Damage & Decay

Chapter 1

Part One: Family Business

"I don't know what's waiting for us when we die– something better, something worse. I only know that I'm not ready to find out yet."
- Charles De Lint, The Onion Girl

———

Eren Jaeger couldn't hold a job, so he took to killing.

It was the family business. He barely liked his family–and by family he meant his older brother, Armin–and he definitely didn't like the idea of "business." Or work. The only part of the deal that sounded like it might be fun was the actual killing.

He'd never done it before. Sure, he'd gone through a hundred simulations in gym class and in the Scouts, but they never let kids do any real killing. Not before they hit fifteen.

"Why not?" He asked his Scoutmaster, a bushy eyebrowed man named Erwin who used to be a TV weatherman back in the day. Eren was eleven at the time and obsessed with zombie hunting. "How come you don't let us whack some real zoms?"

"Because killing's the sort of thing you should learn from your folks," said Erwin.

"I don't have any folks," Eren countered. "My mom and dad died on First Night."

"Ouch. Sorry, Eren–I forgot. Point is, you got family of some kind, right?"

"I guess. I got 'I'm Mr. Freaking Perfect Armin Jaeger [A/N I know that is incorrect, but in this story they're brothers] for a brother, and I don't want to learn anything from him."

Erwin had stared at him. "Wow. I didn't know you were related to him. He's your brother, huh? Well, there's your answer, kid. Nobody better to teach you the art of killing than a professional killer like Armin Jaeger." Erwin paused and licked his lips nervously. "I guess being his brother and all, you've seen him take down a lot of zoms."

"No," Eren said with huge annoyance. "He never lets me watch."

"Really? That's odd. Well, ask him when you turn thirteen."

Eren had asked on his thirteenth birthday, and Armin had said no. Again. It wasn't a discussion. Just "No."

That was more than two years ago, and now Eren was six weeks past his fifteenth birthday. He had four more weeks grace to find a paying job before town ordinance cut his rations by half. Eren hated being in that position, and if one more person gave him to "fifteen and free" speech, he was going to scream. He hated that as much as when people saw someone doing hard work and they said crap like, "Holy smokes, he's going at that like he's fifteen and out of food."

Like it was something to be happy about. Something to be proud of. Working your butt off for the rest of your life. Eren didn't see where the fun was in that. Okay, maybe it was marginally okay because it meant only half days of school from then on, but it still sucked.

His buddy Levi Ackerman said it was a sign of the growing cultural oppression that was driving post-apocalyptic humanity toward acceptance of a new slave state. Eren had no freaking idea what Levi meant or if there was even meaning in anything he said. But he nodded in agreement because the look on Levi's face always made it seem like he knew exactly what was what.

——

At home, before he even finished eating his dessert, Armin had said, "If I want to talk about you joining the family business, are you going to chew my head off? Again?"

Eren stared a venomous death at Armin and said, very clearly and distinctly, "I. Don't. Want. To. Work. In. The. Family. Business."

"I'll take that as a 'no,' then."