Chapter Text
Through Darkness, Hand in Hand
"What with that gaze of yours?"
His tone was gentle, blooming among Night’s silent shades embracing them, caressing like a frail but oh so stunning butterfly wings, the gusts of wind that dared to trouble their own little world.
"I haven't seen you in such a peaceful state for ages." Her lips could not help but curl into a small smile. "It is... heart-warming to witness."
With a light touch, Reiner's fingers grazed against his own traits, as if not believing her words completely yet, but still with the fear of, once again, drowning in the dark waters he believed would be his sole companion until time had come to meet with the astral lights up there, had he came to fully acknowledge this instant of quietness.
"You might be the reason for it," he shrugged faintly before his hand rested back on the washed-out balustrade, next to hers. "You make it feel like there is still a bit of hope for such a damned like me. For once, the scent of the blood that has been carved into my skin, sticking under my nails despite scratching those cursed walls of shame making me suffocate more and more as time passes by, isn't lingering around like a deadly venom. I forgot how it felt, to breathe an air that isn't stale, that isn't pressing in a bruising way against my sore heart."
A few strands of hair fluttered around her face as the wind blew across the small stoop of her house, unrestricted.
"And I don't know how you're able to do that. To stop all of this from taunting me so easily." His voice was then reduced to a quiet murmur. "But I'm aware that there will be, sooner or later, a price to pay. And I don't want you to be the one who will suffer from it."
"I wouldn't mind if it allowed that faint sparkle to remain still within your eyes, that weight on your shoulders to be just a bit less heavy to carry."
At her words, Reiner's breath caught in his throat before facing her again, a mix of tenderness but also injustice embracing his senses.
"Vina." He shook his head but did not escape the hand that came to cup his face. "Don't."
"I just want you to be okay, Rei." Her grey irises locked into his, the insistence in those amethyst-tinted lights of hers urging him to give in, despite his fiercest resilience to be the strong one.
Silent lingered for a few seconds, as if time had suddenly stopped, before his fingers covered hers.
"Someone like you doesn't deserve to dive into an abyss of regrets and horror. If there's somebody who has to endure it, it is obviously shall be me."
"I am already standing right in the middle of it, whether you like it or not, soaked in the tears and blood of the lives I have taken. And it might swallow me, someday, if I don't walk away, that I know well."
At her answer, Reiner scoffed slightly in disbelief.
"Then why aren't you trying to save yourself? I'm far from being an example to follow blindly."
"If it means I can be by your side, then it doesn't matter where I am standing. Even amidst the darkest hell, I know I'll find heaven if it means my hand is entwined to yours."
And as he leaned in her soothing touch, his arms wrapping instinctively around her waist she once again murmured with conviction, before sealing their lips together in a gentle but full-of-meaning kiss.
"Let them come. I do not fear drowning in this endless ocean of sins, as long as we can cherish one another.”