Connie imagines hugging his family once more. He imagines running up to Sunny and Martin and tackling them to the floor as they squirm and laugh under him. His mom brightens at the sight of father returning home. He hugs his wife and twirls her in a circle before giving her a loud and exaggerated kiss, which causes Connie and his siblings to cover their eyes and squeal at the sight.

Sasha is there too. She's jumping excitedly, a turkey leg in her hand, and she's talking to him about the most mundane things, but by her expression, one would think it was the most exciting news in the whole world. Although to be honest, he doesn't really care what Sasha says, he just wants to hear her voice one more time.

In reality, it's just Connie and mom. Barely.

Connie's mother is silent most days. She sits at the table, not moving and not making a sound, until Connie comes home and takes care of her. Sometimes, she looks at Connie curiously, with distant eyes and an open mouth, as if she has no recognition of the son she raised for most his life. Like she is still seeing him through Titan eyes.

Sometimes, she would revert back to a time when everything was alright and those days were almost as painful as the days of quiet.

"Where's your father, Connie dear?" she asks brightly from the kitchen. "I'm making his favorite, so we should all eat before the food gets cold."

Connie swallows back a sob. "He'll be home soon, mom."

"Good, good." Connie's mother hums an old lullaby that she used to sing to put him to sleep when he was a child. "Go tell Sunny and Martin to wash up before dinner, okay?"

"Yes, mom."

"Such a good boy."

He would give anything to have his family back. Anything to get Sasha back. But could that "anything" be the rest of the world? The lives of completely innocent men, women, and children? Was that a sacrifice he could really make?

He thinks of dragging Falco away to trade the young boy's life for his mother's and he thinks of how desperate he was to save his last remaining kin. He thinks of shooting his friends dead, the ones he had worked and trained side-by-side with for years, only to turn on them for the sake of humanity.

He's been on both sides of the dilemma. He's hated both sides.

The rest of the world is already dead, Connie bitterly concludes, so what's the point of this hypothetical?

"Eren had to choose between us and the rest of the world," Mikasa says after Connie's long silence. "He chose us and you might think that it was a terrible choice and... I'd probably agree, but would you say that you wouldn't make the same choice if you had the chance?"

"I wouldn't," Connie says gruffly, but his voice comes out more hesitant than he expected.

Mikasa lets out a breathy laugh. "Maybe. Maybe you wouldn't have made that choice. But Eren's selfish. He always has been. For the people he loves, he would give his own humanity to save us. The decision wasn't easy for him, you know?"

At her last statement, Connie scoffs, "Yeah, I'd hope killing billions of innocent lives wouldn't be a walk in the park. But Eren probably did it with ease. He probably laughed about it while he did so." The image of Eren after Sasha's death flashed briefly in his mind.

"He... he laughs when he's hurting," Mikasa reveals. Because she finally realizes the root of Connie's bitterness. "Ever since we were kids. When he was in so much pain that his mind couldn't really process it, he laughed."

It hurt to bring up such painful and raw memories, but she had to for Connie's sake. He had to understand.

"When Hannes died..." She imagines the field, the bright sun, and the pretty blue bellflowers; anything but his face. "He laughed. He laughed so hard that tears started falling from his eyes and then he sobbed. He wasn't happy, Connie. I can't even think of the last time Eren ever laughed that hard because he was happy."

Connie remains silent, taking in her words, so she continues, her eyes looking down at her fingers fidgeting in her lap. "I think it was how he dealt with everything. When Reiner revealed that he and Bertholdt were the titans, he laughed at first because he just couldn't believe it. And... when Sasha died, I know from the bottom of my heart that he was absolutely devastated. He loved her just as much as we did. He cared for her and he cared for us—"

"More than anything. I know, Mikasa." She looks up to meet his eyes and he resignedly says again, "I know."

"I think a part of me always knew. I've been going to therapy recently." Connie puts down his bottle of wine on the bedside dresser and swings his legs over so his feet rest on the edge of the bed. "It's been... helpful, I think, and I am, or at least I hope I'm slowly getting better. I'm learning to deal with everything and move on, you know?"

Mikasa doesn't. But she wants to, so she listens.

"My therapist has been telling me about coping mechanisms and how to live with grief and- and maybe Eren..." Connie shakes his head and lets out a watery sigh. "Fuck. I shouldn't defend him. I shouldn't, Mikasa, but some days it's so hard to see him as a monster when he was our friend and he... Fuck." Slowly, the calculated watery sighs, in and out, break composure and he lets out a broken sob. "He did it for us, but are our lives really worth it, Mikasa? Because it sure as hell doesn't feel like it."

She should tell him that they have to make their lives worth it. She should tell him that Eren would have wanted them to live their lives to the fullest to make up for what he had done. She should tell him that to Eren, their lives were worth the death of billions, like that would make up for it. She should tell him a lot of things. She should be encouraging. She should give him hope. She should—

"I don't know, Connie," is what she says instead.