Maruki sits up straighter on the couch, holds the mug between both palms now that it's cooled some. Listens to Eren, the words ripping out of him, catching on brambles of pain on the way up.
He waits it out, every miserable word, and then says what must be said first. ]
You don't always bring people down. You've made my life better for knowing you, and not just when you're in a good mood.
[ There is something to be said for the strange alchemy his soul has undergone in Somnius. The people he's met and the circumstances he's lived through have changed him irreparably, irrevocably. He is a stronger man than he was by far when he first awoke in that garden, and it isn't because he's learned how to better ignore or push past his pain. Far from it.
Quietly, he adds: ]
You have value beyond the image that people want you to project.
[ Whatever that image may be. A competent soldier, a hard worker, a loving partner– even when one fails to live up to those ideals, one still has worth.
But the most important part is what he says last, a simple permission given in a rhetorical question asked. ]
Why should you force yourself to smile when you're hurting?
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Maruki sits up straighter on the couch, holds the mug between both palms now that it's cooled some. Listens to Eren, the words ripping out of him, catching on brambles of pain on the way up.
He waits it out, every miserable word, and then says what must be said first. ]
You don't always bring people down. You've made my life better for knowing you, and not just when you're in a good mood.
[ There is something to be said for the strange alchemy his soul has undergone in Somnius. The people he's met and the circumstances he's lived through have changed him irreparably, irrevocably. He is a stronger man than he was by far when he first awoke in that garden, and it isn't because he's learned how to better ignore or push past his pain. Far from it.
Quietly, he adds: ]
You have value beyond the image that people want you to project.
[ Whatever that image may be. A competent soldier, a hard worker, a loving partner– even when one fails to live up to those ideals, one still has worth.
But the most important part is what he says last, a simple permission given in a rhetorical question asked. ]
Why should you force yourself to smile when you're hurting?