Crack!
A twig broke beneath his boot.

“[Y/N]~ Where aaare you~?”

Your breath was hitched and quivering.

You tried to recall the exact moment that it had happened. When you had brushed hands with Armin while you were picking up the equipment together? Maybe when you'd expressed your nerves to Reiner and he'd given you a reassuring pat on the shoulder...Or perhaps it was when Eren had offered you some water from a canister he'd already drank from.

Could be anything, right?

No. Actually, you knew what moment it was after all.
It was when you had told him the truth. You had simply been honest with him, and at the time it had seemed...not harmless but...the right thing to do.

Boy. You regretted it now.

“[Y/N], I'm getting tired of playing all these games with you. If you come out now I'll make it quick-”
Another branch broke.
“If you make me wait I'll make it slow...”

Whimpering softly, you bit down upon the tender skin around your knuckle, gnawing stressfully. The wall of rotten wood behind you may as well have been air, for you knew it was only a matter of minutes before he would find you here.

Usually you'd avoid an abandoned village of this kind like the plague, since it was typically Titan haven if there were any cadavers still lying around. Yet it had become a hopeful oasis for you when Connie had veered you off the mission path and started chasing you like this.

Your 3DMG was out of gas, but you knew he still had plenty. He must have rigged it, knowing you were only going out as a pair today, knowing it would be the perfect opportunity to 'sort things out' so to speak.
Which in his mind was an obvious conclusion.

You had to die. It was that simple.

Now Connie loved you. He did love you, he loved you so much that it physically hurt. At times just thinking about you was enough to make him retch, to stop breathing, to double over and clutch his heart with sweaty palms. For he'd only wish desperately, harder than he had ever wished for anything else, that he could somehow reach out with those clammy hands and grab every single piece of you for himself. Consume you.

The sickness came from knowing it wasn't possible. Not unless he took one particular measure, and when you had so foolishly admitted you didn't feel the same way about him it had been the easy trigger for his mind to say 'yes'.
It really was the only option, wasn't it?

Connie clutched his sheer gear blade to his chest, letting it glimmer in the dappled sunlight that filtered through the trees growing here. It almost seemed oddly peaceful, walking through this long abandoned village, seeing the weeds and green tresses that ran through and over everything. Walls. Floors. Skulls.

He wouldn't add you to this graveyard though, no no. Yes, this would be the scene of the crime, because what better place could he find? However, Connie would make sure you lived on in tiny pieces, preserved forever in his home. If you wouldn't willingly be with him in life, then he'd make it so in death.

It was just a matter of finding you first.
“Come on [Y/N]...quit making this difficult.”
As he walked ever closer over the partially broken cobbles and dirt, his voice lost that teasing lilt and turned flat. Somehow that made it even more terrifying, and the eerie silence that followed had you fit to burst into tears.

Why? Why!?
Couldn't he understand that you were your own person? Could he not understand that it was impossible to force yourself to love someone?

...No...he couldn't.

That much became all too evident, as his feet stopped right by your spot. A squeak left you, and his head slowly turned toward the damaged doorway. His pale hand reached out and curled around the frame, breaking shards of it off as he took a step inside and found you huddled in the shadows of this broken house.

Connie looked down at you with bulging bloodshot eyes, and a grin that split his face in two.

“Found you~!