WHO: reiner & eren
WHAT: bad news? leave the country!
WHEN: january
WHERE: spring segment
WARNINGS: grief, violence, discussion of genocide, others? tread w/ caution
( ooc: for anyone đź‘€-ing, fyi i will not be able to update warnings for a week bc weird internet things. tread w/ caution! )
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A year has changed everything.
A year has changed nothing. Eren believes himself immutable, unable to be anything but a monster, the man who will end the world. Hasn't he proven that to still be true, over and over?
Going to meet Reiner now, he feels that, the weight of consequence, the weight of his own selfish actions. At home he doesn't deal with this kind of shit anymore, by design. Here, he has no choice.
Well, no. He could refuse, walk away, leave Reiner to his grief.
He did once.
He won't do that again. Not ever, he tells himself, slinging his bag over his shoulder and heading towards the teleporter to their meeting place.
When he gets there, Reiner is already waiting for him. He stops a little ways away, close enough to reach out and touch. He doesn't, because he's Eren and he doesn't know what to do. They were fine in the hotel (they were not). Now, he just feels worse. Bertholdt was important to Reiner the way Armin is to Eren. Eren should maybe follow that thought to its natural conclusion, but he can't and won't.
Reiner could be worse off, Eren thinks. He looked worse that day in Liberio. Had Eren seen him from afar in those months in hell, wasting into a depressed shell of himself? He's not really sure; he can see things from too many angles to really know.
He hopes that what he's done won't make it get that bad here. At least Reiner asked him to come too, not just running off alone. (Eren would have just gone alone, leaving without thought or notice.)
"Reiner," is all he says.
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That's nothing new. At least, it doesn't feel new. He's cried so often lately: weeping when people are too kind; weeping when his mind or the world is too cruel; weeping when all he wants to do is collapse, but he has to keep moving forward. Reiner is exhausted in mind and heart, only his body remaining deceptively strong. How long before it crumbles, too? How long before he implodes?
It doesn't matter. He has to keep going. Even when he can't do this, he has no choice.
The traces of tears on Reiner's face are nothing new. What is new (at least in this world) is how visibly disoriented he is. He hasn't felt so unmoored since that day atop Wall Rose. His expression reflects it: distant and confused, half-present and half-lost in his own head, wading through memories of forest-green eyes and soft smiles, quiet giggles that only Reiner could reliably draw out.
His body finds Eren first. A hand reaches out and catches Eren's, their fingers threading together. Then Reiner blinks, his eyes focusing, a fraction of that confusion falling away.
"Eren."
His hand squeezes. You're here. Don't leave me. I need you. Why didn't you tell me? This is so much worse. Did you want it to hurt? Did you know it would hurt more hearing it from him? Are you satisfied? Fuck you. Stay with me. Please.
He says nothing more. Just turns and starts striding toward the bridge leading to the Spring Segment, pulling Eren along in his wake, their hands tightly clasped.
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Reiner's hand finds his and of course he tightens his fingers there between Reiner's immediately. This is one of the things he likes most — something grounding, just touch, fingers tied together. He wouldn't be able to articulate it, but he always gravitates here.
"You look like hell," he says, but there's no bite to it. It's not quite concern in his voice. He's concerned, but he has a hard time expressing things, even now. His tone is softer than it normally is, though, so…progress!
He's still surprised Reiner even wants him there after everything, but in some ways it's a relief. There's a weird bit of broken trust between them that's been there since Eren was fifteen, longer for Eren than for Reiner (as if time even matters to Eren). Not all of it is Reiner's fault. Eren isn't sure how to recover from this, from not telling Reiner something because he thought he was protecting him.
Okay, he was also protecting himself. Eren can only be who he is.
He falls into step as Reiner pulls him into walking.
"You sure you're up for this? We might run into monsters."
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Reiner cherishes Eren even now. How fucked up is that? How can he care so much about this man who devastated his hometown, who withheld horrific truths, who would destroy everything Reiner holds dear if their purposes didn't align? How can Eren care about him, knowing the reverse is true?
Stolen time. That's all this place is. Just stolen time.
He can't keep it forever.
He doesn't want it to end.
Reiner says nothing to that comment about his appearance, save for a vague grunt. It doesn't matter what he looks like. It only matters that he's handsome when he wants people to like him. Eren has seen him worse than this. Eren still wants him after seeing him kneeling on the floor, a used-up husk.
Why, though? It doesn't make sense. Bertholdt suffered and was murdered in the worst way possible. What the hell is Eren waiting for? Why doesn't he ever kill Reiner?
"That's fine," he says, his voice a little rough from recent tears. Still tightly holding Eren's hand, clinging without shame. "Let them come."
It would be nice to destroy something. Preferably himself. But Reiner can't do that here, so he might as well take it out on some monsters.
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But they carry on, even without forgiveness. Eren has never asked for forgiveness, knowing he can never deserve it. He thinks about what
Galliardthat person told him on the network and chews on it.They can be what they are without forgiveness, though. He already knows that.
He thinks again that they could never have this at home. Even if Eren didn't end the world, even if somehow they didn't both just die, it would never work, would it? He almost regrets that, but if he lets himself regret too much, he'll just drown. He can't afford to do that, not now, not ever.
It's funny how Eren can hate himself, but care so much for Reiner, when he admits how alike they are. Eren can hate pretty much anyone, though. Why should he be immune from his own rage?
"Only if you promise not to die on me," he says, hand tighter. They both know death here is impermanent, but what if it wasn't? Is that a chance worth taking? He knows Reiner in the future longed for death, but the one in front of him isn't that far gone. Even if he is, too bad! As if Eren would just allow him to die now after everything? Not a chance.
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Living for himself is a concept Reiner only vaguely understands; it's something applied to others, never himself. He hasn't lived for himself since he was five years old. He'll keep moving forward because that's all he can do. Because he doesn't have a choice.
But he breathes out a bitter imitation of a laugh all the same, anger and hurt and grief dredging up words better left unsaid.
"Why not?" he asks, still facing forward. Still walking, pulling Eren along. "So you can get around to killing me someday? Once I've finally suffered enough?"
How much more suffering will it take before it's enough?
What a stupid question. It will never be enough.
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Could he really live for someone? Who knows.
Eren stops short at that question. He doesn't let go, but he just stops. Reiner is stronger than he is, no question, but Eren isn't weak, not anymore. He's also very stubborn. And he's no longer underfed. He doesn't sleep enough, but he's a full grown man with fury behind his lean muscle.
"Reiner," he says. There it is, his seething rage, always somewhere underneath everything he has ever done. "If I was going to kill you, why would I go to all this trouble? I've had plenty of opportunity to kill you. Why would I wait?"
That's his first reaction, defensiveness, anger. Hurt, maybe, that Reiner still thinks that of him. It's deserved, sure, after everything. He doesn't know if Reiner lives to the end, but he lives a lot longer than that day in Liberio. Wasn't that clear? The Rumbling has nothing to do with Reiner directly; if he dies fighting Eren or crushed by titans, that's…not the point. He would be just one more casualty, one Eren regretted more than most others at the end of it all.
Eren shoves that thought aside and stays here, now, hand too tight in Reiner's, wrestling with his own immediate anger response. He could just escalate this. A few months ago, he absolutely would have. Today he takes a breath after that outburst.
"You and I both deserve to suffer," Eren says, slowly. "Maybe we always will. But it doesn't matter. I'm not deciding that for you. I came out here with you because you asked me to come. You wanted me here and I wanted to be here. I don't have any ulterior motive. It's just that."
Somewhere along the line, Eren turned into a liar, a much better one than anyone would have ever believed. But this is all true, and he looks right at Reiner when he says it, green eyes blazing with some of the righteousness he's managed to hold onto.
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He doesn't, though. He wants Eren to come with him; he's not willing to force it this time.
Instead, Reiner glances back, meeting Eren's gaze. A spark of anger flickers within Reiner's eyes, though it's nothing compared to the endless well of rage in Eren's. But mostly, Reiner's eyes reveal hurt.
Reiner expected Armin's visit to be about Eren, revealing the kiss Reiner witnessed and chose not to address. He didn't expect it to be about the future. He didn't expect to suffer yet another blow after Eren showed him what happens. He didn't expect to find out about Bertholdt's death.
There was no chance for Reiner to brace for that blow. Maybe bracing for it wouldn't have made a difference; maybe it would've hurt this badly no matter what. Maybe there was no escaping the agony of an essential part of his heart being carved out, leaving an aching, bleeding void where his partner used to live. Or maybe it would've been better if Reiner had someone to hang onto. Maybe he wouldn't have felt alone and betrayed and so fucking stupid on top of everything else.
Reiner spent months pushing for a non-aggression pact, believing that he was the aggressor, that he was the only one who had caused pain, that he had to earn the trust of the Scouts. He had no fucking clue. And they knowingly left him ignorant.
Should he blame Eren for that? Maybe in part. But Reiner only recently asked Eren to tell him about the future—and then Eren left Bertholdt out. Left Reiner ignorant so that Reiner wouldn't be mad at Armin.
That anger flickers brighter, fueled by pain. Reiner is ready for a fight; a part of him even wants one. He wants to hurt Eren. He wants to be hurt by Eren. He wants to scream. He wants to cry. He wants to be held close and comforted. He wants to tear open his skin, transform, and vanish into the wilderness, leaving this world behind.
Instead, he stands silent, watching Eren choose something other than anger. Feeling his own wane in response, the heat of it replaced by yet more cold, choking grief.
Eren's eyes are alight with righteousness. Reiner wonders if his own shine with pain or if they're starting to turn as dull as they are in the future.
He averts his gaze. Squeezes their joined hands tighter.
"I want you here," he says. Then, in the next breath, "You should've told me, Eren."
tw for gore/death, unreality, you know, just eren things
He's charismatic sometimes (a fact he's not really aware of), but he doesn't usually think before he speaks. He'd had ages — lifetimes, maybe — to think about what he was going to say to Reiner in Liberio. What he's going to say to Reiner now is as much a mystery to himself as to Reiner.
I like this better when we're not pissed off at each other.
Sometimes that's not a choice that's easy to make. Reiner has every right to be pissed at him. He doesn't have any real reason to be pissed off back other than that he's Eren Jaeger. So he opens his mouth to accuse Reiner of dragging him out here as some weird revenge ploy, so they could just fight, away from the city, away from anyone capable of stopping them. (There is no such place, is there? One or both Ackermans would probably somehow just know.)
He shuts his mouth again.
He opens it again and says, "After all of that, you really think I—"
Closes it.
What was he doing, keeping it from Reiner? Liberio was bad enough without that blow. But he knows he wasn't just protecting Reiner. He was protecting Armin.
No. That's not who he was protecting. If he's honest with himself, that's not what he was doing at all. He drops his gaze away from Reiner's.
"You're right," he says, haltingly, unsure. "I'm…I'm sorry. I didn't want you to…"
Hate Armin. Hurt more.
"…I already thought you'd tell me to fuck off. That I'd lose you. I didn't want to make it even worse."
It was partially the other things. Not hurting Reiner more than he had to. Keeping Armin out of it. But isn't everything does about Eren, regardless of any other motivation he might have alongside it? Killing the world. Killing all the titans.
"You think I don't know how it feels, but you're wrong. Did Armin tell you what happened right before? I bet he didn't. He might not remember all of it, but I do."
He longs for the Founder's power again, just an inkling of it, show instead of tell. But the Founder is once again beyond his reach. He has to actually say it. Or just shut up, say never mind, march forward into the forest. He wants to. He tenses like he's going to, like he'll just walk.
He thinks about Galliard's advice on forgiveness and feels sick and stands there. This is the least of what he deserves, for everything he has done and will do. To Reiner. To Bertholdt. To the world.
"If we hadn't done what we did, Armin would be dead. I thought he was. He got so close to the Colossal and there was almost nothing left of him to save." He can feel that old panic, because Eren experiences things all at once.
This is still happening, right now, the smell of burned flesh and the impossible heat of the Colossal and Eren's rage and Bertholdt's fear and Levi kicking him in the face and Floch begging for Erwin's life instead of Armin's and…
"I sincerely believed Armin was dead," Eren said. "It was like the world fell out from under me. I've known him since we were, like, six."
Armin is the reason Eren ever looked beyond the walls in the first place, but he can't bring himself to say that. It doesn't matter.
He raises his eyes, finally, righteousness burned away into something uncertain. He's not a child. He's a man older than he will ever live to be at home.
He's fifteen on a rooftop.
Captain, we need him.
Fifteen with Reiner and Bertholdt dragging him away to a place he cannot understand, all his fury directed at them.
You're not even human anymore.
Thirteen with Reiner handing him a fake weapon.
You be the bad guy now.
Nineteen in a basement.
Why did my mother die, Reiner?
Twenty in another world and he forces himself to meet Reiner's eyes. Tells himself to stop making fucking excuses like it will ever, ever be enough.
"But you're right. I should have told you."
cw references to sex
Reiner recalls it vividly: lying bare in a Segment (it was Spring back then, too, wasn't it?), pressed as close as two people can be, kissing and sweating and gripping each other tightly, moaning each other's names like they'd never spat them in anger. He recalls what happened later, too, when they met in Eren's kitchen:
Don't die. Don't die like this.
… Okay. You stay alive too, Eren.
I will.
Is that how Reiner should have responded to Eren here and now? Should he have simply agreed not to die? Should he have pretended that nothing has changed? That he hasn't grown to trust Eren beyond all reason and sense? That out of all the people willing to tell him the future, he didn't choose Eren to be the one to hurt him? That it doesn't fuck him up that Armin—the person Reiner has the most reason to distrust—was the one who told him about Bertholdt?
A distant part of Reiner realizes that he's being unfair. Secrets and lies have always lain between them; they can't unearth everything at once. But if he lets this anger go, if he allows another hurt to take over, what will be left?
Just grief. Grief and unbearable loss.
He waits for another explanation, gaze still averted. Instead, Eren … apologizes.
Reiner's eyes snap to Eren's face, slightly wide. Alert. Focused. Fully present in a way that he hasn't been thus far. And he listens.
He listens to Eren admit to the fear of losing him. (His mind reels; he fights to remain quiet and let Eren speak.) He listens to what happened to Armin, the near-death to which Armin alluded. He listens to the reason his partner was sacrificed. Killed. Murdered.
Eren raises his eyes. Reiner holds his gaze for a long moment, searching Eren's eyes before inclining his head in a slight nod. Eren should have told him; they are agreed.
"I didn't say that you don't know how it feels," Reiner says, his voice quieter than before, firm despite the ever-present pain. "But you're not having to live with it."
Armin is here, alive and well. Bertholdt is still trapped in their world, doomed to die. Only one of their best friends survives that fight. However similar the initial pain may have been, it's not the same.
Still, Reiner moves his thumb on instinct, the pad of it stroking Eren's skin. Trying to take care of Eren even now. Trying to soothe that impossible fear of Eren's—the one that involves losing Reiner.
"You can't get rid of me, Eren. Even if you tried, I'd chase you anywhere." His brow furrows, jaw working for a moment as he considers how to say it. Finally, softly, "So let me trust you."
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Even Eren can't change the past, not really. He orchestrated more than anyone (besides maybe Armin) will ever know, but he can't go back and make someone not die. He couldn't save his mother; he had damned her instead, ironically saving Bertholdt, who he would later help murder.
There is no end to this violence and tragedy. That's part of Eren's motivation to just kill everyone, so that this kind of shit would stop happening. He's aware on some level that it never will, not really. People are still people. But as long as his loved ones get their long lives, he can't let it matter.
And he couldn't let his brother destroy their own people. Someday he'll tell Reiner about that (does Reiner even know they're brothers?). Now is not the right time.
He lets out a breath he's unaware he's holding and squeezes Reiner's hand briefly.
Let me trust you.
What a terrible thing that must be, he thinks. He had broken all the trust anyone had in him. Could Reiner in his own time have ever trusted him? He doesn't know. He wouldn't, in Reiner's shoes. He didn't trust Reiner when he first showed up here. Somewhere along the line, that changed, and now he would trust Reiner more than anyone except maybe Armin. Maybe. He's done shitty things to Armin, too, or will do, or is doing. None of them have ever been immune to the ripple effects of damage that spiral outward from Eren. Apparently that's still true here, though he kept Jean and Mikasa from seeing something that could catastrophically alter their world view.
"All right," is all he manages to say. "I'll try."
He doesn't say I want to be trustworthy or that he won't let Reiner down. He's sure he will. He always does. He already has.
He finally moves to walk again, though he's still content to let Reiner barge on ahead. Reiner is the one with the emotions to work out here, not Eren. (Mostly because Eren still doesn't do that very much. Baby steps!)
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Maybe it's that desperate desire for connection that makes Reiner reel when his trust is broken. It's hypocritical. Lies and betrayals are no more than Reiner deserves. On some level, he would welcome them, if only to alleviate a faction of the guilt forever clawing at his insides.
Eren's deception isn't so great as to be called a betrayal. Not compared to all that Reiner has done. Not compared to what Eren will—no, what Eren would have done to their world. It only hurts so badly because of what was withheld. Because Reiner put his faith in Eren, choosing to believe Eren's version of events when he could have asked others instead. Because Reiner wants to trust Eren. Because out of everyone in this world, Eren is the one who feels the most like home.
Eren says he'll try. Reiner nods again, knowing that's all he could ask for. Knowing that the most anyone can do is try to be trustworthy.
They resume walking, Reiner's pace still quick but no longer so hurried that he's hauling Eren along. Their hands remain clasped, too warm, perfectly matched. Trees rise up around them, spring scents thick in the air, the city gradually growing smaller and smaller, finally lost between the branches. Only then does Reiner speak again.
"Eren," he says slowly, careful with his words. "Are you really afraid of losing me?"
It isn't a challenge or a joke. Reiner sounds as though he's trying to puzzle it out. Despite Eren saying as much, Reiner can't quite understand.
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It's a long list, even before they hit genocide.
But now there's this. It's not just Reiner, of course. It's Armin. Levi. Hange. He wants them all to trust him again, just a little. He wants to be worthy of that trust.
We can be something different.
He doesn't know if he believes it. He wants to, wants to think that his promise to Levi to be better matters. But there was that thing on the network, someone telling him that if he didn't want forgiveness he wasn't better. Marco saying someday he had to be sorry.
Will he ever be sorry for the world? He can't possibly afford to be, not after everything. He's already so close to drowning. If he's sorry, then he'll go under. Even at the end of everything, there in the remnants of the world with Armin, it wasn't that he was sorry.
So maybe he'll never be better. He'll come around to accepting that, just as he accepted long ago that he's more monster than anyone ever dreamed he could be.
But Reiner wants to trust him, and that twists in his chest, warm and light. After everything that Reiner knows — which is really most of it, now — he says let me trust you.
They walk further into the forest, the city out of sight behind them. There are flowers and blooms here, just like always, an eternal spring landscape. Eren thinks of a flower field out of time and chews on his lip.
He's still doing that, worrying a tear in the skin without meaning to, always self-destructing when he can't figure out what else to do, when Reiner speaks again.
Eren drags his teeth over his bottom lip, something slightly more purposeful. When did telling the truth get so fucking hard?
"Yes," he answers. There's no point in lying about it, no point in dodging the question, obfuscating. Part of him wants to, the part that has been a liar in some skewed form of self-defence for years on end. Instead, he just lets the simple truth hang between them.
"I lost everyone else before I went back to Paradis," he says. Lost is a funny word to use to refer to people who came and saved him from the hell he raised in that city, but Eren knew it was true. He lost them the day he walked out of that hall to go enlist in Marley's military, knowing at last that there really was no other answer. They would always be hated. They would always be in danger.
He had to lose them to save them.
And Reiner just got caught up in the storm, didn't he?
No. Eren made sure Reiner was part of it, a witness to one of the last things he would do as a human being, the beginning of the end of the world. He dragged Reiner into it on purpose, unable to let go of a boy he had looked up to, who had broken his heart, who he had hated, and who he finally understood. Reiner is maybe the only person he has ever learned to stop hating.