Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Bertolt is dead.

He knows that he's dead. He knows he was Bertolt. But it isn't important. Nothing was ever important. Or everything was, equally. It doesn't matter.

He moves softly through currents of dark, like a leaf in a slow, underground river. For a day—or maybe a hundred million years. Who knows. He sleeps, held close by the quiet flow of it all, and sometimes wakes up remembering that he used to be, even if he doesn’t remember what it was like.

The leaf that was Bertolt goes where the Black River takes him. Through places where lights pulse deep, deep down below. Places that hum or sing. Places where the silence is so deep that it's a river of its own. He doesn't mind. It just is.

A sound.

He doesn't know what the sound is. Doesn't need to know. It's just a sound, somewhere far away. An echo from someone else's dream.

It comes again. It has a pull to it. The pull makes him remember aching. He doesn’t ache, but now he remembers that he did. Was it a long time ago?

He remembers time.

The current changes.

The sound sings out concentric waves of memory that ripple through the river, each humming him a story he’s forgotten. A record of his life like rings inside a tree. He passes through them all, moving towards the center, and listens.

Bertolt remembers that for him being alive meant moving through the world on two legs and choosing where to go, instead of moving quietly (not needing to move but not minding moving) with the current wherever it takes him.

He remembers hearing her voice and wanting to get closer to the hum of it, taking his first determined steps. Her laughter, celebrating that he was learning how to choose where to go. 

Running, jumping. The sharp surprise of his first scraped knee and the dull burn that followed. 

Fleeing over cold grass, terror screaming through every sinew and vein. Leaving footprints in blood. Far away from home.

Throwing himself through the air. The thud of his heels against tree trunks. Making showers of leaves. Feeling strong. Trusting his own strength.

Wrapped around the body of another. The ecstasy of a bite or a bruise or a kiss. Skin against skin.

Surrounded by flesh and fire, craving explosion, and also feeling strange and cold. Not wanting to cause pain, but not minding causing pain. The first time he’d ever not minded causing pain. A sense of wonder at this new, clean, icy, emptiness inside himself. Stomping whole blocks of houses into the ground.

The rings that are closest to the center ache the most.

He remembers that he died hurt and incomplete, with no legs at all, not believing right up until the very moment of his death that he could end like this— so unfinished. 

He remembers a name leaving his lips, carried on his last breath.

Then raw, blinding, pain. Terrible pain. Pain like a white light that swelled and grew, and consumed him, and surrounded him, and when it finally receded there was no him left inside it anymore.

And then he was moving through the dark. He’s been dead, soft and slow on the Black River, for so long. Feeling nothing but acceptance.

***

The sound insists. He has to get closer to the hum of it. As he gets closer he becomes more aware of the river around him, and aware that he's a separate thing from it. He's coalescing, trillions of diffuse particles being pulled from all around, back into a whole. A single mind planted within that whole, contained, branching through it like roots. 

When he's all collected, gathered up into his own cohesive density of matter and energy, a closed circuit, distinct from everything around him, the Black River roars away and leaves him behind like a seashell on the sand.

He remembers what it feels like to be Bertolt.

***

Bertolt's surprised, waking up like this. But it feels natural to be himself. It's familiar. Nothing has changed. He's exactly where he left himself. He still fits.

He just exists for a while, content to be Bertolt, not really overthinking things. 

Bertolt?

Who’s saying that?

This question makes him remember: things here have reasons, so there must be a reason that he’s here. He should probably be asking more questions. The River wouldn’t have gone through all that effort for nothing, would it? He’s no expert on the River, but he’s pretty sure this isn’t standard practice.

So, then, why’s he here? He feels around.

Something's off. Did it always feel like this? He's himself, but he’s inside something that isn't himself. He's intertwined with it, but not one with it. 

Oh. He remembers this. He knows what this is. He'd forgotten. A word oozes up, bitter and unpleasant: Titan. He's inside his Titan. Is that what he's here for? If that's all he’s here for then he'd really rather not-

Wait. The Titan is moving. Why? He's not moving. Why is it moving without him? Why is it here at all? None of this makes sense.

He tries to move his mind into the Titan. He can't. He's a passenger. He tries to see with his Titan's eyes, but he can't do that either. He can only feel it—swinging, hitting, holding something alive in its hand and then crushing it, blood running down its fingers, tearing things with its teeth.

The blood in his mouth tastes like aching. It tastes like a name. Whose name? The name is the sound that reminds him of aching.

And the Titan is searching for things to hurt.

What? Why? Bertolt doesn't want to cause hurt. Why's he being used to cause hurt?

A familiar weight in his throat. A prickling, swelling pressure in his eyes. He has a throat. He has eyes. A tear runs down his face. He has a face.

One day, or a hundred million years later, even though he's dead, they're still using him for war.

Those ASSHOLES.

Bertolt opens his eyes.

He’s in the Paths. Sand and stars stretch away in all directions.

It’s not that different from the River, actually. All these little specks of sand, making ripples, gathering themselves together to form a specific thing for a while, and then dissolving again so they can go off and be part of something else. The sand isn’t all that exciting, but the sky...

He doesn’t have time to think about the sky. He has questions. He looks in every direction before he thinks to look down. 

Armin?

Bertolt's not particularly happy to see Armin, but it's fine. 

Armin? Hi. Do you know why we’re here in the Paths? Why are you lying all drippy and limp on the sand? Are you dead too? You look dead.

No. Not all the way dead. There's still some of Bertolt inside Armin, and Bertolt can tell that those parts of him are still alive.

Bertolt casts his mind around, like running his fingers through a sandbox.

Ugh. Zeke's here too.

Coming back hasn't been very enjoyable, so far. Not sure it was worth the trouble.

Well, nothing for it. Someone's using Bertolt to kill people, and Armin's not quite dead yet. And Zeke's here, and Zeke doesn't seem quite dead yet. Maybe they can do something out there, since Bertolt can't.

Bertolt moves the sand under Armin and brings him closer to Zeke.

Armin seems unhappy to be here, and he screams at himself for a while about it before he notices Zeke, who's sitting on the ground wallowing and building a sandcastle—probably congratulating himself on the metaphor. They talk about leaves and baseballs, and what life is. About the point of it all. Bertolt waits around impatiently, not being acknowledged. 

Zeke calls others like him out of the river. Ymir, Marcel. Bertolt wants to run to them, but they look into each other’s dark eyes across the sand and all of them know there isn’t time. The Living need them, and their Titans are out there, being all wrong.

At least Bertolt didn't have to get called out of the River by Zeke. If he had, he would've told the River to turn right around and bring him back.

Armin remembers that Bertolt exists.

"Bertolt... I took everything from you. Your life. Your power. Even your precious memories..."

Okay. Thanks. Didn't hear an actual apology in there, but it's fine. I think my Titan is killing people, so...

"That's why I know, we can't just stay here!"

Armin. Zeke. Always an angle. Even when they're doing the right thing. Has to be a whole speech, instead of just asking. You two are so alike it's not even funny.

"Lend me your strength!"

You pompous blonde fucks! Lend me yours! I woke up before you did! Yes, I'll go stop my Titan from killing people. That was the point. Make it possible. Open the path. Stop yapping! Chop chop! I'm pretty sure I just felt armor in my hand.

***

Bright, clear light. Hot air pushing cool air. The weight of a body moving where he tells it to. Colors and sounds. The taste of smoke. The world! Ah. Incredible things. Being alive really was something.

Hi, world. Woah. Nice blue sky, I think I missed it, but otherwise it really looks like hell out here. What've you all been doing since I've been gone? I die for one minute and the whole world falls apart. That's a lot of titans.

There's Annie! You look like hell too. But you're alive. I'm glad. I wasn't sure. Stay still, Annie, you've got a titan on your back. Let me get it for you. Swat. Heh.

This isn't so bad. These titans are empty, like practice dummies. Kind of fun, nothing gets hurt. Whap. Whap. Knock them off this giant skeleton thing one by one, like shooting cans off a fence. Smash them to dust. Sweep them all off in one go and watch them fall all the way down. Titan confetti. 

What is this anyway? Why are we all on a giant skeleton? Why are there a bunch of practice dummy titans on the giant skeleton? What’s happening? Was my Titan being a practice dummy when it was hurting people? Why are there thousands of Colossals? Why'd I get stuck being the Colossal if there were this many Colossals somewhere? Annoying.

Big explosion over there. Something just shifted. There's a fight. It’s hard to see.

Oh...

Is that...

***

Bertolt sprints over the sand. He doesn't want to go back to the Black River. He knows that if he does he won't mind it anymore once he's there. Nothing matters there. But it matters now, because he's been brought back. He knows there isn't much time, everything's winding down out in the world. Time is different here, but the hourglass is still running out. He goes to find Her. She still runs things for as long as there’s still sand in the Paths. He knows where to go.

He tells her all about it. He gives her the short version.

He asks if she can help him.

There are millions and millions of lives like yours, says the Founder, especially today, because of the Rumbling. Most people die unfinished, with unanswered questions, and unfulfilled dreams, and regrets, not believing they could end while being so very incomplete. Almost everyone. Today the Black River is full of disappointed souls. Mothers-to-be. Newlyweds. People who had just healed from deadly illness. Babies looking forward to their whole lives. Lovers just walking into each other's bedrooms. People on the very last page of a book. They died as badly as you did. Many died worse. Many lived less. Almost all not understanding why. None of the animals understood why. They would all come back if they could. If they weren't already in the River. If they're in the River then they don't mind either way. And even if I felt I should help you, I'm not sure I could.

I know, he says, but I can only speak for myself. If I'd stayed dead I wouldn’t have minded either way about anything. But since I'm already here, I have a question about Armin.

Chapter Text

It's hot. Where am I?

Sounds all around. Ashes. What is this?

Lungs feel so raw, like new lungs. The air hurts. Skin raw, like new skin. There's sand underneath. But not beach sand. Or Paths sand. Tiny rocks. Dirt sand. Ugh. The worst kind of sand. The air is burning. Have to move.

When Bertolt stands up, his legs wobble like he's never walked before and he topples. He doesn't remember how to walk. Why wouldn't he remember how to walk? He focuses hard and remembers all his muscles, trying to pay attention to everything separately. It's a pain in the ass. It's too hard. Nothing works. Okay. What about crawling. Can we crawl?

Kind of. Enough to move. Hurts though. Getting the new skin all scraped up. There's a lump over there. Let's go towards that.

Armin is on the ground, watching Mikasa walk off into the ashes and bleeding through a makeshift tourniquet around the stump of one leg. Bertolt collapses out of his crawl next to him and rolls onto his back, not bothering to say hello. If someone made Armin a tourniquet, probably someone will come back. Anyway everyone always comes for Armin. 

He hears voices yelling and feet running, but he feels like he's being strangled by the air. He goes to sleep.

***

Bertolt is floating. It's quiet. It's dark. It's fine. Everything's fine. He remembers floating like this. And now he's floating again. Is he back there? Well, that's alright then.

Wait. 

No. It's not. It's not alright.

No. It's not alright. NO. I don't want to be here. Wake up. NO. I'm not staying here. You can't make me stay here. I just got back. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. WAKE UP.

He gasps air into aching lungs that feel like they're bleeding. He tries to turn his head. Why does everything hurt so much??

"Bertolt. BERTOLT." Why does he sound like that? Too loud. It's too early. Shut up, Reiner. Stop talking. Stop yelling. He hears himself groan. It hurts to groan.

Thudding sounds and Reiner yelling for a doctor. What? Why? Am I in medical? Whatever. Let a man wake up before you scream for a doctor. Ridiculous.

"Can you hear me? B!"

Shut up, I'm up. I'M UP. Fuck. Fuck off. Be quiet.

He opens his eyes, but they feel stuck together with magnets. It's a struggle. The light is blinding. Everything's too bright. He tries to put his arm over his face. It weighs a thousand pounds. He can barely lift it. Definitely not to his face. Not all that way. It's too heavy. It's too far away.

"Too bright." he whispers, it hurts like hell. My mouth is so dry. Get me a glass of water. Close the curtains.

Reiner rushes away and curtains close, or lamps go off, anyway it's less unbearable, coming through his eyelids. Things start to resolve. His eyes are waking up. Finally. Reiner's shadow starts to melt into something he can see: Reiner's face. He’s saying “B?” over and over.

Reiner looks terrible. He looks ragged. There are tears pouring down his face. Dripping down onto Bertolt’s face. His eyes are all red. I've never seen him cry before. Bertolt stares.

How long was I out for? Why's he all scarred up? Does he have a BEARD? How...

Yesterday on the wall... or, no it was longer, because Reiner has a beard. It looks g—wait, no. The beard's not important. Reiner did something. On the wall. Something wrong.

OH!! 

People rush into the room, making a racket. Bertolt ignores them. He looks up at Reiner with the fury of ten thousand burning, exploding Colossals. His heart twists inside him. He'll kill him. How could he?

"You BASTARD!" He tries to yell, but it hisses through a burnt throat, it comes out as an unintelligible croak. The pain is searing. It hurts so much that he passes out again.

***

Bertolt wakes up, and he sort of knows where he is, and he didn't float again. He didn't dream, but he wasn't floating.

Let's do it gradually this time. Let's not get carried away. He opens his eyes. There's a ceiling. A white ceiling. Okay. Good. It's not so bright. It's kind of bright but not terrible. It didn't hurt to open his eyes. Eyes, check.

Step two, let's move. What should we move? Fingers. Not so bad. They move. He can feel them. Should we try an arm? He tries. It feels weak but it lifts. Victory. Next. He tries to turn his head, and it turns. He's on a pillow. Nice.

He can see a metal pole, and above it a bag with something clear in it. An IV bag. Wait. They don't know about IV bags. So he's back in Marley?

He really feels a lot better. He tries to move his other arm but can't. He turns his head on the pillow.

Blond hair. Messy blond hair. Sitting on a chair, passed out at an uncomfortable-looking angle with his face on the bed. He has his hand. That's why he can't move it. Reiner is asleep with his fingers laced through Bertolt's, holding his hand to his lips.

Why are you holding my hand? You don't want to touch me.

Reiner's eyes slam open, bloodshot and swollen, and there’s a sharp intake of breath as their gazes meet. His pulse quickens against Bertolt’s fingers.

Why does Reiner look like that? What gives him the right? Bertolt wells up at the sight of him, and he hates himself for it. 

When Reiner finally speaks, his voice is a low, hesitant, tremble. 

“Bertolt? Are you here now?"

Reiner’s gripping Bertolt’s hand too tight. Why? Reiner wouldn't touch him. Wouldn't look at him. They ran off the wall. 

Fuck Reiner. Bertolt stares up at the ceiling through tears. Everything’s coming back, piece by piece, clicking back into place like a jigsaw puzzle. The whole godawful, miserable picture. 

"Why did you do that?” His voice sounds pathetic. He doesn't want to give him the satisfaction, but he's too tired to fight himself.

“Bertolt. Oh my God. I'll go get the-”

“Last night—or, it wasn't last night, I don't know when. You came back to me after so long. Then I woke up and you were a cold, mean, asshole right up until the very last second. You talked to me like I was scum...unreliable...the fuck was that about Annie, Krista. I knew we might die, and you didn't want to look at me or touch me. How could you do that. Why? You took me apart, and then-“

“Bertolt. Don’t.” Reiner whispers, but Bertolt can barely hear him over the sound of his heart pounding louder and louder in his head. I fucked up. I had no arms and no legs and I couldn't fight or run away. They stood there and stared at me. I was screaming for Annie and Reiner but they weren't there. Teeth like stones around my head. It was coming and—

He gasps. 

"I died."

Reiner is silent.

"Reiner, I died, didn't I?"

He whips his head around, desperate for a denial. But Reiner’s face says everything.

“Oh. Oh no. I knew it might happen. I felt like it would. The titan. Oh God.”

Memories keep surfacing one after the other like rotted splinters breaking through skin.

“I wanted to say…but buddy. The last word you ever said to me. After all of your bullshit, that of all things finally finished me. Buddy. Instead of my name. Before we ran off the wall. Fuck you. You don't want to touch me. So WHY are you touching me?"

He tears his hand out of Reiner’s. His voice is starting to sound hysterical. He takes a huge breath and holds it.

Reiner’s crying. He looks like he hasn't slept in a week. Just a haggard, haunted, shell with bags under his eyes and tears sliding down his face. And his face is different.

Bertolt lets out his air, and sniffles. "You look terrible. Why do you look all fucked up?”

“B, I’m so sorry.”

He reaches out to smooth back Bertolt’s hair. Hearing Reiner call him “B” makes Bertolt want to strangle him, he turns away. The hand drops onto the bed.

"I don't understand what’s happening right now,” Bertolt says, keeping his voice under control and staring at his IV bag. ”I died. I'm here. You threw Krista's name in my face. Now you're lying next to me looking like a wounded animal. You wouldn't touch me. Now you're crying all over my hand. What is this."

"I did something awful. I love you and I just didn't want you to die. And then you died."

This is so outrageous that Bertolt turns back in disbelief.

"You LOVE me? First time anyone's said they loved me since I was five years old and my mother died. You're saying this right now? That's almost as fucked up as sending me away empty to die in a titan's mouth."

Reiner's face contorts. Bertolt’s just twisted a knife inside him. Good.

"I want to explain, but I won't unless you want me to."

Bertolt wants to make him suffer more, but he's also curious.

"Fine. Talk."

***

A while later Reiner’s hand is cemented around Bertolt’s calf. It’s too far away for Bertolt to do anything about it, so he ignores it while he sits straight up in bed, so blown away by the absolute mind boggling idiocy of what he's hearing that he's forgotten he's exhausted and hurt. The longer Reiner talks, the worse it all gets.

“…and I knew it was all coming apart. I needed you to hate me. I was almost sure you'd try to save me instead of yourself and that killing all of our friends would break you. Or maybe you'd choose not to do it at all. If either of those things happened then Marley was gonna kill you. That shithead Zeke was sliming around just drooling for an excuse to hand you over, reminding me every chance he got that everything about you that's good, and us being together, would be a reason for Marley to feed you to some snotnosed ten-year-old. Bertolt, I know. It was—I couldn’t think. I just didn't know what else to do.”

“Reiner, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." 

“I was afraid if I told you that your only choices were to die, or become cold and indifferent and kill for them on demand, you’d choose to die.”

"I might've. What's the point of being alive if I'm not me? I would have had a handful of empty, miserable years, murdering who-knows-who without caring, and then they'd have fed me to someone."

"I wanted to freeze you to keep you safe. If you were safe it'd buy time to figure out what to do about Marley, and then I could explain it to you, and try to undo it. And if worst came to worst, at least you'd be alive."

"REINER." Bertolt finally explodes into full-throttle chest-deep yelling even though his throat hurts "YOU TRIED TO MAKE ME HATE YOU. SO I WOULDN'T SAVE YOU. HOW would you have fixed me if you were DEAD? Did two different versions of you come up with these plans? Did they not coordinate? What the FUCK were you THINKING?"

"I was never the one with brains, and I was out of my mind."

"Only two things you've been right about so far!"

"I was desperate, B. I wanted to keep you safe."

"Don't! Don't keep me safe!"

"Well. I didn't." Reiner stares down at the sheets. That sunken, tortured expression falls over him again like a shroud.

Bertolt huffs and throws himself back onto the pillow.

"I stood up there on the wall and you finished hollowing me out. I was broken already. I was alone in Paradis trying to hold your stupid ass back from the brink of insanity while you treated me like a ghost. I could never have done that to you. It's sadistic."

He remembers the feeling of ice coating his insides.

"Guess it worked, though. I jumped off the wall and I was finally all the way empty. I didn't care if anyone died. I didn't care about killing them. It almost felt good. Not the killing itself, but that nothing could make me feel bad ever again. I even went to talk to Armin to make sure I didn't feel anything about killing them all. And I didn't. OH, and I landed a kick on Mikasa and parried her sneak attack. Is it fucked that I'm proud of that? She sliced off my ear. Anyway I was free. It was the first time in my life that I didn't feel guilty. The world was cruel. It didn't matter. Exactly like you wanted. If I hadn't died Marley would've probably kept me alive and had me blow up people left and right until it was time to feed me to someone, and I would've done it, and not felt any particular way about it."

He has a wildly chaotic mood swing and laughs as the last missing piece of the puzzle clicks into place.

"Reiner! Except the second I saw your titan all crushed up on the ground, I was out of my barrel and falling hundreds of feet out of the sky screaming your name, and groping at your blown-apart body to find a heartbeat, and telling you to turn over. Even dead inside, thinking I couldn't give a shit about what happened to you or anyone, I did the exact thing that all your stupid, sadistic work, that ate the whole end of my life, was supposed to stop me from doing. I'm fucking hopeless! So there was nothing you could ever have done about it to begin with."

Reiner drops his face into his arms.

Bertolt looks at him, and hates him, and feels sorry for him, and has to stop himself from putting his hand on his stupid fucking head.

***

It's been a lot for one day. Bertolt, all out of words and feeling drained, goes back to sleep for a while. And of course when he wakes up Reiner is still there looking like a kicked dog with his head on his arms at the end of the bed. He's not surprised to see it.

There's a cup of tea next to him, and he takes a sip. Wow. It's the first thing he's tasted since being not dead. It's beautiful. He stares daggers at Reiner while he drinks it.

"So why do you look like you've been rolled under a steam engine?"

Reiner turns his miserable face towards Bertolt. He sighs.

"B, I'm gonna tell you something and it'll be hard."

"Hard? I just somehow clawed my way back out of the grave. What could be hard?"

"Bertolt. Listen. It's been four years. Everything's different. I'll tell you whatever you want to know, but I dunno, maybe better not to do it all at once."

Bertolt blinks.

“What?”

"You've been gone more than four years."

"Four years? Since…?”

“Since Shiganshina.”

“Bullshit.”

"Shiganshina was over four years ago. It’s 854. You were gone.” Reiner bites his lip hard. “But you came out of the ashes... we found you. I wouldn't let anyone touch you. You wouldn't wake up. You were hurt really badly.”

“Ashes?”

”You came back and you’ve been sleeping for more than three months, getting better. You woke up for a little bit a few weeks ago, and you went right back to sleep, but at least I knew you were really in there and it was just gonna take waiting. I look like this because I'm older and I lost yo-"

"Is my father dead."

"Yes."

"...was he..."

"He was so proud of you. He told everyone how proud he was of his son, right up until the end. He passed in his sleep right before everything started up again."

Bertolt takes this in. He accepts it.

"Ok."

The rest is, as Reiner had warned, a lot to process.

***

Bertolt is on his third cup of tea when Reiner finishes explaining the Rumbling.

"Wow. I always thought Eren was an obnoxious, narcissistic little asshole but I didn't think he'd try to destroy the entire world. I don't even know what to say. How many people?"

"The entire east coast, top to bottom, all the way to Fort Salta. That's where it ended and that's where you came back. More than a third of Marley is gone. Almost nobody survived, there wasn't anywhere for them to go. There are refugees but most of them aren't from the places that are gone. They're here because trade and infrastructure and everything else is broken. There're a lot of things you can't get anymore."

Bertolt thinks about books on fire, and wonders if there are still giraffes.

"Where are we?"

"Carbiria. It's sort of ok. Far enough southwest, and it has its own trade setups with Hiziru and other places. So we still get coffee. No herring though. Eren even boiled the sea."

It's the furthest west and the furthest south that Bertolt's ever been. At least they're by an ocean, even if it's on the wrong side of the continent.

"So the world almost ended. Everything's chaos. Home is gone. That hellhole Paradis is somehow one of the only places that's totally fine."

"Yeah."

"And there aren't titans anymore."

"Yeah."

"And we aren't titans anymore."

"Nope."

"Wow."

"I know."

"Was I there? At the last battle? I mean before I got found like some naked pink larvae on the sand. I remember something. Walls of titans. Being high up. It doesn't make sense."

"It's one of the weirdest things about it. Your titan was empty, trying to kill us along with all the others. It almost killed me, it bit my head off. I actually wondered if it was you in there, since it'd be an understandable thing for you to do. But then its eyes changed, and it was you, and you were saving Annie and whacking empty titans off of Eren's bony ass like ninepins. But other shifters came back too as titans, and didn't come all the way back to life like you did.” 

He hesitates, “Bertolt, did you see Marcel, wherever you were?“

Bertolt is mystified.

“I don’t know. Maybe? I feel like I know what this all is, in some pocket of my brain. I have to think about it when I'm not processing the apocalypse and being back from the dead. It's too many things right now.”

Chapter Text

It's forever before they let him leave. More than a month.

His skin had been all fucked up where he was burnt and scraped. It was too new. Same with his lungs. Like a baby saved from a house fire. He at least got to sleep through the worst parts of his insides healing, but he's still thin and weak. He hates it. He likes being strong and now he's not. He likes being tall, and he still is, but for some reason he’s come back an inch and a half shorter than he used to be. He wants to walk around but he has to remember how legs work. He’d forgotten what it was like to not carry a titan around inside himself, able to heal anything that might get broken.

He tries to be patient. He dutifully does his stupid little exercises while thinking about throwing himself through the air on wires, slamming into trees, swinging swords. It feels like a hundred years ago and he can't decide whether it's deranged to miss it, but he does miss it, for some reason. 

He knows he should be asking all kinds of questions about how things are now, but he can’t stomach the answers. Even small, unimportant details—like how it’s hard to get herring since Eren boiled the sea—make him feel panicky and overwhelmed. Reiner is careful not to leave newspapers lying around. 

Bertolt is constantly surrounded by doctors and nurses. He’s polite, since they're trying to help him, and they've got a lot to handle right now since so many people died and a lot of survivors are still hurt. But the thing about being in the hospital is that anyone can walk in to your room at any time, just like the barracks, and he feels that same continual need to be awake and vigilant, paying attention to things and not saying too much. Even though it doesn't matter anymore.

When the medical team needs him out of the room, Reiner hovers outside the door like a nervous father-to-be waiting to find out how the labor's going.

He sits by the bed, all day, every day. Falling asleep with his face flat on the blanket and one hand on Bertolt's leg. Like he needs to anchor himself there so he'll feel it if Bertolt tries to die again. 

When they come to check vitals or help with things that are still too hard, nurses (and even some doctors, who should really be more serious) get misty-eyed and retell the legends of how Reiner had been there almost every day for months while Bertolt was floating in a coma, holding his hand and waiting for him to wake up. How they’d bring him coffee and biscuits from the hospital kitchen to make sure he was eating, because they knew that sometimes he forgot, and how they’d eventually started letting him shower at the hospital so he could go back and forth between work and Bertolt’s bedside without having to stop at home. How Reiner had cut his hair and read him books. It’s ridiculous. It’s beyond embarrassing. Bertolt feels like he’s been cast against his will in a trash pulp novel on the Survey Corps’ common room bookshelf. The handsome young soldier, pining away by the bed of his long-lost, sleep-cursed lover, forgetting to eat his biscuits. The two of them are locally famous in a kind of maudlin, over-the-top way. No pressure. Thanks Reiner.

When Bertolt needs something Reiner runs to go get it. Rushes back with too much of it.

It's all really pitiful, even though Bertolt's the one who died.

***

There is one thing that Reiner does that almost makes Bertolt forgive him for everything. Not all the way, but it's a big deal.

Reiner goes out one day, and he's gone much longer than usual. Bertolt, who had wanted some space, starts to feel like there's such a thing as too much space. Really. How long has he been gone? While Bertolt lies here alone in convalescence. After coming back from the dead. Some friend. Annoying.

When he hears the familiar thud coming down the hallway, Bertolt, who had been dissociating looking at the clock on the wall, grabs a medical form off of the bedside table and tries to look nonchalant.

Reiner has a crate. Inside the crate is a canvas bag. He puts it down on the bed next to Bertolt, who loosens the drawstring and suspiciously looks inside. He's eyes go full-Connie and he dumps everything out onto the blanket.

Books. Beautiful grown up books from the real world. A whole pile of them. Books he's never read before, with pictures on the covers of things he hasn't seen and titles he doesn't understand. Hardbacks, even. He yells. The facade shatters. He throws his arms around Reiner and kisses him, and then shoves him away in shock, almost knocking him to the floor.

Reiner looks completely dumbfounded. A nurse, fortunate enough to have walked by just in time to hear the yell and witness the kiss, sprints down the hallway to update everyone on this thrilling new development.

Bertolt tries to regain some composure.

"Thank you, Reiner,” he says, in a tone of sober, dignified formality— worthy of a soldier and a veteran.

Reiner looks the happiest Bertolt has seen him since not being dead. Which is irritating, but he looks down at the pile and can't stop smiling. Still.

***

Bertolt immediately dives in. He chooses a book at random, there's no time to waste on decisions.

He had been completely right. Nobody on Paradis could write. Paradis books are trash and if any of the authors are still alive they should be ashamed of themselves.

The book is fiction, about a woman who's released from a prison in a foreign land, where she's been since childhood thanks to some complicated political turmoil. Bertolt has to read the first chapters twice to really get a handle on it all. The story follows her through multiple countries, as she tries to find a place to be that feels right, after having sort of belonged nowhere since a prison isn't really a place. She describes it as an "un-place". There's a love story, but it's secondary to her story. It's just a part of it. It's more about loneliness and wanting to be understood. It's beautiful. It's delicious. It's a whole three course dinner. Bertolt barely comes up for air and when he does he feels wobbly and disoriented like he's been dreaming. When he finishes the book, weeping into the last few pages at the bittersweet conclusion, he's sad that he has to leave her behind in the world where she lives, but there are so many more books to feast on.

The next book is nonfiction, scientific but with interesting pictures and diagrams. It's about various kinds of ocean life, and how different species split from each other, changing over time into new things. He learns that there are deep, dark abysses under the ocean. That there are creatures (seen with new devices that can be lowered far down into the depths) that glow, or that don't have eyes but get around nonetheless, not seeming to need them. He feels sad, knowing that some of these species are probably gone thanks to that asswipe Eren and his globally apocalyptic temper tantrum, but there are still seas galore, the whole planet's covered with them, and the book stresses that what's been discovered in the ocean is probably less than a percent of a percent of what's actually out there still waiting to be found. A percent of a percent. That's a lot of new fish left to find. That's amazing.

The books make life in the hospital tolerable, just like books had made Paradis marginally less intolerable. Reiner lies there with his head on the bed watching him while he reads, and brings him water or tea, and slices of fruit, which he eats with one hand without taking his eyes off the page. When he finds something so interesting that it really needs to be shared and discussed, Reiner is the only one around, so he shares and discusses it with him, even though he doesn't deserve it.

***

When Bertolt is finally released he realizes that he has no idea what he's supposed to do. He doesn't have things, like a wallet or pen or identification papers or pocketknife. He doesn't know where to go. He can walk, so maybe he could just walk out and figure it out as he goes? Does he need a lot of money? Does he have to pay taxes? He doesn’t even really know what taxes are, or how to pay them. Does he need a job? He's only good at reading books, fighting titans, and keeping his head down. There aren't any more titans. Are there still libraries?

He packs up his books in the canvas bag and puts on the clothes Reiner brought him. He's sitting on the bed feeling lost and annoyed at his own helplessness when Reiner comes into the room.

"B... are you ok?"

"I'm fine. I'm just deciding what to do. Are there jobs?"

“Yeah, especially working with all the refugees. It may take hundreds of years for the land to recover in some places, and what Eren did has fucked up the weather, everything's all wrong everywhere. He's really made life a pain in the ass for everyone who didn't die. Probably forever. There's going to be a lot of work,"

That sounds like a lot. It sounds exhausting.

Bertolt comes clean.

"Reiner, I don't know what to do. Or where to go. Liberio's done. Titans are done. At least there're still soldiers, but it’s gonna take me so long to get really strong again. Are apartments expensive?”

"You're coming home with me."

"Why? Because you say so?"

"Please?"

"Fine."

***

To Bertolt’s sheer horror, almost everyone in the hospital has gathered in the lobby to see him and Reiner off, weeping into sleeves and clipboards and assaulting them both with unsolicited kisses, some leaving lipstick behind. There’s a basket of little gifts, and a bundle of cards filled with well-wishes from people Bertolt’s never heard of. Reiner of course is on an affable first-name basis with everyone and tours the room, doling out all kinds of personal thanks and goodbyes, while Bertolt grows increasingly faint from the ordeal and wishes he’d had the foresight to leave through a back window.

A handful of reporters and photographers have shown up to document the occasion for the human interest pages in local newspapers.  It’s precisely the kind of hopeful, romantic story that the suffering people of Marley need right now.

In short, they are treated almost exactly like a young society couple departing for their honeymoon, even though Bertolt never agreed to be a couple, society or otherwise, and they’re only departing for a fifteen-minute taxicab ride to a derelict one-bedroom in the Harbor District.

Reiner beams like a complete ass all the way to the taxi, supporting a pale and disoriented Bertolt gently on one arm and carrying the pile of presents and the canvas bag of books in the other, doing absolutely nothing whatsoever to set the record straight.

Chapter Text

Reiner has an entire apartment of his own now, which seems impossible. But with a third of Marley gone, and tourism down, there's suddenly a lot of space in surviving cities, even with all the refugees. The city of Carbiria, with its harbors and wide cobbled streets, reminds Bertolt of Liberio just enough to hurt.

Everyone’s scattered. Apparently Levi's around, all fucked up from the last fight. Annie and Armin are somewhere, together. Armin's doing something political and manipulative, shock shock. Connie and Jean are diplomats of some kind, which is the most ludicrous thing he's ever heard. He doesn't really feel a need to reach out. The last time he saw their faces they were standing on a roof wordlessly watching him die.

He'd like to see Annie. He's relieved she's alive.

There's a long list of people who're dead. Zeke and Eren are dead, good. Sasha's dead, killed in Liberio of all places.

He can't believe that everybody got to Liberio except him, when going back was all he'd ever wanted. The reason he'd done pretty much every terrible thing in his life. And they destroyed a good chunk of it and killed a lot of people, having a grand old time, while he was dead. Armin blew up the harbor with the Colossal, murdering everyone around it, with some of Bertolt inside him somewhere. And then Eren finished the job the very same day that Bertolt came back. He never got home. And won't ever get home, because it's gone. 

It all seems... mean, somehow.

There were photos of his mother there. His father had them in an album he said he was keeping for him. Drinking over the album until he fucked up his liver and made a pain in the ass of himself for the rest of his life, with Bertolt joining the Warrior program to help him not die. His father's gone. Letters from her. Her sheet music and the lock of her hair in a green ribbon in his bedside drawer. Gone. No trace of either of them left except memories in Bertolt's head. It's stupid, but he ends up feeling like she's died all over again, and he spends a lot of time crying about it in the shower.

Reiner's apartment has hot water.

There are things that are good about the apartment. Reiner has a phonograph and a radio, and tall windows, and a real bed, and a bedroom with a door that closes. The wallpaper and plaster are peeling off everywhere, but Reiner's actually put up a set of simple blue curtains, which impresses Bertolt, who'd been expecting more of an "old newspapers stuck to the glass with wheat paste" aesthetic based on what he knew about Reiner's interest in decor. The place is minimal, but nothing's ugly or offensive. He keeps it pretty clean.

And there are things that are ridiculous about the apartment. Reiner owns exactly one of everything. One bowl. One cup. One fork. One small pot he also uses as a frying pan. Which doesn't matter because he only has one small cupboard for food, and it never has food in it because Reiner mostly eats outside standing up at food stalls. One shotgun in the closet and a bunch of ammo in the one bedside table. One wooden chair. He's lived alone for a long time.

Also there's no bathtub, which is bullshit.

For the first few nights Reiner sleeps on the old sofa in the living room he's dragged in from god knows where, and Bertolt sleeps in the bed because his legs are too long for the sofa. He keeps the window cracked because it sounds like a city out there, and that reminds him of home.

But some things are just inevitable. On the fourth night Bertolt lets Reiner hold him in the bed, wrapped around his body, keeping him safe. It's just how it's supposed to be. It's not a thing you can keep fighting against. And he knows for a fact that life is too short to waste time being angry at the one person who's still left to tether him to the world. And he thinks he might have missed it while he was away.

***

He's still young, he's still strong, but there are new scars on Reiner. A few lines that shouldn't be there yet. Traces of leftover grief. That's what happens. But he's starting to look more like himself now that they're together again, even if Bertolt's spending too much time hiding in the shower until the hot water runs out, crying about everything that's gone. He likes that Reiner keeps the beard, it's kinda sexy.

On the seventh night, they fuck for the first time since three months before Bertolt died. Which is almost five years ago for Reiner.

Just like their first time, Reiner pulls Bertolt into his lap and looks up at him like he can't believe he's there, and Bertolt sees the Reiner from then, all fresh-faced and stupid, pulling him onto his lap in a bottom bunk so they could kiss after Bertolt's first warm shower in years. That version is right there under the surface, just behind the hurt.

Reiner sighs and puts his arms around him and pulls him close, burying his face against his body.

"I can't believe I get to kiss you. I can't believe I'm holding you. I thought I'd never get to touch you again for the rest of my life. I'm scared I'll wake up."

Bertolt hugs him back and strokes his hair.

"I don't remember exactly where I was, but I guess I missed you enough to come back."

They hold each other for a little while, being grateful, and put their foreheads together. Then Reiner puts his hand behind Bertolt's head and kisses him, and it's the most perfect, impossible, kiss in the world.

But regardless of their tragic, death-defying romance and betrayals and walls and titans and apocalypses and all kinds of other complicated shit—Bertolt and Reiner are still Reiner and Bertolt. It takes about two minutes for them to revert to their default state of demented sexual idiocy. That's exactly how it should be. Coming back from the dead doesn't magically turn you vanilla. If it did then why even bother.

So they kiss for a while, not really planning for it to go anywhere, with the window cracked to let in night breeze and city sounds, and something spinning on the phonograph. Reiner puts Bertolt on his back and does that thing he always does— smooths back his hair, stares at him like the angles of his face are breaking his heart into a billion pieces. Thinks things about the color of his eyes. Sighs dramatically.

He kisses his closed eyes, his cheek, the bridge of his nose, his lips. Down his jawline to his neck. Bertolt winces, waiting for the bite, but it doesn’t come. He relaxes, and Reiner sinks his teeth into his shoulder as hard as he can without breaking skin. Bertolt shrieks in shock.

Reiner laughs on top of him. He's got that happy, smug Reiner look on his face.

"I really missed making you do that."

"You're an ass,” says Bertolt, also happy.

“Mmhm,” says Reiner, his mouth busy moving down his chest. He leaves a bite on the skin over his hipbone, and puts a hand on Bertolt's stomach. He grins up at him in a highly unsettling way that says:

"We are not about to have slow, romantic, open window, soft phonograph, low-lit, spiritual reunion of souls, moon and stars sex. I am about to resume my career as an absolute hazard."

"Lie back, and stay as still as you can, okay?"

Bertolt knows a game setup when he hears one.

GAH.

Reiner takes the head of Bertolt's cock into his mouth. He swirls his tongue in circles. Bertolt gasps and his hips try to come up off the bed.

Reiner slides off, takes a big mouthful of inner thigh, and bites. Bertolt yells in outraged surprise.

“If you don’t stay still, I win.”

Impossible.

Reiner takes his whole cock deep into his throat.

An ambush. Bertolt is holding his legs stiff for dear life but he forgets about his arms and they shoot up to grab the sheets behind him. Uh oh. Did Reiner see? Does that count?

Reiner abruptly smacks the side of his ass with his whole huge hand without stopping what he’s doing. FUCK.

“Ow," says Bertolt. Reiner didn’t used to do that. Bertolt will have to question him closely later about how exactly he's managed to cultivate new proclivities while he's been gone.

A cold trickle of oil lands on Bertolt’s stomach, and he shivers, knowing what it means. Reiner goes back to work, using one slick finger to massage gently, sliding inside, stroking. Bertolt moans. Reiner’s found the ridge inside him that shoots sparks of pleasure through his dick and stomach and everywhere. Bertolt's fucked. He's doomed. He's at a disadvantage. He almost bites through his lip trying to stay still. 

"You're doing so good, B! Is it hard?" Reiner pops up again to express his loving concern

"Yes. Extremely. I hate you,” says Bertolt through gritted teeth.

Reiner is sucking, stroking, and moaning hard around Bertolt's cock. He listens to his gasps, feels him clenching around his finger, waits for everything to reach a crescendo and then stops dead.

Bertolt lets out an extremely embarrassing sound of despair and everything fails at once. His legs come off the bed, his hips try to chase what's been stolen, his head comes up off the pillow in protest. Defeat. Fatality. Game: Reiner.

"I caaan’t," he says pathetically, failing to get any of it under control.

Reiner slides up next to him and bites his ear. "I win."

"I forfeit you win here's your medal please fuck me immediately."

Reiner beams victoriously into his face. Bertolt realizes he's still gripping the sheets above his head. Well, at least something didn't fail. He lets go so he can pull Reiner closer.

He has the world's stupidest thought and laughs out loud into a kiss.

“What’s funny?"

"I have a brand new body so you're about to fuck a virgin again. You're the only person in the history of earth to f-"

Reiner makes a strangled sound. A hand slams down next to Bertolt’s head. Reiner gets right up into his face and stares him in the eye. Uh oh.

"Tell me you want me to take you for the first time."

Bertolt, still laughing, puts on his most winsome maidenly expression. "Please be my first Reiner... you're the only one I want to give it to."

"You're so fuckin' pretty. You think you can take it?"

"I don't know. But I want to.”

Bertolt takes Reiner’s hand and puts it around his own throat so he can wear it like a necklace, and Reiner lets out a little whimper, caught off-guard by the decidedly un-virginal expression on his face. Another cool trickle, and the sound of Reiner smoothing oil over himself. He nudges his cock up against Bertolt’s entrance, just the tip of the tip, a prelude. 

“B, look at me.”

Bertolt has a dire realization. Jokes aside, he actually is brand new, and he's only had a one-finger prep. He holds Reiner’s gaze with an excited flutter in his stomach and sends his muscles an emergency signal to relax.

Reiner holds his hand loose and steady around Bertolt’s throat and pushes, hard.

All the air leaves Bertolt's lungs as he’s filled, all at once, for the second first time.

Reiner watches, not fucking him yet, just feeling Bertolt's insides struggle against him and claiming a brand new body all for himself. He runs a lazy tongue up the side of Bertolt's face. When Bertolt’s breaths are even and slow again, and he’s sighing into a kiss, Reiner’s hips begin to move. Bertolt gives himself over to sweet, slow strokes that remind him of the first-first time.

"That feels so good..."

"You like how it feels when I take you like this?" Reiner purrs against his neck.

“Yes," breathes Bertolt, meaning it. "I love it"

They let themselves fuck gently, since it's a special occasion.

Reiner slides hands up into Bertolt's hair and down his sides, holding his waist while their hips move in an easy rhythm. He leans back to run his lips up a long leg pressed against his sides, loving the way they wrap all the way around him when he comes back down to feel the body underneath him moving where he moves. Bertolt runs his own hands wherever he can reach, face flushed, lips parted. They catch each other's moans in their mouths. They breathe together. Making love almost by accident. It puts them in a trance for a while.

When they start to come out of it Bertolt leans up for a kiss, and Reiner kisses him all the way back down.

"More?"

Bertolt nods.

Reiner, no longer bound to decency since the deflowering ceremony is complete and Bertolt is no longer a pure and innocent virgin, presses Bertolt’s knees against the bed and thrusts hard. Bertolt's vision goes white and he yells, letting his legs fight back against Reiner’s grip.

Reiner shuts his eyes, momentarily overwhelmed by achingly familiar movements and sounds. Bertolt being loud.

“I missed you. I missed your voice. It feels too good, being inside you again.” 

Bertolt whimpers underneath him, dying for more. “Reiner…"

“Hmm?”

“Please…” Bertolt groans, gyrating around Reiner’s cock.

Reiner opens his eyes, “Yeah, Bertolt?”

Bertolt almost screams, “Goddammit, Reiner! Fuck me harder!"

This display of shameless desperation snaps Reiner out of his nostalgic reverie. He gives Bertolt what he wants. He fucks him with concussive thrusts that move the bed on impact, stopping to bite, or lick or to whisper something really unhinged into his ear. Bertolt lets him take him like an object and makes all kinds of indecent racket, gripping his shoulders hard enough to leave little crescent moons on the skin. Reiner hisses. He catches a flailing ankle, drags it over Bertolt’s body to flip him onto his stomach, and yanks him up onto his knees without pulling out. He plants kisses between his shoulder blades and drives himself so deep that when Bertolt presses his hand to his belly he can feel him moving back and forth under the muscle.

“Oh my God,” he gasps. He pulls one of Reiner’s hands onto his stomach. “Feel that? That’s you, inside me.” Reiner moans and rubs his palm against it, amazed to feel himself right through the walls of Bertolt’s body.   

Bertolt touches himself to the rhythm of the thrusts that hit his sweet spot over and over again. He’s ready to come long before Reiner is.

“That’s so good, B. I can feel it. Come just like this, while I’m fucking you hard from behind.”

Ugh... that voice. Every time. Sweet and mean. It dropkicks Bertolt over the edge. He cries out through a deep, thrumming, pulsing orgasm that paints his hand and the blanket translucent white while Reiner pounds into him with abandon, gleefully watching and feeling him fall apart.

Bertolt is now whimpering and weak, but Reiner isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. Bertolt rallies. He won’t be defeated again. He looks back over his shoulder with his messed-up, sex-flushed face for a dramatic performance—wide, pretty green eyes watching Reiner taking him harder than he should, tracking up to sweetly, tearfully gaze at him, more wracked and breathless with every thrust, moaning his name.

Face magic. The secret weapon. Reiner's ultimate weakness. The finisher. Reiner shudders and comes, flooding Bertolt with heat. And then, since Reiner can't ever let things end without being a menace just one more time, he kneels back and drags Bertolt up with him so he can bite his neck through his last spasms like a cum-covered vampire. Bertolt slumps limply against him, throbbing.

When he's finally released from the vampire's clutches, Bertolt slides off of Reiner’s cock and falls face first onto the bed.

“Ugh,” says Bertolt through the pillow. ”Why are we like this. Were we always like this? Do you have another blanket?”

Reiner laughs and falls on top of him. He buries his face in the dip of his neck, breathing his scent, kissing his back and shoulders, making demented, happy noises, and flatly refusing to let go until Bertolt starts calling him names and kicking his heels against him in self-defense.

Bertolt heroically drags his aching body to take the hottest shower he can handle, letting Reiner hop in to make soap bubbles all over him. He doesn't bother to put anything on. You can only ask so much of a person who's back from the dead. He crawls under new, clean covers.

Reiner brings Bertolt a glass of water. He drains it, glaring at him over the rim. He clinks it down and curls into the curve of Reiner's body.

"You're an actual monster, fucking me to pieces like that when I'm brand new and fresh back from the dead. Look at my neck. How'm I supposed to go places."

Reiner snuggles up to him, innocently kissing his bruises better. "But fucking you to pieces is my favorite. You're always so good to me, letting me fuck you to pieces. I missed it so much."

"This is how you treat a tender, trusting, young virgin."

"Only on their second deflowering."

"I hate you."

"I love you,” whispers Reiner into his ear, holding him tight.

Bertolt turns over his shoulder to shut him up with a kiss, but when he’s met with a pair of shining, hopeful amber eyes his defenses dissolve into sand.

He shivers, resists for a moment, then accepts his defeat.

"Love you too.”

Chapter Text

Bertolt tries to figure out what to do with his life in a world that makes no sense, where everybody he's ever known is either dead or four and a half years older than him. He's four and a half years in the past remembering things that everyone else has forgotten like they’re yesterday. It's disorienting. He finds himself saying things like "last winter,” but that's winter years ago, when things were godawful but at least made some logical sense.

He wants to get his body back together. It was better being strong and fast, and he feels nervous walking around knowing that he's not 100% safe like he used to be. Back then he could probably kick 99% of the world's asses in a one-on-one. Now he's just a guy. At least he's still tall. 

There are still things to do. What’s left of the Marleyan military keeps things running where it can, mostly handling flow of goods, aid distribution, and relocation for refugees. So Reiner spends his days doing that.

If Reiner wanted, he could take his rightful place in the upper ranks. He’s a god-dang war hero, after all. A famous ex-Warrior. An ex-Warrior who helped to defeat Eren in the final battle. And he was also a traitor and mass murderer on Paradis, which to much of the grieving and angry Marleyan populace is the most important and admirable thing of all.

But being a commander or an ambassador or whatever else would entail longer hours and more responsibilities. Continual missions to survey decimated landscapes. Lengthy voyages to discuss vital matters with prominent people in other countries. Ceremonies. All of those things would mean being away from Bertolt for extended amounts of time, and since Reiner is barely capable of making it through an eight-hour workday without running back home to make sure he's still there, it’s simply out of the question.

Bertolt can’t work yet, since walking even one measly mile requires stopping to make sure he remembers how legs work. He does what he can around the apartment. He strips the walls and repaints the bedroom with a color that’s almost white, but with just the lightest touch of mint green.

He listens to the radio and records on the phonograph pretty much every single second that he's at home, because he has a decade of Paradisian music starvation to make up for. No phonographs, no radios, no orchestras. How did those people live. How did he.

One day he's sitting by the tall window, in Reiner's one wooden chair, drinking tea out of Reiner's One Cup, and thinking about what the hell he can possibly do to make himself part of the world again instead of walking around aimlessly like the ghost of himself all day, and coming home at night to get fucked.

He puts on a record that's a sort of experimental classical thing. About seasons, but discordant, and chaotic, and interesting.

There's a part in one of the movements that's different kinds of hums, cellos, low woodwinds, human voices, all layered together, staggered so they come together and split into chaos and then somehow all land in the right place again when they need to, with each voice making sense within its own melody. Just not always necessarily with the others.

Something about that brings up a feeling that he has trouble pinning to a concrete thought. It's a feeling that he'd been spread out all over, and then he'd come together again, all of those discordant individual parts landing perfectly in the right places, in perfect harmony.

He listens to the record over and over and over again trying to grab the feeling in his hands, and it puts him in a pretty wonky headspace, but it also opens up a path to something that is a memory, and the more he focuses on it the more he kind of remembers. He tells Reiner about it over breakfast.

"I'm starting to remember things from before I woke up naked in the desert being choked out by titan ash. I know where I was."

"Where were you?"

"The Paths. It was fuzzy at the beginning, so I've been sort of working my way backwards from what I know I remember. It's sliding into focus."

Reiner passes him coffee in the One Cup, drinking his own coffee from the One Bowl.

"I don't remember at all where I went when I died, but I remember how I felt when I woke up in the Paths, and it felt like I'd come from somewhere else, and everything had been okay there. I was surprised to wake up. But then I was immediately pissed off because I could feel that someone was using me like a fucking finger puppet to kill people, so I didn't have time to dwell on it. And when I figured out I'd have to deal with Zeke and Armin if I wanted to fix it, I almost turned right around and went back to wherever I came from."

Reiner laughs. Bertolt had woken up from death and barreled right back into being Bertolt.

"I still don't get it at all. How you did it. Not about to question it though.”

"I've been thinking about it a lot, and I wonder if it had something to do with Armin. I know a bunch of us came back to the Paths, but I'm the only one who stayed. Armin had my titan. I was part of Armin, and Armin was alive, and he was in the paths, and I was kind of dragging him around the sands towards Zeke trying to get him to be useful. So I might've had a pathway the others didn't have. I could just be pulling that out of my ass, but it's the only difference I can think of. I think if everyone had the option, Ymir (Krista's Ymir) at least would have wanted to stay.” His heart twists into a painful, angry knot as Krista's name leaves his mouth, but he knows that it's stupid. Then his face falls "Or Marcel…"

“Did you talk to them at all?” Reiner has carefully avoided asking about Marcel, but Bertolt knows that the question must have been burning in his mind for months.

“Not exactly. I know we saw each other and I really wanted to go to them. But there just wasn’t any time before we had to go out there. I wish…it just doesn’t seem fair, right? He and Ymir looked alright though. Neither of them seemed like they were mad. If I had another shot-”

“I veto you taking another shot. God. Please. And if either of them came back but you didn’t, I’d have punched a hole through to the Paths and drained all the sand out ’til I found you.”

Bertolt, appreciating this sentiment, reaches across the sofa and winds his fingers through Reiner’s. He takes another gulp of coffee.

“Well, anyway, I think maybe I'm the reason Armin's missing a leg. There was something there from me. When I woke up I felt raw as a newborn baby. Like my lungs never breathed before. I think they rebuilt me from scratch. Do you think I should write to Armin and see what he remembers? I'll thank him too."

"Why not? Ask how Annie's doing. I haven’t heard from her since the Rumbling.”

“Oh…so she never came to visit me?”

Reiner bites his lip. “She didn’t, B, I think it was just hard for her to see you like that. But she saw you right when you came back—she was there. When they found you we both completely lost it and turned into feral dogs, standing over you and snarling at anyone else who tried to come close.”

Bertolt laughs, but it comes out a little bitter.

“Hey.” Reiner squeezes his hand. “She loves us. You know that. She’s just bad at things.”

“Yeah.” Bertolt mutters, feeling that old, familiar Annie-induced pang of rejection. But that’s Annie for you. At least some things haven’t changed.

***

Bertolt writes a letter to Armin, trying to be concise about his idea and asking a few questions about what he remembers. Two weeks later, he receives a response with an ominously high page count.

"Dear Bertolt,

It's really wonderful that you're back, and that you and Reiner are reunited. It's a miracle, and we need miracles, especially in times like these, so that we remember that there's hope for all humanity."

Bertolt rolls his eyes.

"It means a lot that you wrote to thank me for exchanging my leg for your life, but you don't owe me any thanks. We as human beings MUST be able to sacrifice when things are really on the line. It's only through that kind of thi-"

"You're welcome, Bertolt." See? Easy.

"I do remember what happened in the Paths. I didn't reach out to you because I didn't want you to feel like you owed me anything, and because I thought you might need time to come to terms with everything. This new world has been a big adjustment for us all. I've also been very busy with diplomatic work, trying to bring people together in support of global peace, and towards freeing the Eldian people from the bounds of prejudice that, for reasons both understandable and unfair, have spread throughout the world since the Rumbling. We have to bring everyone to the table, so that we can show them all that Eldians can do great things as part of the global—"

Bertolt skips pages until he finds the place where Armin's manifesto circles back around to the topic at hand.

"-meaning that there's a lot of work ahead of all of us. But I know that we CAN do it, we MUST do it, and we WILL do it, together!

All to say, I was eaten by a titan and I woke up in the Paths, and you were standing in front of me crying, and I'm sorry to say I never found out what you wanted because we had to focus on the urgent work of getting everyone to understand why you needed to take control of your titans. I found Zeke in the sands, and he and I worked together to wake all the shifters up, hoping that you'd fight on our side. It took some convincing, but in the end everyone saw that it was the right thing, and you heroically stood by us, and played an important part in our victory."

Something about Armin's framing of this narrative doesn't sit quite right with Bertolt, but he lets it go.

"I told you how sorry I was that I'd taken so much from you, how terrible I felt and how badly I wished I could make up to you, and I think you understood. But now the titans are gone, and you're alive, so I guess none of it matters anymore. We can move on from these old, bad memories."

Armin... you ate me alive... and I died. I don't know if that's a memory you move on from.

"So I was pulled back to the Paths right after I'd left, and it turned out that there was something I could give you, and I was happy to do it, because Annie and I had started to really connect on a deeper level, and it was awful to think I'd be taking yet another precious thing that had been so dear to you."

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

"If I was going to be with Annie, especially after you helped us save her, then giving you a part of me was nothing. I realize now that your cells were still in me, and right before the Paths were gone, the Founder Ymir asked me for my leg, which she removed painlessly. I gave it gladly, one limb is a sacrifice well worth making for a friend who I'd injured so badly, through no will of my own."

I mean, I am really grateful, but to be fair I not-painlessly gave four limbs (and also my life) so that you could have lunch (and live).

"I believe they harvested what was left of you from it, and that was how you were able to manifest in the physical world. I've worked out some theories regarding cellular repli-"

Ok. So he'd been right. That was exactly what he'd said in his own letter. That was a lot of words just to get to this one sentence. He skips a few more paragraphs.

" Bertolt—even if you don’t believe me right now, I want you to know that everyone is glad that you’re here. I know we’ll all find our way back together again soon.

All my best to you and Reiner.

- Armin

P.S.  Annie says hello."

…ok.

Chapter Text

One night, out of nowhere, after weeks of being sort of okay with the idea of his death, Bertolt wakes up screaming. Not that choked, muffled, waking-up-from-a-dream screaming. Screaming. Reiner has him in his arms by the third scream.

"Oh my god. Bertolt. Hey."

Bertolt realizes he's awake and almost passes out again from pure relief.

"Just a bad dream. Agh. Was I yelling? I was yelling in the dream. Sorry."

"Yeah you were. What was it?"

Bertolt buries himself against Reiner's body. "What else. I was back there… I can’t even… it sucked. I can't believe that happened. It was so, so fucking awful.” He shudders. “I just need to breathe."

He breathes. It doesn't help. At all.

Teeth and arms and legs, and all of their faces. He worries that he's going to vomit but doesn’t, and accepts that he's going to have a massive meltdown instead.

“I just didn't think it would be like that. It was the worst thing in my entire life. It wasn't peaceful."

“I know. I’m so sorry."

"I got knocked out. I woke up looking at the sky and didn’t know what was going on. I was just…confused. But then I saw it and I knew that I was stuck on a roof and couldn't run or fight. I was just a screaming, limbless, helpless torso writhing there while it came for me, and it kept getting closer and closer, and-”

The hand, wrapped around him. The split second of relief, seeing familiar faces across the street.

"They were all on a roof watching. I saw them and called to them, like Marco cried for us. Then I realized of course they wouldn't help. They all stood there staring at me, and watched me die and nobody said anything to me."

He feels hurt thinking about it, as if he has any right.

“I wasn’t a person to them. Armin was a person. To this day I don't think any of them think they murdered me. I don't think they think of me at all. I was just a bag of screaming medicine to keep Armin alive. I'm sure they celebrated and cried with happiness when he lived, and forgot all about me dying the second it happened. Because I wasn't a person, and Armin was."

Bertolt is crying, but he feels justified. Dying horribly is a big deal.

"I'm a hypocrite but... we knew Marco was a person and that we'd murdered him. It drove us all insane, especially you. They were right. I know. They had a right to kill me. I deserved it. But it's one thing to get killed because you're a murderer. It's another to die because you're not a person and they just need you to die so they can get something else done. They probably left whatever was left of me on the roof to rot. Doubt anyone made me a grave. Even Armin. Did they? Do you know? I guess Armin is my grave."

Reiner puts his lips against Bertolt’s neck, and holds him tighter. No grave, then. Bertolt whimpers.

”I felt every part of it, Reiner. Beginning to end. It cracked my ribs when it picked me up. Its teeth coming down on my skull. You have no idea. Everything broke and ripped. My eyes… I knew my legs and arms weren't there but I was still trying to use them. I couldn't accept it, I was still hoping right up to the end. I was screaming for you and Annie. I think I died saying your name. There was this huge unbelievable white-hot wave of pain. It's horrible to think about but it was probably when Armin crushed me. Then it was over."

He sighs and wipes his face, sniffling weakly against Reiner’s chest. He feels a little better, having gotten it out. Like throwing up poison.

"But it didn't last long at all, and afterwards I think everything was fine. Everything was ok right after."

Reiner is shaking underneath him.

“Shit. Hey…I'm sorry. I’m okay. I made it."

"No you didn't."

Reiner's voice is a clenched fist.

"You didn't make it. You died. In pain, scared, alone, and helpless and hurt, being broken apart with my name in your mouth. It's worse than I imagined. It's the worst thing."

He sounds wrong. Bertolt looks. Reiner is pale, eyes fixed straight ahead. He makes an awful, strained fear sound. He's trying to talk with no air.

"I didn't stop the worst thing in the world from happening to you. I was supposed to protect you. It's what I'm for, and I failed you. The worst way I could have failed you. I can't believe I didn't save you. I was your last word? I didn't deserve to be your last word. You shouldn't have had a last word because you should still be here. B I'm so sorry."

"What? What are you talking about? I’m here.” Bertolt sits up, really worried. “Stop."

"I hurt you. And then you saved me. But I didn't save you. You died with your heart broken. I did that. I didn't let you say goodbye. I didn't touch you. Never will again. You thought I didn't love you. I didn't say I love you. You wanted me to kiss you and I didn't. Your voice on the wall was so...I couldn't look at you. I threw Krista in your face fuck Krista fuck Annie. How could I? I’m so stupid. I let the worst thing in the world happen to you while your heart was broken."

It’s a strange thing to comfort somebody else about your own brutal demise, but listening to Reiner right now, Bertolt feels like maybe being left behind is worse. You die once, then it's over. You get left behind and you watch them die, every day, forever. But Reiner’s skin is so cold under his hand.

“I don't know where you are. There's nothing. Not even to bury. They didn't keep...what happened to you? On the ground in Shiganshina. On the roof. Crushed. What did you look like? I can see you. You're so beautiful and it tore you apart. Where're the pieces of you, B? Scattered. Lost. I don't have any part of you. Gone."

Bertolt looks frantically around the room for…what? Water? There’s nothing, and he’s afraid to leave him alone in the bed.

“Reiner. Please. Can you hear me right now?”

Shaking him is like trying to shake a statue. He continues his toneless recitation to an invisible spot in the distance.

"What if you're nowhere? What if there's nothing? Then I'll never see you til the universe ends, and even after. I sent you to the end of the universe with your heart broken. I can’t fix it. Because now you're nothing, forever. I wish I'd died. I wish I was nothing instead of you. I wish I was nothing with you."

“You know that’s not true! I told you, I was in the Paths, everything was okay!”

“I made them tell me everything. Hope it hurt to remember. Good. Fuck them. They stood there watching. All of them. Not one of them asked if it was right. I should kill Armin. Fuck Armin for stealing your life. He should give it back. If I cut him in half maybe you're inside. Who gave them the right to choose his life over yours. Fuck his life. How dare they. I hate them for it. I cried and confessed and groveled about Marco. I let Jean beat my face in. When did they cry to me about you? I should beat their faces in. Evil fuckers. Liars. They didn't tell me you cried for me. They knew I'd kill them. I'll kill them myself for watching the worst thing in the world happen to you. I'll cut out their eyes for watching. I wasn't there to kill them. I wasn't there to protect you by killing them."

Reiner makes another one of those horrible noises.

"Fuck them. Fuck me."

He gets out of bed. Bertolt figures it out instantly.

"NO." He runs and throws himself between Reiner and the closet with his arms wide. "Back off!! Fuck off!!"

Reiner keeps coming, slow and inexorable, not seeing or hearing him.

Bertolt’s fist collides with the center of his face. 

He doesn't fall backwards, but he stops. He blinks. Bertolt is there, right in front of him, arms wide across the closet, sobbing.

Reiner throws his hands over his face like a scared child, looking through his fingers.

"Oh."

His back thuds against the wall and he slides to floor. Bertolt sinks down next to him.

"Reiner? Can you hear me now?"

Reiner nods. He reaches out to pull Bertolt in.

"Sorry."

"It's okay. God. You scared me. What can I do?"

"I don't know."

"Can we go sit in the shower and get warm? Will you come with me?"

"Ok."

Bertolt stays between Reiner and the closet all the way to the shower. He gets the water warm. They don't undress. They sit huddled together in their shorts against the shower wall.

Bertolt slides between Reiners legs and presses himself sideways against Reiner’s chest, and Reiner folds up around him like a cocoon.

"I'm sorry, B. I'm still not right."

"Don't be sorry. I love you."

"You were gone for so long and you were never coming back."

"I know, but I did come back."

"Sorry."

"Don't be, just be here with me. I need you too."

They sit under the water until Reiner stops shaking. Then they lie down in bed with warm skin and damp hair, and Bertolt protects Reiner in the curve of his body, whispering "I love you" in his ear. He stays up all night with his eyes on the closet just in case.

Chapter Text

In the morning Bertolt takes the shotgun out of the closet, and gathers the bullets from the bedside table. He puts them in the canvas bag that his books had come in, and throws everything into the harbor.

Reiner wears that sunken look the whole next day like a hangover. He isn't right. He's still not himself. He's vacant and grey and says nothing. Bertolt is terrified by it. He runs down to the market and picks up a few things, and runs all the way back. He warms up some soup and gives it to Reiner in the One Bowl. Reiner stares at it blankly. Bertolt eats a spoonful of the soup himself and then lifts a spoonful to Reiner, who takes it. They go back and forth.

Bertolt puts his hand on Reiner’s, who laces his fingers through. He looks back at Bertolt and says, "Getting there."

***

The next morning Reiner is more or less back to himself, but a little bit tired and sad, and not very talkative. He looks for touch and Bertolt stays as close as possible so that he can give it to him, hovering around him while he's getting ready to leave for work.

For the rest of the day Bertolt waits anxiously by the window with his tea, failing to read his book, until he finally sees Reiner coming up the block. When he walks in Bertolt runs up to him and kisses him like he's been away for weeks. Reiner puts his hands on his waist and laughs at him, because he's got soup on the stove and he's running up to kiss him like a lonely housewife whose husband has been on a business trip. Bertolt punches him on the arm hard-ish and asks if that's a housewifely thing to do. Reiner says he's not one to judge people's personal lives. Who punches who for fun behind closed doors is nobody's business.

Bertolt isn't sure whether they'll talk about what happened, or how to bring it up, or if he should bring it up—but Reiner's always full of surprises.

The next morning is grey and heavy, with the kind of clotted sky that makes the world feel like the inside of a shoebox. It wants to rain, but it keeps not raining, and there’s not enough breeze to tease the damp congestion out of the air. Even the pigeons on the windowsill seem frustrated and restless. Reiner doesn’t have to work, and he pops down to the newsstand to pick up a paper so they can mock the pie-faced couples in the wedding announcement section while they share coffee. They sit tucked together in a corner, Bertolt leaning against Reiner's chest, nestled between his legs, which is always nice because Reiner can never keep his hands off him, and Bertolt gets to enjoy the feeling of being stroked all up and down his body without it being a precursor to getting wrecked.

"B?"

"Mhm?"

"Can I talk to you about the other day?"

Bertolt snuggles himself in closer, surprised and relieved.

"Yeah of course."

"I'm sorry. That must've been really frightening."

"I was more scared for you than for me."

“So. You saved my life again."

Bertolt hadn't really thought about it that way.

"You're the strongest. I don’t know how you do it. You let things drag their claws down you. Even your own death. Looking straight at every horrific piece of it. You're so much stronger than me."

“You don’t have t-“

“Listen. I know that you know all about what's wrong with me. It’s still the same. I force thoughts I can't handle out of my head and they get put in a box for another me to deal with. I'm still the one doing or saying things, but I can only see the world through whatever box that version of me is in charge of. Like being a Soldier and being a Warrior, looking at the same thing, but seeing different things, ignoring different things. It's hard to explain."

Yeah. Bertolt’s Paradis nightmare. Hard to forget.

“But you died saying my name?" Reiner stops like he’s been stabbed in the throat. He shudders and clings onto Bertolt like a life raft. “There’s no box big enough. Where am I supposed to put that? Everything busted open at the same time and there were four years of all the darkest thoughts about what happened to you filling my brain too full all at once, so shooting myself seemed like the only thing to do. Now, when I have you back. But I wasn't in the room with you."

"I know."

“I hate that you had to fight me away from the closet. When you're the one who died. And me being selfish, leaving you all alone here to deal with me blowing my brains out."

The thought puts a hole in Bertolt's stomach. He doesn’t want to imagine it, but it plays out in his mind anyway. The sound. Blood down the wall. Reiner gone, forever. Bertolt alone, forever, knowing that his last moments had been nothing but awful.

Reiner lived like that for four years. So no wonder.

"I made your life so miserable. It's fucked and it's not fair. I thought about it all night. I tried unboxing thoughts. Bertolt, I've done and seen some unbelievable, horrific shit. Oh my god. Memories that are so fucking bad. It's like staring at the sun."

Reiner, the morning after, gray and distant, sitting in his own mind, taking nightmares out of boxes and staring them down.

“But I’ll do it. I’m telling you so you won't be scared if I’m not right. We'll ditch the gun so you don't worry about it, and if you ever need to get out of here for a while I'll find you somewhere to be."

"I threw the gun in the harbor yesterday."

"Oh. Okay. Thank you."

"Is that why you had it?"

"It's not why I got it, but that's what it ended up being."

“So why did you get it?"

"It's a whole thing."

"Tell."

Reiner sighs.

"I got it to kill Zeke. When they told me you...I tried to kill him with my bare hands. They had to pull me off his throat. That smug, cowardly fuck. I would've ripped it out with my teeth. Would've saved everyone a lot of trouble if I did. Might've saved Marley."

Bertolt nods. Technically, if Zeke hadn’t helped cause the Rumbling, Bertolt wouldn’t have come back. But those are what-ifs. Not worth thinking about.

"So I bought it off someone. Didn’t want to waste my shot so I waited. Had to be perfect, since he was a shifter. But there was this point... I didn’t care anymore. You were gone, so nothing mattered. I killed people and went to war when they wanted, and generally just gave no fucks about anything. I was thinking about you every second I wasn't killing someone, but sort of disconnected."

He absently runs his fingers up and down Bertolt’s arm.

"Know what's fucked? While I was frozen, shooting myself never occurred to me. Like, you have to care, to shoot yourself. Otherwise why bother."

“That’s messed up. But it makes sense."

“Yeah. Anyway, then I got stuck with the kids who were gonna replace us as Warriors, training and— I don't know, they liked me. The four of them looked exactly like us. I wanted to spoil them, like let them be kids, 'cause we didn't really get to. I swear half my salary went to ice cream and comic books. I worried about them all the time. So that meant I cared about things again, and I felt like me again, but that meant I was unfrozen, remembering everything and missing you so much I couldn't breathe. So I decided I'd shoot myself and just kind of sat around all the time with the gun in my mouth waiting for some version of me pull the trigger."

“Well, I'm glad you didn't pull the trigger. I would've gone through all the trouble to come back from the dead just to find out you weren't here, and that would've been extremely annoying."

Reiner buries his face in Bertolt's shoulder.

"I did pull it.”

Bertolt stares at the top of Reiner’s head. “Shut up."

“Yeah. I fucked it up somehow and woke up on the floor with my head steaming and my entire jaw hanging off. Couldn't even die for you properly."

“I never asked you to die for me.”

“I know. I kept doing everything all wrong. I couldn’t live with it. I’m just so sorry.”

Bertolt groans wearily and gives Reiner a gentle bonk on the head with his fist. 

"I don't wanna do this anymore. You're stupid and you loved me, and you weren't all there. It wasn't why I died. I died because Armin got the better of me, again, and Eren cut me out. I screwed up on my own."

"If you hadn't come to save me you would've exploded earlier and wiped all of them out."

"And? Guess what, I'm glad I saved you. You did everything to make me NOT do it.  What else could you have done about it?"

"I could've not made the last months of your life miserable."

"Ok yes good point agreed. Want me to tell you you're stupid again?"

"Yes."

"You're stupid. Make it up to me."

"If we both live for a billion fucking years I will never feel like I've made it up to you."

Bertolt smiles. "I promise to think of ways to take advantage.”

Chapter Text

One of the books Reiner brings home from a donations bin at the refugee center is full of puzzles that are pretty complicated. You have to find certain letters in a big jumbled block and then make as many words as you can with those letters until you figure out the phrase that the question at the top of the page is telling you to look for. There's more to it, but that's the gist.

Bertolt sits on the sofa for a while trying to do one with his mind, but eventually accepts that he isn't a genius.

"Hey, do you have a paper and pencil?"

"Hm? Sure." Reiner gets up from the table and walks over to his overcoat, hanging on a hook by the door. He takes a little notebook and a worn-down pencil stub out of its breast pocket and considerately sharpens the pencil with his pocket knife before flinging it at Bertolt like a dart. Bertolt catches it before he gets poked and wonders if some of his muscle memory is coming back.

"Dick." He intercepts the notepad too as it comes flying at his face, feeling depressingly proud of this double display of athletic prowess. "Thanks."

Bertolt flips through to find blank page and immediately loses interest in the puzzle.

"You did these?"

"Yeah."

"When?"

"There's no war. Half my day is sitting around waiting for someone to tell me to move a crate full of winter coats from one end of the room to another."

The book is filled with little doodles of whatever happened to be near Reiner while he had time to waste.

A crumpled sweater, with all the ribbing, and the part where the wool sort of braids, faithfully represented in pencil. You know exactly what sweater it is, the weight and feel of it, from this little rat scratch of a drawing.

A stack of canned food, labels turned different ways. You can tell that there must have been a window or open door behind Reiner, because there's a very specific stripe of light down the side of each can where the metal isn't covered by paper.

The leg of a cot, with some of the canvas surface along the top and a hand hanging down, soft and limp in a way that tells you that the person who owns the hand is asleep.

It leaves Bertolt breathless.

”Do you know that these are beautiful?"

"Hah. Thanks. I don't really go back and look at them. You can have it."

Bertolt gets up off the couch and comes over to the table where Reiner's sitting in the One Chair, eating shelled peanuts out of a bag and looking at a magazine about unaffordable automobiles. For once not caring about looking gigantic and ridiculous, Bertolt sits sideways on Reiner's lap so they can look at the drawings together. Reiner, surprised, puts his arms around his waist and leans his head against him.

"Where was this one?"

A small, scruffy dog, tied by its leash to a lamppost, anxiously examining passersby to see if any are its master, returning from who knows what peril.

"At the park by the distribution center."

There are lots of sketches of different food stalls, which Reiner must have drawn sitting on a bench after eating whatever garbage snack food he'd bought from them for lunch. Striped awnings or rows of drinks in bottles. A vendor looking down so you can't see his eyes under the brim of his hat, only his mustache. Everything.

Bertolt doesn't wax poetic.

"I love them."

"I have a lot more you can have. There are a bunch sitting around. When they're full sometimes I toss them but I-"

"Where are they? Never toss one again. If you ever toss one again I'll leave you and marry Levi."

"Closet? In an apple box with some other stuff."

Bertolt gets up and takes a quick detour to put water in the One Pot to boil for tea. He goes to the closet and finds the apple box, full of different kinds of little notebooks and lots of pencil stubs. Rubber bands. Other loose things.

He stacks up some of the notepads and lays them out on the table on top of Reiner’s magazine. He finishes making a mug of tea and brings it back for them to share.

It's really amazing. The whole world through Reiner's eyes, broken up into small things. A pair of pigeons, the male all puffed up and insufferable, the female just trying to get away without causing a scene. A flat automobile tire with someone's defeated legs leaning against the door beside it. People, mostly from the side or back, probably because Reiner didn't want anyone to notice he was doodling them. An abandoned umbrella hanging by its handle from a stairway railing. A boat made from a folded piece of paper, left floating in a fountain. They go through the notebooks and Bertolt asks where things were drawn and what Reiner was doing when he drew them.

"Oh!"

A long slim hand, bent backwards at the wrist, the hint of a vein under the skin, an unmistakable curve to the fingers.

"That's me."

"...yeah."

”But, it's an old drawing," says Bertolt, looking at the sketches on the facing page. "That's one of the mooring posts by the harbor back home. With the L on the top. I'd recognize it anywhere." He flips back a few pages. "That's the cobbler's on the corner where you turn off into the diamond district, with the wingtip painted on the window." His heart drops, thinking about the wingtip painted on the window, remembering that it's gone, nothing but dust in a titan's footprint. Probably the cobbler too.

He flips back to the portrait of his hand.

"When did you draw this?"

Reiner doesn't say anything. Bertolt knows why.

The notebook is full of things that disappeared forever while Bertolt wasn't looking. Things that he misses, and that he’ll never see again. Tucked between all of those things is his portrait, sketched from memory, when Reiner thought he was never coming back.

He puts the book down and pulls one of Reiner's hands away from his waist. He holds it up and puts his own hand inside it, face up, bent gently back, just like the drawing.

They share their tea, each feeling a certain way.

Chapter Text

The days follow a rhythm. Coffee and toast for breakfast, with eggs fried in the One Pot if they're feeling lavish. Reiner departs to do his various military things and Bertolt sees him off, filled with envy because he's not all the way better yet and can't sign on to do the same. Reiner gets his lunch from who knows where. Bertolt throws together a perfunctory dinner from things Reiner's pocketed from shelter distribution, or whatever's cheap at the store. They listen to music, talk about books, walk around the city. It’s nice. It's simple. It's a regular life, even though the world almost ended.

Reiner doesn't make a lot of money, and Bertolt makes none, and there's something really irritating about money still mattering this much in an almost-ended world. People don’t learn.

Anyway, the writing's on the wall. Bertolt needs to get strong, so that he can do the kind of work he's most qualified for, and then they'll double their money, and maybe they'll be able to buy a second chair.

So he starts doing the kinds of things he'd done as a pocket-sized Warrior back in Marley, since if he's being honest, he really is starting from scratch.

The thing that's really frustrating is having very little muscle memory. THAT'S a huge loss. That's a lifetime of practice down the drain. That's knowing how to land if you fall from high up, knowing how to shoot at something that's moving, having your body throw a punch before your brain knows you need to. He doesn't know if he'll ever get it back.

At the same time, he's back from the dead, so it feels tacky to complain.

He starts with calisthenics. When Reiner comes home he's doing pushups. Struggling.

"Watcha doing B?" asks Reiner, hanging up his coat and unlacing his boots.

"Getting massive. I wanna be strong again."

"You're plenty strong. I saw you drag the sofa across the room when you were redecorating."

Redecorating. How much can you redecorate when the sofa's the only thing in the room? Well, no, that's not true. There's also the giant pile of books stacked vertically against the wall. Which Bertolt had dragged the sofa over to, so that he'd only have to move one thing instead of many.

"Reiner, five years ago I would've lifted it over my head if I needed to put it somewhere. And for me it's only a few months ago. It's like I woke up one day to find out a witch turned me into a daffodil overnight."

Reiner looks a little pouty.

"Reiner. What."

"...nothing..."

"REINER. WHAT."

"No... I support you..." says Reiner, not looking supportive.

Bertolt glares wordlessly. Reiner looks like a man deciding whether or not to bend to the pressure of his interrogators and confess all, not knowing if he'll save or condemn himself. But he's a gambler. He puts his hands around Bertolt's waist.

"You're just really sweet like this. I like it."

Bertolt hovers helplessly between flattered and insulted. Reiner maps escape routes just in case things go south.

"Sweet." Bertolt goes for neutral. It's ominous.

"You're gorgeous either way!! And smart!! I love you!!"

"Reiner. What possible use is it for me to be-"

"Well like for instance."

Reiner seizes Bertolt before he can react and picks him up like a princess. Like he weighs nothing. It looks ridiculous. Bertolt may not be in peak condition but he's still ten feet tall. Nevertheless, Reiner seems delighted with himself.

"Put me down, asshole. You could always do this. You could deadlift me when I was at my most gloriously gigantic."

"I know. But now it's even easier. And you're taller, so it's only fair if I'm bigger and stronger. You might lose all respect for me and stop letting me drag you around."

"I let you drag me around back then too! Put me down!"

"Okay..."

Reiner puts him down. Next to the wall. And then grabs his wrists. Bertolt realizes what's happening a split second before he gets pinned with his arms bent by his sides. He curses his loss of muscle memory. Once, he’d have snapped Reiner’s arms without trying. Now he can’t move at all. Back then he would've at least stood a chance.

"Lemme go."

"Try'n make me." Reiner smacks an insulting little kiss on his nose.

"I have shit to do." He puts up a fight, knowing that he has absolutely nothing to do, and that fighting is futile. He might as well be Connie right now. He shudders at the image this thought conjures in his mind.

"Hehehehehehehe."

"I swear to God Reiner when I'm strong again I'll throw you through this very wall twice a day for the rest of our lives for this."

"Okay, but until then." says Reiner, pressing himself against Bertolt, flattening him like a bug. Bertolt tries to throw a kick, but Reiner still has his muscle memory and blocks, exploiting the opportunity spread him a little wider by hooking his leg. Desperate, Bertolt tries to negotiate.

"I won't be stronger than you! I promise! You'll still be able to—"

Reiner's not listening because he doesn't have to. He's just putting his mouth all over Bertolt's neck, and biting him through his shirt.

"Reineerrrrr..."

"Mmm. I like when you say my name like that. Do it again. Say please. Say it in my ear." Reiner whispers happily, delivering the terms of a one-sided treaty.

Bertolt casts around for other ideas. He's at a loss. Reiner starts grinding against him. He grips Bertolt's wrists, pulls his arms a little higher—just above his head—and reattaches them to the wall, being wonderfully considerate about not hurting the backs of his hands.

Goddammit.

Bertolt's squashed against the wall, and now he's hard, and Reiner knows it. He glowers hatefully and groans in resignation.

"Do that again too.” Reiner presses his thigh firmly between Bertolt's legs, being a gloating asshole.

“C'mon," says Bertolt, resorting to pleading and starting to gyrate against the thigh, entirely against his own volition

"C'mon what?"

Reiner blows into Bertolt's ear. A shiver runs all the way down through the center of his body and has the audacity to land in his dick. He moans.

"...I don't even know anymore."

"I win."

Bertolt is so annoyed at the injustice of it all that he starts struggling again. "This is bullshit. It's not fair. I started at a disadvantage. I didn't even know we were playing."

Reiner bites a nipple, Bertolt jerks. "Too bad. What's my award for my victory."

"You're already getting it! You got everything you wanted! From the beginning!"

"No but now that I've won. It has to be different."

"Who says?? You're just making up rules! What do you want?"

Reiner mulls over his options.

"Are you gonna be good if I let your hands go?"

"No!"

Reiner laughs.

"Ok." He smacks a kiss onto his nose again, lets go, walks away, and throws himself onto the sofa, picking up a book that's there and being terribly interested in it. Losing Bertolt's page.

Bertolt is flattened against the wall, still holding his own arms up in shock, hard, riled, and internally conflicted. He thinks frantically. He's debilitated with arousal through no fault of his own, but if he asks Reiner to come back then Reiner wins twice. If Reiner wins twice he's going to demand God-knows-what, and that's gonna be like five different battles in a row, plus it's annoying. He certainly can't debase himself by going over and plonking down on Reiner's lap, that's total defeat. If he walks away from the whole thing he keeps his honor, but dies of sexual frustration, especially since messing with himself will be another win for Reiner and it's not like Reiner's not gonna know what he's doing if he goes to take a shower. Could he endure? What if h-

"Oh! B, what's wrong? You ok? Do you need me to come back?" Reiner looks up from his book, feigning surprise when he sees Bertolt still standing there.

"SHUT UP I'm still thinking! And don't act all nonchalant. You're hard, I'd be able to see it from the fucking moon. Suffer."

"Ok. But keep your arms up while you decide. If you drop them then I won't come back no matter what."

Great. Now he's aroused by the idea of keeping his arms up against the wall just because Reiner said so. When did he become this? And why? He used to have dignity, didn't he, long ago? He was a soldier once. He blames dying.

Through gritted teeth, flushed and enraged at the utter unfairness, and at Reiner's performative indifference, and at the fact that he'll have to re-find his page in the book he'd been reading, he mutters "Fine. Come back."

"That's how you ask? Rude."

"REINER."

"What? I'm not the one being rude. That's how you treat your loving companion? Demanding things? Be nicer to me."

"YOU DEMAND THINGS ALL THE TIME. YOU STARTED THIS BY DEMANDING THINGS. YOU'RE DEMANDING SOMETHING RIGHT NOW."

"Yeah but that's me."

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" If Bertolt was still the Colossal Titan, the entire city would have just been reduced to a pile of smoking rubble. Reiner laughs at him and comes back.

"Ok, yeesh. You gonna keep your arms up?"

"Yes."

"No matter what?"

Bertolt has to consider this question. A blanket agreement is a risk.

"B?" says Reiner taking a step back.

"FINE. YES I'll keep my fucking arms up, just fucking touch me."

“Haha, you're all pink and mad." Reiner flattens him again while Bertolt quivers with rage. He puts his teeth around Reiner's shoulder, not really biting in case that counts as not being good, and struggles not to tear out a chunk.

"Yeah, bite me."

Bertolt bites hard and feels good when he hears a gasp, but realizes that all he's doing is giving Reiner what he asked for, again. He turns his face to the side while Reiner kisses his neck.

"It's not fair, you've had more years than me to get horrible."

"Life can be hard like that, when you grow up you'll understand," says Reiner sagely, unbuttoning Bertolt's pants. He muffles the curse that comes out of Bertolt with a kiss, and slides his hand under his waistband.

The sharp angry curse turns into a long moaning curse as Bertolt finally feels Reiner wrap his hand around his cock.

He starts stroking. Bertolt almost falls off the wall. His arms are starting to burn.

"Can you hold this?" Reiner pulls the bottom of Bertolt's shirt up over his chest and puts it between his teeth. He kisses his chest and belly.

Bertolt makes noise through his mouthful of shirt and shuts his eyes.

"Feel good?" Bertolt answers by shivering and moaning again and moving against Reiner's hand.

"Kay hang tight. Don't move." Reiner tussles his hair and leaves. Bertolt gasps in disbelief.

Reiner comes back into the room opening one of his bottles. He looks up and stops dead, almost dropping it. His eyes get huge.

“B. You look so incredible right now. Fuck. I can't believe what I'm looking at." There's no sarcasm or mockery in his voice. Reiner looks like he's about to fall to his knees.

Bertolt is glaring at him under his mussed up hair, bright pink across his nose and cheeks, love-bite bruises on his neck, still flat against the wall with his arms up and his legs apart, holding his shirt up by his teeth, exposed from chest to cock, hanging out above his open pants and glistening at the tip. He's shaking all over from frustration, fury, and the effort of holding up his arms.

Reiner stares.

"RIIMERRRPH!!!!!!" Bertolt cries desperately through his shirt.

Reiner snaps out of it, but still looks like he's having a stroke. He pulls the shirt out of Bertolt's mouth for a sloppy, hungry kiss, and then stuffs it back in.

Bertolt is dying to put his arms down. Why he isn't just putting them down, since he's free to do so? Well if he does, isn't that yet another win for Reiner? Or does Reiner win if he gets him to keep them up until he says otherwise? How can he—

He comes upon the solution. It's a terrible one. It's all that's left. He prepares himself.

Reiner squats down and teases with his mouth, just enough to draw out some good noises. He pours oil into his hand and rubs it all over Bertolt, including his stomach just for aesthetic. He puts the bottle in his pocket, steps back to look at his art project, sighs wistfully, and comes back for another kiss, letting the shirt drop. Bertolt, deprived of dignity, whimpers into his mouth and shuts his eyes, mind empty of everything except his straining arms and throbbing dick.

Then, mercifully, the giant fist wraps around him again. Bertolt is overwhelmed with gratitude even thought this is all Reiner's fault to begin with. His legs quiver. 

Reiner slides his own cock into his fist, tight against Bertolt's. He thrusts and talks into his ear "You just almost killed me. I honest to god just almost passed out. What the fuck. You have no idea. If I had a camera I'd take a picture just so you could see. I'd distribute copies for the public good." Bertolt, momentarily forgetting that he's mad and his arms are about to fall off, looks for Reiner's mouth to connect their bodies at both ends. He thrusts back as much as he can from his compromised position.

Reiner alternates between using two hands, one for each of them, and one hand so that their shafts slide and rub against each other and he can run his free hand all over Bertolt's greased-up stomach and around to his ass.

Bertolt is hurtling towards the edge. He bites down hard on Reiner's shoulder again and holds on. Reiner yelps and then laughs, thrusting harder and letting Bertolt leave tooth-shaped welts.

"I'm gonna come soon B. Want me to stop?"

Bertolt's eyes snap open, if Reiner stops he'll summon the strength to kill him, even with his arms dead by his side. There's only so much a person can endure before they lose their mind and commit murderous acts.

"Don't...fucking...stop..."

"You sure? Maybe I'll stop for a while, I don't wanna rush you."

"REINER I'LL FU-" and right in the middle of his expletive Reiner gives him a long, hard stroke and presses his fingers into the space right behind his balls and Bertolt comes, back arching up off the the wall, head back, yelling because he already was. Spasms send cum shooting up all over him. Plenty hits Reiner.

Reiner says “Mmm" into his ear. He keeps grinding against Bertolt all the way through the aftershocks, which quickly becomes its own kind of torture. He groans. His thrusts get fast and aggressive, and he makes a whole bunch of growly sounds and shudders, finishing into his fist between their stomachs. Everything splatters and drips. They're a sticky oily mess, it's everywhere. He crushes Bertolt into the wall again and vibrates against him, winding down, while he kisses his chest and shoulders through a grin, smug as a bug in a fucking rug. A bug who isn't in charge of the laundry.

"You still mad?"

"Guhhhh..." says Bertolt.

"Can't believe you kept your arms up the whole time. I was waiting for you to break so I could mess with you." He goes to put his hand behind Bertolt's head, politely stops when he remembers it's covered in oil and cum, and presses his tongue past Bertolt’s lips. Bertolt, dying, kisses back, sort of.

"Ungh..."

Reiner pulls back out of the kiss, gives him a last nuzzle, and turns to fix his pants. He walks over to the bathroom.

"Do your arms hurt?"

"Mhm..."

Reiner comes back into the room with a towel and stops in the doorway.

"Uh... you can take them down."

"..."

Reiner sounds a little worried. "Hey. Put your arms down. Why're you keeping them up?"

Bertolt opens his eyes long enough to glare and then shuts them again. His arms are on fire. The fire has spread through his back and chest muscles.

"Are you ok?? Hey what's wrong? B, drop your arms!"

Bertolt does not drop his arms.

"Hey, seriously, take em down."

Bertolt continues to ignore him.

"What the fuck? BERTOLT. Put your arms down!" Reiner rushes across the room.

Ignore ignore ignore ignore ignore.

Reiner drops the towel and peels Bertolt's wrists off the wall and onto his shoulders. Bertolt groans and topples against him. He lets Reiner grab both thighs and wraps his legs around him but does nothing whatsoever to support his own weight while Reiner carries him into the bedroom and heaves him onto the bed. He bounces twice and lies like a log. Reiner sits against the pillows and drags Bertolt up, resting his head in his lap and massaging his arms and shoulders, looking worried.

"Are you okay?? Are you crazy? Why didn't you put your arms down?"

Bertolt opens his eyes and smirks into Reiner's anxious, upside-down face. 

"I win."

Joke's on Reiner. Bertolt's arms feel stronger already.

Chapter Text

“What the fuuuuuck,” moans Bertolt, breakfast forgotten, as he stares in horror at yesterday morning’s paper.

“C’mon. It’s not that bad.” Reiner tries to sound earnest, gripping the back of Bertolt’s chair and shaking with the effort of containing his laughter. Bertolt flings a fist backwards over his head with intent to harm, but Reiner dodges.

“It is that bad.”

Underneath large block letters declaring “THE MIRACLES OF MARLEY: In the Fog of War, Love’s Flame Prevails!” is a black-and-white photo of a grinning, broad-shouldered man in a military trenchcoat, holding a basket of flowers and wrapped gifts in one arm. Delicately clinging to the soldier’s other arm is a fragile, slender wisp of a thing (if wisps of a thing can be almost six foot three), doe-eyed under dark lashes and very obviously on the verge of a dead faint, with one hand pressed to his forehead. Biting his fucking lip.

“I think you look great.”

“You look like a war hero and I look like a titan-sized, 15-year-old virgin you abducted from a nunnery.”

“Not very heroic of me. But to be fair, you were a virgin.” Bertolt throws another punch sideways, but Reiner anticipates and deflects. Bertolt uses the distraction to swing a kick at Reiner’s shin, finally landing a blow.

He swells with pride over his combat victory, but returns to despair when his eyes land again on the clipping. “This is libel. I could hardly even stand up on my own yet. I was about to pass out. It’s all your fault. You dragged me around the lobby talking to thousands of people one by one. It was a nightmare.” He shivers.

“Are you chilly, darling? Shall I fetch you your wrap?”

“God, I hate you. I’m going to do five hundred pushups a day until I look like myself again and then I’ll bend you over this table til you weep. See how you like it.”

“You’ll still be pretty.”

“Reiner, it’s fine for you to think I’m pretty but I want everyone else to be properly intimidated by me. Do you WANT me out there looking like this? A vulnerable, shy, sensitive young thing, at the mercy of a brutal, post-apocalyptic world?”

“There’s an ice cream stall not one hundred feet from this apartment, we aren’t exactly out there forming cannibal contingents.”

“Yet.”

“You just need to keep a big, strong, rocks-for-brains like me around to protect you.”

“See that’s exactly the kind of thing I don’t want other people thinking about me in the cannibal-ridden post-apocalyptic world.”

Reiner sinks his teeth into Bertolt’s shoulder.

“FUCK. OW. WHY.”

“Delicious.”

Considering that Bertolt had died via being eaten by a titan, this should probably be a huge turn-off, but he deliberately doesn’t share this thought with his cannibal in case it makes him stop.

***

A telegram arrives later in the morning, and since Reiner’s already gone Bertolt rushes to answer the door in a bathrobe with a towel turban wrapped around his head and a cup of tea in one hand. Immediately embarrassed, he tries to affect his deepest, most masculine voice for the benefit of the delivery boy. Is he supposed to tip? He fumbles through the pockets of everything hanging on the coat rack, but comes up empty—except for a battered peppermint. He sheepishly forks it over. Sorry, kid. 

He shuts the door in the child’s scowling face and collects himself. The telegram is addressed to Reiner, but he opens it anyway.

REINER STOP ARRIVING CARBIRIA FRI MAR 11 3PM STOP URGENT MATTER REQUIRES YOUR ATTENTION STOP BEST TO MEET IN PERSON TO DISCUSS STOP BERTOLT TOO STOP SEE YOU FRIDAY STOP HOTEL HELOS STOP PLEASE KEEP CONFIDENTIAL STOP GLOBAL CONSEQUENCES STOP ARMIN

Uh oh.

Stupid. Did you really think that you were free, just because the world almost ended?

Bertolt tells the voice in his head to fuck off, but worries all through the morning and afternoon, folding and unfolding the telegram many times, until it’s covered in creases.

***

The day is sandwiched between two profoundly unsettling pieces of news. The first is the telegram, the second arrives at suppertime with Reiner. 

“Where’ve you been? You’re late.” Bertolt looks up from his book with an arched eyebrow.

Reiner unlaces and kicks off his boots. They smack against the opposite wall one after the other and tumble haphazardly to the floor. “Sorry. I had to meet with the brass.”

“Oh. What’d they want?”

Reiner slumps down on the sofa, and rolls miserably onto his side, head nestled for comfort against Bertolt’s stomach. Bertolt puts his book down and runs worried fingers through Reiner’s hair.

“Hey, what happened?”

“Bertolt. It’s so bad.”

“Tell me.”

Reiner squeezes his eyes shut.

“They’re promoting me.”

“No!” gasps Bertolt.

Reiner nods in despair. “I’ve used up every excuse. They know you’re out of the hospital and they’re forcing me back into command.”

“Why now?”

“It was already coming, but that article doomed me. Nobody cared about the little local papers but since the national paper picked up our story we’re a symbol again.”

“We aren’t Warriors anymore, they have no right to make us be symbols. This is bullshit. Promoted to what?”

“Major, for now. But they’re threatening me with Interim Commander.”

“NO.”

Reiner clutches at Bertolt’s cardigan. “God help me. If they try to make me a general, we can run, right? If I run will you come with me?”

“Of course I will. I’ve always wanted to work in a bakery. Let’s open a bakery in the wasteland. There won’t be any customers so we’ll never have to bake.”

“This is why I need you. I would’ve never come up with such a smart plan.” Reiner looks up at him in loving admiration and then breaks down again. “Why does it have to be me!? I don’t want to be in command,” he wails, “I just want to move crates of coats and come home and lie around with you listening to the phonograph.”

“I know. This has been so nice.”

“It’s been the best.”

Something clicks in Bertolt’s mind.

“Oh no.”

“What?? Oh, God. What? Just tell me. Just pile it all on.”

Bertolt bites his lip.

“Is there something going on, do you think? Like, something bigger?”

“What do you mean?”

Bertolt slides the tattered telegram out of his shirt pocket, and holds it open above Reiner’s face for him to read. Reiner digests it with mounting bafflement.

“Fucking hell. What could he be talking about?”

“You see what I’m saying?”

“Yes. All at the same time? Doesn’t feel right.”

They sit, turning over all kinds of terrible possibilities in their heads. Reiner’s mouth tightens at the corners.

“I don’t have another war in me.”

“Me neither. Not that I’d be much use in one anyway right now.”

“I won’t let you go. We aren’t titans anymore. It’d be so easy for one of us to—”

“Won’t let me?”

“If there’s a war I’ll lie on the floor and hold my breath until you swear to me that you won’t fight. I’ll drag you into the wasteland before I have to see you on another battlefield.”

“We don’t know that this has anything to do with a war.”

Blood seeping through the fabric of uniforms. Soldiers curled against the walls of wet trenches, nursing rotting wounds in puddles of filth that brought the rot to begin with. Nothing you can do for them, they aren’t titans, they won’t heal. You crawl past their cries, covering your own head. The crack of gunshots. You don’t know who the bullets are meant for until the kid standing next to you falls down dead, here and gone in the middle of lighting a cigarette, and it’s the weirdest thing seeing how it stays in his mouth all the way down. Looking up at something coming to kill you—a whistling rocket, a gibbering titan, a beloved comrade. Looking down at someone you’re going to kill. The look in their eyes while you do it. They’re too small and too far away for you to see but you know the look is there. Footprints in blood. Some are yours and some are all of theirs, following behind you in procession. 

Reiner and Bertolt’s precious childhood memories.

The face in Bertolt's lap twists into an ugly grimace. Reiner hisses and sits up, holding his head in his hands like he’s fighting a sudden migraine.

Staring back at old wars. Trying not to shove the world’s worst memories into boxes. Holding himself together with both fists, locked in a battle to the death with the temptation to let himself split.

Bertolt leans against him with an arm around his shoulder while they both get through the worst.

They pull the whiskey out of the cupboard and get a little drunk, passing the bottle back and forth while a honey-voiced radio host takes them through the latest hits. A new genre called “swing” is all the rage, and some of it’s pretty damn good. They jot down names so they can pick up a couple of new records for the phonograph when Reiner gets paid.

Chapter Text

The Marleyan National Chronicle

EXPLOSIVE NEW DETAILS SURROUNDING “MIRACLES OF MARLEY” EMERGE

• Capt. R. Braun to be promoted to Major, elevated to command role
• Former Warrior B. Hoover deemed “Above Suspicion” as recovery and inquiry continue
• Couple hailed as exemplars of passion and patriotism
• Reports of political turmoil on Island of Paradis

Mar 1, Year 855 — News of former Warrior and Colossal Titan Bertolt Hoover’s miraculous recovery, and his emotional reunion with comrade and long-time partner Capt. Reiner Braun, has captured the nation’s attention.

Today, the Chronicle confirms that Capt. Braun will return to active command after an extended leave of absence to oversee Hoover’s recovery. Soon to be promoted to Major, Braun, 24, is a four-time decorated war hero with an unparalleled record of victories over multiple enemies of the state. Military estimates attribute more than 250,000 enemy eliminations — directly or indirectly — to the actions of Braun, Hoover, and the other surviving Paradis Island operatives.

Hoover, 23, officially designated Missing in Action since Year 850, was until recently believed to have fallen during the Battle of Shiganshina on Paradis. His heroic last stand — holding enemy forces at bay to secure the escape of his comrades — was lauded across Marley following the Warrior Unit’s return to Liberio.

Questions remain regarding Hoover’s escape from Paradisan captivity and his precise role in the climactic battle at Fort Salta, where Marley’s Warrior Unit, in alliance with the Neo-Historian rebel faction, secured final victory over the enemy.

An official statement from the Military Press Liaison emphasized the need for discretion:

“While investigations into the circumstances of Mr. Hoover’s imprisonment and liberation are ongoing, he remains above all suspicion. We anticipate his return to active service upon the completion of his rehabilitation. At the appropriate time, the full account of the Warrior Unit’s heroism will be shared with the public.”

From Battleground to Bedside

The loyalty between these two heroes has become a symbol of perseverance in the postwar era, following Hoover’s dramatic awakening from a months-long coma — the result of grievous injuries sustained in battle and captivity.

“I’ve never seen such loving devotion,” an anonymous hospital source told the Chronicle. “It’s every bit as heroic as winning the war, the way Captain Braun stayed by Bertolt’s side through sickness and health. We should all be so lucky. I was there when he woke — the way they looked at each other was like a fairy tale. And they’re both beautiful and tall, which makes it even nicer.”

“Mr. Hoover was in dire shape when he arrived,” another witness reported. “We weren’t certain he would survive. If he didn’t, it seemed unlikely the Captain would either. Imagine the heartbreak. But he did wake, and his recovery has been extraordinary. He’s endured unimaginable ordeals — all kinds of vicious tortures, I’m sure — yet he doesn’t look a day over twenty, if that.”

The couple has declined formal interviews, citing both the need for privacy during Hoover’s rehabilitation and the legal requirement to maintain confidentiality until the official inquiry concludes.

Sources Indicate Political Unrest on Paradis

As previously reported, early intelligence following the final confrontation at Fort Salta revealed that a rebel faction from within the Walls played a pivotal role in Marley’s decisive victory. The faction — self-styled “Neo-Historians” — claims to act under the direct orders of Queen Historia Reiss.

The Neo-Historians retain broad popular support on Paradis, according to internal reports. In a statement relayed to the Chronicle, a spokesman for the faction declared:

“There’s nothing we want more than to join the global community in building a better tomorrow. We all stand to benefit from opening Paradis, sharing our abundant natural and mineral resources, and ending the isolationism that allowed a small group of violent usurpers to seize power and commit unforgivable crimes against the world. Queen Historia is a visionary leader. Her heart breaks for what has happened. It is our mission to restore her rightful place at the head of the vibrant democracy she was creating before the Yeagerist coup.”

The current Yeagerist regime has publicly claimed responsibility for the unprecedented global devastation wrought by what it calls “the Rumbling.” Sources inside Paradis describe a civilian population under the grip of dangerous ethnocentric nationalism, censorship, and violent suppression of dissent.

Global observers caution that the Yeagerists may pose an ongoing threat to peace and stability unless Queen Historia is restored to power — but advise careful assessment of Paradis’s current military capabilities before any intervention.

The Queen’s present whereabouts remain unknown.

Only mildly hungover, Reiner makes a stop on his way to work to send a carefully worded telegram, hoping to squeeze something less cryptic out of Armin.

Bertolt tries to think of ways to be useful while he does sit-ups with his feet wedged under the sofa and the Marleyan National Chronicle spread out on the floor beside him. The despised photo that always accompanies articles about the Marley Miracles adds insult to injury, leering up at him as he reads the latest updates concerning all the different ways he’s about to lose control of his new life. 

The article in the Chronicle is stuffed with all kinds of details that Bertolt hadn’t known, and that he suspects Reiner hadn’t known either. 

As it turns out, Bertolt is still a military man, even though he’s so depleted right now from having been dead that he probably couldn’t pass basic training.

He’s been working for months towards the singular goal of becoming a soldier again, but that was back when he thought it’d mean moving crates around a shelter with Reiner, or passing out juice to orphans, or helping to redirect people from driving over hazardous bridges. That was back when he thought he had some choice in the matter. Now that it turns out he doesn’t have a choice, he doesn’t want anything to do with it.

But it’s his own fault that these intrusions from the real world feel like being plunged into icy water. He hasn’t been paying attention. He’s been ignoring it all since the day he woke up—all through his two months in the hospital and then these last two months living in a snowglobe filled with books, phonograph records, thoughts about his own death, and Reiner. 

And he’d happily stay inside the snowglobe forever, even with those thoughts, if only the vague shadow hovering over them wasn’t starting to look more and more like a hammer.

If someone’s trying to send Reiner to war, Bertolt will need to learn everything he can about what’s happening out there, so that he can correctly identify any parties he might need to shoot from a nearby rooftop to stop it from happening. Fuck turning over a new leaf.

Stop being unhinged. Nobody anywhere said there’s a war. But where’s Historia? What does the Historia part mean? It means something, and it definitely has to do with Armin. Armin is all over whatever this is. We need to put the pieces together. They’re all right here.

Unfortunately, he’ll probably have the opportunity to hunt for more clues soon, because Bertolt's reintegration to the military and the world at large is going to happen all at once, and he’s dreading it.

On Saturday he is going to have to accompany Reiner to his stupid Military Advancement Ceremony, in order to celebrate and formalize his stupid promotion to stupid Major, and he’s going to be required to wear his stupid uniform.

He’s also going to meet Reiner’s mother, and his cousins, and God knows who else, for the first time since he left Marley when he was twelve years old.

***

Why are uniforms always white?

Isn’t white the dumbest possible color for any kind of combat? Unless you’re fighting on an ice field, you stand out like a giant sign that says “I surrender,” or “here I am, shoot me,” or “please don’t shoot me, because I’ve already been shot, as you can probably tell, because all of my blood is now on the outside of my white uniform.”

You really have to feel for women, fighting titans and other enemies in white pants regardless of…yeah. Ymir had composed some entertaining, if graphic, monologues about it.

Bertolt had liked his Corps uniform on Paradis. There was something acrobatic and sexy about it—all those straps, everything fitted and functional, nothing superfluous except the insignias on jackets and cloaks. Reiner had looked absolutely, jaw-droppingly, heart-stoppingly, fucking stunning in it, and Bertolt had spent years almost slamming face-first into trees while distracted by the sight of Reiner’s thick thighs straining against the web of leather that criss-crossed his legs and disappeared into the tops of his boots. The upper harness, with a band that stretched tight across the chest and left marks on skin, was somehow even worse.

Mm.

If there's one thing that Bertolt can freely admit he misses about that garbage pile of an island, it's the way Reiner looked in his uniform. 

If there was a second thing, it's all the times they helped each other put on (or take off) all of the pieces of that uniform, especially during that little glittering window of time in the winter before Shiganshina, when they had been truly and honestly together, and could exploit the apparatus to its full advantage.

Like that one cold morning, after a night of drinking corn whiskey that tasted like rat poison at somebody’s birthday gathering in a snow-bound barn. He woke up shivering, ducked his head under his blanket, and was mighty surprised to see that he was wearing absolutely nothing EXCEPT the belts around his thighs and waist, and his upper harness, all the bands tight against his bare skin, with the rest of his uniform nowhere to be found. Deciding that this was a mystery for a more awake and less hungover Bertolt to solve, he curled up against the warmth of Reiner’s body and went back to sleep, and when he woke up there was a ridiculously happy Reiner crawling all over him, sliding greedy fingers under straps and being so loudly persistent in his demands for a reprise of the previous night’s performance (whatever that had been, Bertolt’s memories were vague) that he almost gave away the whole game to the rest of the barracks.

So it hadn’t been all bad.

Anyway.

With all of these impractical memories rolling around in his head like brightly-colored marbles, Bertolt stands next to Reiner and stares at their reflection in a tall window. They don’t have a full-length mirror, but at nighttime with the lights turned on inside, the window glass works.

“I don’t know how to feel right now.”

There are two days left before the ceremony, and Reiner has arrived home bearing their new formal uniforms. There aren’t any straps involved in the Marleyan dress whites. It’s a simpler, cleaner outfit—just a white shirt and pants with a black tie. The outerwear is what makes it work, with knee-high black boots and, of course, the iconic trench, belted at the waist, tailored to geometrical perfection.

There used to be armbands and badges indicating Eldian blood, but not anymore. The Rumbling killed a lot of people, but it also destroyed the means of distinguishing Eldians from everyone else, like court records, identification papers, public registrations, or even memory, with everyone so shuffled around that you might never run into anyone who remembers that you’re one of the devils. 

The remaining military power structure simply lacks the resources to press the issue, and Reiner would have refused anyway, because fuck the brass, they can only demand so much. He stopped the Rumbling, so take your armband and shove it up your ass.

They stand side-by-side, both wearing their new tailored sets of dress whites, and both feeling depressed as all get-out.

“Well, we look amazing, and I hate it.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

Bertolt turns and puts his arms around Reiner’s shoulders.

“You know what just occurred to me, though?”

“What?”

“If I’ve been a soldier all this time, missing in action, I’m pretty sure that Marley owes me almost five years’ worth of back pay.”

It’s healthy to occasionally identify a silver lining.

***

The impeccable fit of his new uniform makes Bertolt self-conscious about everything else he owns. 

His wardrobe, like their pantry, consists of things that Reiner steals from the boxes that come through the shelter and resettlement supply lines. After much philosophical discussion, Bertolt and Reiner had decided that these thefts didn’t constitute any ethical lapse, since Bertolt is actually a refugee, just from the land of death, instead of some flattened East Marleyan village. It’s not like he came back from the dead with a suitcase full of pants.

He has individually acceptable items - two nice cardigans, minimally patched trousers, plenty of socks, thank god—but nothing matches, and almost everything fits just ever so slightly wrong. 

A huge swathe of Marley’s grazing land was crushed in the Rumbling, along with the cows who’d grazed on it, and this has had a devastating effect on the cost and availability of decent leather. Quality boots are usually stolen by soldiers upstream in the supply chain long before the aid boxes arrive in Carbiria. The boots that Bertolt has been wearing for the last two months are a mess, all crumpled around the ankles. The kind of boots a plucky orphaned pickpocket would wear in a moving picture.

Now he’s got his tall, black military boots, and that’s all well and good, except that they’re going to look ridiculous when he wears them with his aid box patchy cardigans and trousers that are too short to cover his ankles.

He reminds himself to ask someone official about the back-pay.

Reiner likes dressing Bertolt, and has him walk around the living room in different combinations of mismatched clothing when he brings new things home, pondering options soberly with a finger to his lips, like an art critic. Reiner, with his sketches, and perfectly pressed shirts with the sleeves rolled up just-so, and his never shutting up about the color of Bertolt’s eyes, can be surprisingly aesthetic when he wants to be.

From the day they first landed on Paradis, he’d decided for both of them that he was in charge of cutting Bertolt’s hair.

So when Bertolt’s fringe starts fighting with his eyelashes he asks Reiner to fix it, and it never occurs to him that there might be other ways to get haircuts. Haircuts come from Reiner—that’s how haircuts work, even when he’s in a coma. 

When he asks whether he should neaten himself up before the ceremony, so as to not look like a complete bum, Reiner excitedly jumps up off the sofa and gathers his tools. He puts Bertolt on a chair in the middle of the living room, because it will be easier to sweep hair shreds out the front door later instead of getting them stuck in the damp corners of the bathroom.

***

Paradis

Bertolt sat on a wooden footlocker in a quiet corner of the barracks, running his fingers through the front of his hair and pulling his bangs straight to see how far they’d go. If he really tried, he could almost make them touch the bridge of his nose. Way too long. They were driving him crazy. 

He pulled his shirt off over his head and watched Reiner sharpen a straight razor against a lump of whetstone, raising puffs of dust into the lazy late-afternoon light  that came through the window behind him, cutting golden slices at an angle across the room.

Reiner had already been shaving for almost two years. He’d been the first trainee in the 104th to become the proud owner of a military-issue shaving kit. The kit was a coveted milestone towards manhood, and on the day of its issuance the other boys had gathered to envy and admire it, held out in Reiner’s hand like a diamond engagement ring. 

The components—a cut-throat razor, horsehair lathering brush, wooden comb, grey whetstone, and a flat jar that could be refilled with a circle of soap—came assembled in a flap of thick leather with pockets perfectly sized to hold each item. The whole case could be rolled up and tied shut with a leather strap, and “R.Braun - 104” and a shield emblem were crudely branded along one outside edge.

An incredible item. To be treasured and guarded with one’s life, since it was meant to accompany a soldier right through the (probably premature) end of it.

By the time the others began to qualify for kits of their own, Reiner was already an expert, and in true soldier Reiner fashion, he took it upon himself to mentor each comrade through the process. 

Bertolt knew that if he was anything like his father—baby-faced even in his sickly and ill-kept forties—he would rarely need to shave, no matter how grown up he got. It didn’t bother him much. If any lonely, rebellious strands of peach fuzz threatened to evolve into actual facial hair, Reiner would take care of them when he gave Bertolt his trim.

Since childhood, Reiner had always taken Bertolt’s haircuts with the seriousness that other people reserved for defusing bombs. Now, he blew the dust off of his razor, and knelt in front of Bertolt for a preliminary inspection. 

Bertolt let his head tilt up or down, right or left, moving wherever the calloused fingers under his chin told him to go.

“Okay.”

The front was quick work. Reiner had it all down to an art, holding each section of hair between his fingers and making short strokes with the razor — shk-shk-shk. The trimmed pieces drifted to the floor, leaving behind a v-shaped fringe. When had Reiner started styling his bangs that way? Bertolt hadn’t had a chance to see his own reflection in a mirror for almost two years after their arrival on Paradis, so he wasn’t sure.

The sensation of another person’s touch on the nape of his neck was scary, since his instincts screamed at him to shield himself there at any costs. But for some reason it thrilled him a little to fight his titan’s natural fear while he let Reiner glide his sharpened blade over the most vulnerable place on any shifter’s body, shaping the hair into a neat taper. He wasn’t sure he could stomach anyone else doing that — maybe not even Annie.

As exciting as that part was, the last step was the one that Bertolt liked best, when Reiner would lean all the way in to blow away the fallen hairs on his shoulders or gathered around his ears, sending goosebumps singing and prickling across Bertolt’s skin. It just felt nice.

Reiner was always incredibly careful. The nick wasn’t his fault. 

He was touching up a final imperfection in front of Bertolt’s left ear when somebody right outside the window dropped what sounded like an empty metal barrel, and a noise like a thunderbolt made them both jump.

“AH.”

A sharp pang—like a wasp sting—then a warm trickle.

“SHIT! I’m sorry! Bertl! Are you okay? Oh no. Hang on!”

Reiner spun in panicked circles, waving the razor and searching helplessly for something to stop the bleeding with, while Bertolt cackled at the sight of his gigantic friend twirling and fussing like a flustered chicken.

“Reiner! It’s fine,” he snorted. “I can’t even feel it.”

“No, but it’s bleeding a lot!”

“I’ll just-“ 

Before he could focus his mind on the cut to steam it away, Reiner surged forward, and suddenly there were big hands on his bare shoulders, and warm, sun-chapped lips against his face, and a tongue pressed over the split in his skin, sealing it shut.

Bertolt’s laugh stopped in his throat.

Huh? 

Time slowed to a syrupy ooze.

His—

Uh.

His mouth is—

Bertolt’s capacity for critical thought collapsed in on itself until he was only aware of Reiner’s proximity.

Hiiiiiiis mouth is on me and his lips are so warm and that’s his tongue and he’s tasting my blood and is this allowed and I can feel his lashes and his stubble and his chest against mine and he’s holding my shoulders and he’s really strong and it stings a little so why do I kind of like it what’s wrong with me and he smells amazing and he’s breathing in my ear and it feels really really really really good and he’s—

“Okay. I think it stopped,” Reiner said, sounding relieved. He leaned back, wiping away a last smear of blood with his thumb, and then his reassuring smile fell off of his face. Wide-eyed mortification took its place as he realized what he’d just done. 

Bertolt, still stupefied, watched dark pink bloom across his cheeks and all the way down past the neckline of his shirt.

Reiner quickly turned his back and busied himself putting away his shaving kit, tucking everything back into the correct pockets and making a lot of unnecessary noise, his ears on fire.

“Um. You’re all set.”

Bertolt shifted and pulled his knees up to his chest.

“Thanks, Reiner,” he yawned.

The yawn was fake. Bertolt was wide awake, but he needed a cover story. He needed it to look natural for him to sit there curled up on his footlocker for a while longer, because he needed to conceal the shame of an unexpected and painfully bewildering erection.

***

Marley

“And, done.” 

Reiner gestures theatrically, with his razor in one hand and a comb in the other, like a magician unveiling a wonder. “I left it a little longer in the back. You’re gonna look like a renegade when it grows more.”

Bertolt touches his bangs. No need for a mirror—he knows what they look like.

“When did you start cutting it like this? I can’t even picture my face with a different haircut.”

“I did it by accident the first time, and then it turned out it was useful so I kept doing it that way.”

“What do you mean, useful?”

Reiner pops the razor into his pocket, bends down, and smooths Bertolt’s hair off of his forehead with the backs of his fingers. Bertolt waits for an answer. He’s about to repeat his question, but comprehension dawns.

“Are you saying that you cut my hair like this for our entire lives just so you could keep pushing my bangs out of my face?”

“Also ‘cause leaving them kind of long meant you needed me to cut them more often.”

“Why would you want to cut them more often?” Bertolt asks, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear it anyway.

“Because I’m shameless,” says Reiner, shamelessly. 

Bertolt begins to mock him, but the memory of those late afternoon haircuts in Paradis, heavy with confused adolescent desire, makes him blush. Reiner interprets the blush as an invitation to engage in further shameless behavior, and destroys all the work he’s done combing Bertolt’s hair.

Chapter Text

Terror.

Bertolt wants to run, but he can’t. 

He’s trapped, and it’s coming for him. Moving inexorably and relentlessly. Its smile is wide, fixed, hungry, all teeth. Too many teeth. Eyes that don’t blink. The hand reaches out for him. 

Where’s Reiner? Why isn’t he here? How could he leave Bertolt all alone?

“Well, you are just so much more handsome than your picture in the paper. You should insist that they use a different one. Look how tall you’ve gotten!”

Karina Braun’s white-gloved fingers suction onto Bertolt’s sleeve like five friendly leeches. Her mauve cinderblock of a pocketbook collides with his hip.

“Hello, Ms. Braun,” whispers Bertolt weakly, “It’s nice t-”

“Oh please, it’s Karina! You aren’t a little boy anymore.” 

She points her cheek upwards as if expecting a kiss, and he pretends not to comprehend the invitation. He awkwardly pats her glove.

“Oh. Um. Yes—Karina. It’s nice to see you again.”

She beams sweetly at him under her floppy bell-shaped hat, which matches the pocketbook. She’s younger than he’d expected. When you’re a kid every grownup is old, but she looks like she’s in her mid-forties. So she’d been, what, around twenty when Reiner was born? Younger? It’s a disquieting thought.

“I’m so relieved to hear you say that. I was wondering if I’d done something wrong, since Reiner has hardly come to see me since you’ve been living together. Hardly at all since setting me up in my little apartment. You’ve been keeping him all to yourself! But I manage just fine. I don’t want you two worrying about me at all, even if I’m just across town. He stops by to help me with the groceries, if he can spare the time. How are you feeling? I know your health has been terrible—my own conditions are nothing next to what you’ve been though. I can see how happy it makes him to take care of you, that’s the most important thing.”

Bertolt reels under this merciless onslaught of veiled accusations, not knowing the order in which he’s supposed to address them. Fortunately, Karina is happy to fill in both sides of their dialogue.

“I was right there when they found you. Poor Reiner was hysterical, and after everything he’d already been through that terrible day. He saved the world but as soon as you showed up he forgot all about it.”

Where is Reiner? While Karina talks, Bertolt’s eyes dart around the quadrangle, where rows of chairs are lined up on the grass in sections, facing a stage with a podium that’s draped in the Marleyan colors. White-uniformed soldiers stand in groups. It’s an ocean of trench coats. 

Bertolt can feel curious looks crawling all over him. The former Colossal Titan, miraculously returned from imprisonment on the Island of Devils. Oh, to be the Invisible Titan.

“Everybody asks me about you, since the articles have been coming out. I don’t know what to tell them, Reiner doesn’t tell me anything. Confidential, even from me. Who would I spill the beans to? But I want you both to come to dinner soon, and you can tell me all about it.”

Bertolt sees a lifeline and grasps for it.

“I’d like that. I remember when we were little how good your cooking was. I always looked forward to coming over for dinner.”

Karina immediately softens at the compliment.

“You were such a polite little boy. I was glad Reiner had a friend like you, even if you were competing for the Warrior Unit. And that worked out alright in the end anyway, didn’t it? We all knew how difficult things were for you, with your father being so ill.”

He’s surprised at the genuine sympathy that’s starting to bleed into her voice, displacing some of her characteristic good-natured resentment.

“He really liked Reiner.”

It’s true. Bertolt’s father had adored Reiner, who always careened into their apartment like he was falling down a hill, tumbling with scraped knees and missing teeth, and leaves stuck in his blonde hair, and his mouth already going a million miles a minute about whatever they’d just come from doing, before the door had time to shut behind him.

“Hi, Mr. Hoover! Sorry our boots are wet, we’ll take them off. I saw a huge fish in the duck pond and I’ve never seen a big one like that there before, so Bertolt tried to catch it, and then he fell in, so I jumped in too and instead of fishing we went swimming. So that’s why his clothes are all wet, but it’s my fault because I saw the fish first. What’s the biggest fish you ever caught?” 

It never occurred to him that you were supposed to be quiet around sick people.

One day Reiner had brought a model airplane kit over, and they all sat for an afternoon, assembling it on a tray table on his father’s bed and gluing their fingers together. When the thing actually flew, despite the fact that it really shouldn’t have, they all celebrated like they’d just achieved mankind’s first flight across the ocean. 

It’s one of Bertolt’s best memories. Bertolt’s father had brought it up again and again, so it must have been one of his best memories too.

When he thinks about it, Reiner hadn’t had a real father, and Bertolt hadn’t had a mother at all, but if you added his dad and Karina together, even with both of them pining for people who weren’t coming back, they amounted to a kind of sad, sticky, model airplane version of a full set of parents.

His feelings must be showing more than he means them to, because Karina squeezes his arm.

“Oh. Bertolt. I’m sorry, you poor thing. It must have been terrible to come back and find out that he’d passed. I don’t know if it helps, but I visited with him. Reiner was always there when he could be, they talked all about you, I think it helped both of them. I’d try to bring him a warm meal when I could. He was so proud of your sacrifice. You know, the government kept their word. He was cared for until the very end.” 

“Thank you, Karina. I can’t—it means more to me than I can say. Thank you for being with him. I’m so glad he wasn’t—”

Bertolt is terrified that he’s going to start crying in front of the entire Marleyan military on his very first day back.

“Mother! What are you doing to Bertolt?”

Reiner the Traitor saunters up to them, smiling innocently, as though he isn’t completely aware that he’s just subjected Bertolt to torture. So, he gets that smile from his mother.

“My warrior! Come here,” gushes Karina, relinquishing Bertolt’s arm and stretching upwards to plant an aggressive kiss on Reiner’s cheek. She can’t reach, so Reiner bends down to her and stays trapped like that for a while while she does embarrassing things to the side of his face. The lump in Bertolt’s throat evaporates. He stares. Everyone within eyeshot stares. It’s a hell of a sight.

Reiner comes back up, wiping his damp face with his sleeve. Since Karina’s lips are now free, she’s already started talking again. 

“Bertolt and I were talking about everything. There’s a press box, you should make sure they take a better photo of him. I’m sure they’ll want photos of you, it’s about time that they—”

While Karina continues her stream-of-consciousness oration at her son, a child materializes, having apparently been lurking behind Reiner’s bulk this whole time, doing reconnaissance before making herself known. 

She plants herself protectively between Bertolt and the others. She’s wearing a miniature replica of his own uniform, minus the trench. 

They stare at each other silently. Bertolt eventually realizes that she’s waiting for him to make the first move.

“Oh. Hi. Are you Reiner’s cousin?”

“Gabi.” She throws an arm up and tries to crush his fingers when he shakes her hand. “You’re Mr. Hoover.”

“I’m Bertolt. You can just call me that. If you want to.”

She nods, looking up at him with cool suspicion and folding her stocky little arms to let him know that he isn’t in the club, just because her cousin is all pathetic for him.

“Reiner says you’re a crack shot like me. But that was when he thought you were dead. Can you still shoot?”

“I haven’t had a chance to find out yet. What do you shoot?”

“People who get in my way.” She flashes a grin, equal parts sunshine and butcher knives.

Oh my God. He loves her immediately and unconditionally. She’s a pocket-sized Reiner. She’s the most adorable thing he’s ever seen in his entire life. He’ll die for her, if need be. 

“So,” she asks, by way of interrogation, "why are you here? Are you getting promoted?”

“No, I’m just here with Reiner.” 

“You’re in uniform, though.”

“Yeah. I’m supposed to return to duty now that I’m better.”

She looks envious. Reiner has told him about Gabi, perhaps the only person on the planet who’s disappointed that there aren’t any more titans. 

A boy with a heartbreakingly honest face trots up and stands near Gabi, slightly behind, looking up at Bertolt over her shoulder. He’s in a uniform too, with short pants. Bertolt spent his childhood in the exact same getup. 

Gabi takes it upon herself to make introductions.

“Falco, this is Bertolt. We don’t have to call him Mr. Hoover.”

Falco gives Bertolt a shy smile and politely steps forward to shake his hand. “Hi, Bertolt. It’s nice to meet you.” 

“Hi Falco. Are you Reiner’s cousin too?”

Falco shakes his head soberly. “No, I was a Warrior, so me’n Gabi grew up together, like you and Mr. Braun. He always talked about you. He said you were good at almost everything.”

“That’s what you’re supposed to say when people are dead,” Gabi says, rolling her eyes as though Falco’s missed the most obvious fact imaginable. Falco’s smile gets a little pained.

Gabi shifts topics.

“I was there when they found you naked.”

“…oh.”

“But don’t worry! We didn’t actually see you naked!” Falco breaks in to reassure him. “Gabi just means we were at the battle. We only heard about you being naked later.”

The tone of the interaction makes it clear that his nudity on the day of his resurrection has been a topic of some discussion between them.

“Reiner yelled his head off,” Gabi informs him, “but everyone yelled all day anyway because of the Rumbling. I wanted to come see but Ms. Leonhardt wouldn’t let me.”

“I guess I missed the yelling. I was pretty out of it.”

Her suspicious expression returns.

“The Colossal Titan tried to kill Reiner. It bit his entire head off.”

“I know. That wasn’t me, though.”

“Gabi, we know it wasn’t him. You shouldn’t imply things.” Falco gives Bertolt a worried look.

“I didn’t imply shit! Don’t project!”

“You don’t even know what that means!”

“It means kiss my ass!”

“That’s NOT what it means!”

Bertolt watches them bicker, feeling nostalgic. Technically he’s the grownup—should he step in before it comes to blows? Nobody’d ever stopped him and Reiner from coming to blows, or any of the other kids in the Warrior unit or 104th, unless it was disrupting training. Still, he wouldn’t want to see Falco end up with all his bones broken.

Before he’s forced to intervene, Reiner swoops in behind the two combatants in a sneak attack. He grabs one child under each arm and runs in a big circle in the grass, ignoring their squeals of surprise and the disapproval of the other military personnel around them. 

They’re really much too big to be picked up like that, but it’s Reiner. Falco hangs limply, like an obedient kitten in its mother’s mouth. Gabi kicks and yells profanities, but Bertolt gets the feeling that she doesn’t really want to escape. 

Reiner waltzes back up to him with the mini Warriors in tow and grins at Bertolt—that same brazen, toothy grin he’d just had pointed at him by Gabi—then looks down in mock sternness. 

“Stop scaring Bertolt! You’ll make him run away.”

“That’s your problem!”/“Sorry, Mr. Braun,” say Gabi and Falco, over each other.

He and Reiner will adopt them both. They’ll go on picnics. Reiner and Gabi will throw boulders at trees to see who can knock one down first, and he and Falco will sit on a blanket and worry that they’ve forgotten to bring the first aid kit. 

Reiner releases his prisoners. Gabi throws a vengeful punch, and Reiner catches her fist in his giant hand, engulfing it completely. 

“So,” he asks, ignoring Gabi’s struggle to dislodge herself, “are you two in the ceremony?”

“Yes. I don’t want to be,” says Falco mournfully, “I don’t know why we’re in it when we aren’t even Warriors anymore.”

“Well, you’re veterans.”

“I guess.” 

Falco begins to say something else, but he falters, his eyes go wide, and he takes a step backwards, looking past Bertolt.

“Hoover. We’re glad to have you back with us. How is your recovery going?”

Bertolt turns. A swarthy, salt-and-pepper-haired officer, obviously high ranking, has silently appeared behind him. He’s middle-aged and spare, but he exudes a kind of compact authority. There’s something of Captain Levi there. A hefty block of colored stripes sits above the breast pocket of his coat. Bertolt doesn’t recognize him.

Reiner nods to him, not showing any particular deference. “Bertolt, this is General Dusko.” 

“Oh. Thank you, General, Sir. I’m recovering well.”

“Glad to hear it. I know that this has been sudden. Braun made some strident objections to us bringing you back in on short notice.” The General throws a dirty look at Reiner. “But given the attention the two of you attract, it seemed for the best.”

“Yes, Sir.”

The General sighs in obvious irritation.

“I’m told you haven’t been fully debriefed yet beyond your written statements. The breakdowns in protocol have been pathetic, but of course everything’s been damned chaotic since the war. And this one-“ He sends Reiner another scowl. “has been running interference on your behalf since the minute you woke up. We’ll need to bring you in as soon as possible if we’re actually going to put an inquiry on the books. We’ll also need to slap a rank on you.”

Bertolt groans inwardly. Debriefings and inquiries. Sitting on wooden chairs facing rows of senior officers, being asked trick questions. Why had he ever wanted to come back to the military?

The General’s face continues to project casual irritation, but Bertolt observes that his eyes are drifting lazily over the crowd while they talk. He’s a person who is good at making it look like he’s not noticing everything.

“Well, this isn’t the place or time. We’ll pick up later. Braun, congratulations on the promotion, and most likely on the next one. See you at the podium. I look forward to you being a pain in my ass on a more regular basis.”

“I’ll do my best not to disappoint, Sir.”

“Hoover, I’ll be in touch.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Dusko nods and turns, disappearing into the crowd of people beginning to drift towards their seats by the stage.

Reiner watches him melt away. “He’s not bad, for a General. Oh. Get this. He’s Eldian.”

Bertolt is shocked. That’s unprecedented. “Really? How is that possible?”

“They say he was Warrior candidate, but he was pulled out and put into Intelligence. He’s apparently a genius. Guess they didn’t want to put a 13-year expiration on him.”

“Why didn’t I ever hear of him?”

“Why would they tell us? Or anyone? Think they’d have wanted people to know the country’s top spy was devil spawn, and give the rest of us ideas? Almost nobody knew, brass included.”

Good point. 

“They were right, too. He pretty much put his fist around the entire military the second the war was over, and then he threw shit all over everyone’s faces by making it public.”

“That he’s Eldian?”

“Yup. And somehow nobody’s been able to do anything about it, and you know there’s been grumbling. He’s a force. He’s why we aren’t wearing armbands.”

Bertolt files away the information, and has a lot of follow-up questions, but he’s running out of mental space to contend with any of it.

“Reiner, there’s way too much I don’t know.”

Reiner looks guilty. “I didn’t think you wanted to.”

“No, yeah, I didn’t. It’s my own fault, but it’s like I’m swallowing the entire world at once.”

The whine of a microphone announces the commencement of the ceremony. Karina waves at them, and the four Warriors—two huge, two tiny—file into their designated seats in the front row.

***

Bertolt dissociates through most of the ceremony. Speeches, colorful banners, and various expressions of pomp drift by. He’d like to pass out on Reiner’s shoulder, but since they’re in the front row and Reiner’s about to be made a major, it seems inappropriate. When the Marleyan national anthem is sung, the entire audience rises to its feet, and when Bertolt looks around him there are tears in the eyes of many of the singers. 

General Dusko takes the podium as the last notes of the anthem fade. He scans the crowd. When he speaks, his voice is warm, personable, and urbane.

“Welcome, friends, warriors, and honored guests. Brave people of Marley.”

Polite applause echoes across the quad.

“We stand here today, together, the survivors of the single greatest act of evil in the history of man. Less than a year ago, a force of destruction descended upon our nation with a singular goal: the complete annihilation of our people and our homeland.” The words hang heavy in the air.

The General’s voice becomes low and intense. 

“The foe we faced was one beyond darkest imaginings. We watched death itself bear down upon us, red against the eastern sea. And yet…” He looks from face to face and brings a reverent hand to his heart. Some in the audience, as if hypnotized by the horror of his imagery, mirror the action. “And yet, we persevere. Marley perseveres. Our home. This is the spirit of our great people. To persevere.” 

Murmurs of assent. The applause returns with much more enthusiasm.

“The veterans of the Warrior Unit confronted the enemy in the battle that decided the fate of our nation, and the fate of the civilized world.” He pauses again, to let the import of his words sink in. “Today, we’re privileged to have among us some of those heroes”

The General gathers steam, each phrase more impassioned than the last.

“On that black day, their actions proved beyond all doubt that the nation of Marley, and the nation of Marley alone, through courage, might and unimaginable sacrifice, is, and will always be,” His voice soars across the quad as he reaches his thundering conclusion. “the shield and sword of ALL HUMANITY.” 

At this, the audience roars to life as one, stomping and clapping. It’s a primal, bloody clamor. It’s deafening.

The General extends his arm, voice strident above the cacophany. “Warriors! Please rise.”

Bertolt waits a little too long, and Gabi elbows him in the shoulder. He sheepishly unfolds himself from his seat. As he does, the applause triggers some long-buried programming from his Warrior childhood, and instinct takes over. He salutes the General crisply with the others, turns to repeat the salute towards the audience, and smiles in proud, grateful, soldierly fashion, one arm bent behind his back and the other waving, as he pivots from one side of the crowd to the other, to make sure everyone feels that they’ve gotten their fair allotment of Warrior attention. Flashbulbs burst all around them. God, how many times had he done this as a kid, younger than Gabi and Falco, standing next to Reiner, being celebrated before being sent off to kill people for the glory of Marley? Of course he knows how to do this..

At the very back of the audience sits a row of high-ranking officers, and Bertolt notices that their applause is far more measured than than the rest of the crowd’s.

The four Warriors snap to face front again, and at the General’s signal, take their seats. Reiner gives Bertolt’s leg a sneaky squeeze.

“And today, we gather in honor of one Warrior whose name and deeds are known the world over, whose acts of valor have led to the elimination of more enemy lives than any single soldier in living memory. The Shield of Marley - Captain Reiner Braun, please take your place beside me.”

Reiner rises and climbs the steps to the stage. He stands at attention besides the podium. The General pins his new bars to the lapel of his coat, his body turned outwards to make sure the cameras have a good view of the moment.

“It’s with gratitude and honor that the nation of Marley bestows upon you the rank of Major. Major Reiner Braun, we salute you.” All of the military personnel on the stage and in the audience, stand, salute, and cheer.

Reiner takes the podium, waiting for the applause to die down. He relaxes his soldierly posture,  leaning into his hands, gripping the podium on both sides. He tilts his head and arranges his face into a wry, humble smile.

“How on earth could I even begin to do justice to that introduction?” A laugh ripples through the quad, the General joining in, good-naturedly.

“I’ll keep it short, because what I need to say is simple, and the General said it better than I ever could. Marley is our home. My home. To fight for my home isn’t heroism, it’s a given. It’s what we do. All of us, to the best of our abilities. There is no greater honor of my life than to have served as Marley’s shield—to have been entrusted with the power to protect my people, and the nation where I was born. There’s no greater privilege than to have fought and prevailed alongside my friends and comrades, the Warriors.” He gestures down to Gabi and Falco, who stand, the audience goes wild. The mini Warriors are crowd pleasers. “and-” Reiner pauses to look down at Bertolt. 

Reiner noooooooo, screams Bertolt internally, Pleeeaaaaseeee.

“alongside the one who served for so long as Marley’s sword,” Reiner’s voice rings with emotion. “and returned, just when we needed him most, when I needed him most, to be our sword once again. Bertolt, won’t you stand?”

Bertolt’s face is on fire, but eyes and cameras are on him. He rises, smiles hatefully up at Reiner, and imitates the General’s signature gesture, a reverent hand to his heart. Cameras almost drown out the crowd. Some people are weeping. Being a public symbol of passion and patriotism is a terrible, terrible thing. When he finally feels like he can get away with it, he sits back down.

“That’s all. Thank you, General. Thank you, people of Marley. Thank you for honoring me with the chance to serve. I’ll spend every day of my life working to deserve the trust you’ve placed in me. Thank you.”

Reiner drinks in the noise of the crowd, and humbly leaves the stage. He comes back to sit by Bertolt’s side, with the corners of his mouth turned up in sly little smirk meant just for him.

Ass.

***

Bertolt is ready to crawl under fifty blankets and sleep for a week. The amount of attention and conversation with other people that he’s endured today should warrant some kind of medal for valor. Reiner looks exhausted too. They leave the quad and walk through the gates onto a broad thoroughfare, passing a cigarette back and forth.

“B, you did fantastic, you know.”

Bertolt shrugs. “It was weird. It was like eleven-year-old me took the controls. I didn’t have to think about it. You were frighteningly good. You embarrassed the hell out of me. Wasn’t it all a little over the top, for Major?”

“Yes, it was ridiculous. But it’s half of what they built us for. First half: kill for Marley. Second half: get people excited about it. Anyway it’s what Dusko wanted. Want to splurge on a taxicab? I’ve got my paycheck in my pocket. We’re rich.”

Bertolt laughs. “Does that make me a kept man? Buy me an automobile, then we won’t need cabs.”

“Okay, rich is relative. How about I buy you your very own coffee mug?”

“You spoil me.”

Somebody steps out of the gates and looks both ways. When he spots Bertolt and Reiner, he jogs over to them, calling out Reiner’s name.

Reiner freezes, and Bertolt is immediately unsettled. The man catches up and a hand lands on Reiner’s shoulder. Bertolt stares at it, then follows the sleeve upwards to a handsome, suntanned face.

“I was worried I’d missed you! Just wanted to say congratulations before you disappeared on me again.”

The man is shorter than Reiner, elegant and trim in his uniform, with a smooth, milk-in-coffee complexion and sleek black hair, neatly parted at the side. He smiles winningly at Bertolt, and even the one crooked canine in an otherwise perfect mouth somehow adds to his charm.

Who the hell is this.

“So, this is Mr. Hoover!”

Reiner doesn’t seem to know which one of them to look at. His eyes settle on the end of the cigarette he’s twiddling between his fingers.

“Yeah,” he mutters, “Bertolt, this is-”

“Xavier Loughton.”

He slides his hand down Reiner’s shoulder, then holds it out to Bertolt.

All of Bertolt’s alarm bells are shrieking. He steels his will. What’s one more performance in this vaudeville hellscape of a day? He forces himself to smile back. He accepts the handshake.

“Hello, Xavier.” Even his fucking name is sexy. “How do you and Reiner know each other?” Let’s get right to it, asshole.

Xavier’s smile quirks up on one side. His eyes flick towards Reiner.

“Work, of course. I’m a medic. We were in a few skirmishes together in the Mid Eastern territories. Back when he still had his armor.”

Oh good, Mister Pretty is also a doctor. And wait—“a few skirmishes”? The hell does that mean? Bertolt looks back and forth between them. Reiner looks like he wants to fall through a hole in the sidewalk, all the way down to the magma-filled center of the earth.

Xavier keeps smiling, but there’s an unmistakable touch of malice in it.

“It’s been a while, Rei.”

Rei? REI? What the fuck is this, “Rei”??

“Yeah,” Reiner says gruffly, “How’ve you been.”

“Pretty good. Freed from battle since the final victory, so I owe you both thanks for that. I was wondering where you’d been. They told us you were taking a leave, and then of course we heard the rumors and read about everything in the papers. Hell of a story. Romantic.”

Bertolt’s simmering outrage is somewhat tempered when Reiner pointedly and conspicuously takes his hand. “Hey, can’t believe everything you read, you know how reporters dress things up. But things are getting back to normal, now Bertolt’s recovered. We’ll both be back on active duty.”

“So we’ll be seeing more of each other?”

“Sure."

Xavier raises his eyebrows at the curt reply.

“Looking forward to it. Anyway, I’ve got to head back. Nice to finally meet you, Bertolt. Rei, you’re looking good. Congratulations again.” He looks Bertolt up and down meaningfully, and turns his gray eyes back to Reiner. “On everything.”

He waves and strolls back to the gates towards a few other soldiers waiting just inside, not looking back. A burst of laughter issues from the group as he rejoins them.

Bertolt stares silently after him until he disappears, and then stares silently at Reiner.

“Bertolt I-”

“Later.”

Reiner sags.

***

They do splurge on a taxicab, and the ride home is quiet. Bertolt leans his head on Reiner’s shoulder, trying to prove to both of them how admirably reasonable and understanding he is.

He can’t be mad about this. He was dead. He can’t expect Reiner to have taken a vow of celibacy for the rest of his life. He shouldn’t WANT Reiner to have done that. Reiner was hurt. He deserved comfort, to move on, to find love. He did absolutely nothing wrong. There’s nothing to be angry about.

And yet, Bertolt is angry. He’s so angry that he wants to burn down Carbiria just because Xavier Loughton is somewhere in it, walking around. Being gorgeous—the peroxide-powder-toothed fuck. Daring to exist.

Reiner unlocks the front door with a jangle, and they wearily shed their cumbersome boots and uniforms. Bertolt gives Reiner a kiss and goes to take a shower, alternating very hot and very cold water in case one of them magically washes away the insecurity gnawing at his insides. 

When he comes out, wearing a towel around his waist and feeling somewhat defused, Reiner is flat on his back in the middle of the bedroom floor in his shorts and undershirt, staring morosely at the ceiling.

Bertolt rolls his eyes. “Okay, prostrating yourself on the floor in penance is a little dramatic. I’m not gonna make you sleep there, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Sorry, B. He did that on purpose to be shitty. Are you alright?”

“I really don’t have a right to not be.”

“Oh shut up. If it happened the other way round, there’d be a head on a pike outside the base right now, whether I had a right or not.”

Bertolt sighs and flattens himself onto the floor next to Reiner. It’s nice and cool.

“I’ll put it this way. You didn’t do anything wrong, but, yes, I’m still considering killing you. Or him. I still love you, so I’d rather kill him.”

“Understandable.”

“It occurred to me that you might’ve been with other people. Four years is a long time. I just didn’t really want to think about it. How long did you see him?”

“I didn’t see him. It was just—do you really want to talk about this?”

“Why not? I was dead. I can’t be angry that you didn’t become a priest to stay faithful to my ghost. And I guess I’m curious.”

Reiner puts his hands over his face. “Fine. Ask what you want. You always know when I’m lying anyway.”

“Yup. How was it?”

“Bad. Because he wasn’t you and I didn’t really give a shit about him like he wanted me to, and I felt guilty about all of it. It was just really mindless.”

“Poor Xavier.”

“I would’ve maybe said that before he pulled the shit he pulled today.”

“How did it start?”

“Drunk and bored between battles.”

“Have there been others?”

“Yeah, a couple one night stands.”

Bertolt groans, regretting the question.

“Dying is such a pain in the ass. Before, we were exactly the same. Now you’re older than me and you have all kinds of experience.” 

“Trust me, you don’t want those experiences.”

“It just makes me feel like a rookie. I’ve only ever been with you.”

Reiner rolls onto his side and props his head on his arm, his mood shifting abruptly.

“Am I gross for being turned on by that?”

“You’re gross for all manner of things.”

“And I got to be your first time twice. It’s like you’re DOUBLE only mine.”

There’s a hand sliding up under Bertolt’s towel.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Can too.”

“You got promoted, and made a speech, and talked to generals and your terrifying mother, and ran around with violent children, and got accosted by your sexy stalker in front of your lover, and had a grim relationship conversation, and you haven’t showered yet. How can you possibly be thinking about fucking right now.”

“I already told you, I’m shameless.”

Chapter Text

Reiner stays glued to Bertolt’s side as they walk into the Hotel Helos, ready to be a shield if needed, even if he’s not the Armored Titan anymore. 

Walking through the echoing lobby towards the restaurant, surrounded by chrome, checkerboard floor tiles, well-kept potted palms and elegant people in tasteful, expensive clothes, makes Bertolt feel like a battered cockroach or street urchin that snuck in through the kitchen. 

Like somebody’s going to chase him out of the lobby with a broom, while clean, decent people shriek and leap up onto button-tufted reception chairs.

That’s just what it feels like to be Eldian, even though Reiner’s a major, and they’re symbols, and they aren’t wearing armbands.

Reiner gives Armin’s name to the maitre d’. He flips through the reservation book and looks suspiciously at Bertolt, who blushes despite himself and stares down at his boots. He should have just worn his damn uniform.

“One moment, Major Braun. I’ll let your party know you’ve arrived.” 

“How in the hell is Armin staying somewhere like this?” whispers Bertolt, watching him slither away between tables towards the back of the restaurant. Reiner shrugs, looking troubled.

The restaurant is deserted, and they find Armin at a table in an alcove at the furthest corner from the entrance, clearly chosen for complete privacy, and there are two other people with him. They stand, and Bertolt grips Reiner’s arm in shock.

Three men who were boys last time Bertolt saw them, almost five years ago, or four months, depending on whose measure of time you’re going by.

Armin is taller and has shorter hair. That’s it. Beyond those two things, it’s like somebody’s put in an order for the same model, one size bigger. He’s still got those big, blue, deceptively childlike eyes. Bertolt knows he’s down a leg, but you’d never be able to tell.

Jean is obnoxiously handsome. His clothes and hair—long at the back and spiky on top— are obnoxiously fashionable. He’s Reiner’s height, if not a sliver taller, and Bertolt feels oddly offended by it.

Connie is such a stark departure from the guileless little shrimp Bertolt remembers that he has to look twice. 

He’s caught up. He’s still a few inches shorter than everyone except Armin, but his cue-ball head has lengthened into a surprisingly elegant shape, with a crop of silvery-ash hair where there used to be none. The quiet, sombre cast to his face is incredibly un-Connie-like. There’s loss on him, just like there’s loss on Reiner. 

Of course there is. Sasha died. 

On Paradis Bertolt had developed a soft spot for Connie despite his determination not to feel anything towards anyone, and Reiner, vulnerable to anything that poked at his protective instinct, had gotten even more dangerously attached. He had a self-deprecating, trusting innocence about him that you automatically wanted to shield from harm. 

Seeing Connie standing there, with the light behind his eyes all dimmed out, digs teeth into Bertolt’s heart until he remembers to hate him.

Bertolt understands again, with a feeling that hits like vertigo now that he’s seeing it in person, that all of his old comrades are people in their mid-twenties, with years of experiences he hasn’t had, and that next to them he probably looks like a baby-faced teenager, standing here in the busted boots he hasn’t replaced yet.

While Bertolt has been zoned out, following these grim threads of thought, Reiner has been greeting each ex-comrade with a handshake. There’s an easy rapport, all of them bonded from their time spent chasing Eren from Paradis to Marley to stop the Rumbling. 

“Hi, Bertolt.”

Bertolt realizes that he’s been standing a little behind Reiner, looking at everyone over his partner’s protective shoulder, and not speaking. It all feels torturously familiar. They’ve brought Paradis here with them to Hotel Helos.

He pulls himself together and steps out from his hiding place in Reiner’s shadow.

Armin is the easiest of the three to address, since they’ve already written letters. Bertolt nods in greeting.

“Hi Armin.” He nods to the others. “Connie. Jean.”

“Hi, it’s good to see you.” Connie puts out a hand, and Bertolt shakes it.

“Bert, you look like yourself again. How are you?” Jean’s voice is more hesitant than his words, but he smiles gamely and offers a handshake of his own.

“I’m alright. Thanks.”

He won’t say it’s good to see them. They’ll know he’s lying.

The maitre d’ arrives with a tray, adding hot tea and an assortment platter of cookies to the bread rolls and jam already laid out on the table. Bertolt watches a stream of tea land in his cup. He should steal a couple of forks and buy new boots.

Once the maitre d’ is gone, Armin gets the ball rolling.

“Reiner, Bertolt, I’m really glad you agreed to meet with us. I know the telegram must’ve felt mysterious but I didn’t want to risk getting too much information out in the ether.”

“Armin, why don’t you go ahead and spill what this is about?” Reiner interrupts. He spreads a thick layer of butter onto a bread roll and eats half of it in one bite.

Armin seems knocked off balance by the interruption to his prepared speech, so Jean rolls his eyes and takes over.

“Reiner, you remember the Yeagerists, right?”

“Of course. And I know that they’re in charge of your island now.”

Connie looks angry. “They got their hooks in because of how messed up everything was after the Rumbling. It just kept getting worse. They have a whole line about Paradis being the rightful steward of the world now, and people eat it up.”

“Sounds like a government. So, what about them?”

Armin, having recovered from his derailment, answers. “You’ve probably read the details in the Chronicle. The short of it is, yes, they’ve seized control inside the walls, and their ideology is dangerous. Historia’s in hiding, and anybody who helped stop Eren is being painted as a traitor—meaning all of us.”

“So you can’t go back.”

“We’ve managed a few diplomatic visits, and we have people inside the walls, but they’ve done a pretty good job turning us into enemies of the state. It isn’t safe for us to go back home.”

Bertolt pushes a jammy piece of bread around his plate. The cookies look better. He finds one with lemon icing. Must be nice to still have a home to not be able to go back to.

“We barely got Historia and the kid out, it was a real feat,” Jean drawls, leaning back in his chair, “I don’t think they would’ve killed her, but it wasn’t worth finding out. They were already using her as a puppet, putting out fake statements.”

“What happened to the kid’s father?”

“He’s with the Yeagerists.”

Reiner raises his eyebrows. “So they’re on opposite sides of this? How did that happen?”

Jean shrugs. “It’s messed up, but I don’t think they were ever that close. She needed to have a kid, and he’s just some hick farmer. They use him to make her look bad, but other than that I don’t think she cares about it at all.”

“So, are you going to tell us where she is?”

Connie and Jean look at Armin.

“She’s safe. But I did want to ask you for help on her behalf, I know you were close.”

A loud snap echoes across the table and Bertolt realizes that he’s crushed a piece of gingerbread to crumbs in his fist. He sheepishly eats the pieces, and Reiner bops an apologetic knee against his thigh.

It’s bad enough thinking about Paradis generally, but thinking about the sickening crush that Reiner’s alternate-ego had had on Historia, Krista, whoever, is another level of torture.

Reiner quickly moves the conversation forward. “Is that why we’re here?”

“Well, yes, partially. I was hoping that you could get us a meeting with General Dusko. I’ve tried to get messages to him for a month, but I don’t know whether they’ve been received or intercepted.”

“Why don’t you tell me what you would say at such a meeting, and I’ll decide whether that’s a thing I should consider doing for you.”

Reiner is wearing his military command aura as he says this, and Bertolt goes momentarily weak with infatuation.

Armin looks suitably intimidated. Jean jumps in again to give him time to recover his courage.

“It’s all a mess, Reiner. It’s not just that the Yeagerists took over. The problem is that they’re also doing some shady, scary shit, and,” he nervously licks his lips and quickly scans the restaurant to make sure it’s still empty. His voice falls to a whisper, "they’re saying some of it involves titan serum.”

The air leaves the room.

Armin pours himself another cup of tea and blows on it delicately. 

“Better not to talk about that here. But, yes, something’s wrong. The entire world is going to feel justified in bombing Paradis into the sea. We desperately need to get Historia in front of world leaders, we need to make deals, and we need to make sure that we can go in to retake the country with the full support of other nations. It’s the only way we can save the lives of everyone on the island.”

“And If they do bring back anything like titans, then we could end up…”

Connie trails off. None of them want to say it. But they all know.

With another Rumbling.

“We need you to work with us. Our groups saved the world together. I don’t think any other delegation would have a better chance of making the point that needs to be made. And I’m hoping that if you speak to your General he’ll see the wisdom in it, especially being Eldian, and with Marley so vulnerable.”

Bertolt is on his fifth or sixth cookie. His nerves are falling apart. Reiner leaving for a global diplomatic tour with these people. Their lives consumed, again, by Paradis, and titans, and Armin. There aren’t enough cookies in the world. He reaches for Reiner’s hand under the table.

“And what if our General instead sees wisdom in immediately striking Paradis with the entire weight of the world’s military might, to get rid of the problem altogether?”

Reiner’s jaw is set, his hand squeezing back. Bertolt wonders whether the rest of the table knows that they’re sitting next to a loaded explosive. Connie and Jean look grim, but Armin turns to Reiner with a hint of excitement in his baby blue eyes.

“That’s why we need you, Reiner. You’re our very best chance at stopping all of it, especially now. The world will listen to you. When your promotion was announced it seemed like a good opportunity to make sure that our group had a statement in the same-”

Bertolt breaks in. “But the promotion wasn’t announced to the press before the article in the Chronicle, so how would you have known to…“

There’s a pregnant pause. Armin drops his eyes to the table.

“You’re responsible for the article.” Reiner’s voice is incredulous.

Armins fingers tap nervously against the edge of his teacup.

“I—well,” he looks pleadingly at Connie and Jean, but they look as shocked as Bertolt and Reiner, “yes, in a sense. Somebody sent us the press that came out when you first got out of the hospital, but then that first national article—the “Miracles of Marley” one—came out two weeks ago. So it obviously caused a lot of stir with your leadership, and Annie got the briefing, and-”

“And you leaked it, and you exploited the announcement to make your statement about Historia, and the Neo-Historians, and the Yeagerists to the press. And you tied me and Bertolt up in all of it.”

“There’s a lot of weight to the Warrior name, and your names, especially. It was an opportunity to remind the world that Historia was always on the right side, and that we’re allies despite everything. Even with how many deaths you-”

“But you kept Annie out of it. Her name wasn’t in the article. Or her kill count.”

Armin has enough self-awareness to look guilty.

“When you sent your messages to the General, did you nominate us for your global peace tour?"

Armin doesn’t answer. Reiner throws his hands up.

“My God, Armin! Do you understand the position you’ve put us in? What if I’m sent, because of your interference, and he isn’t? Your press stunt got him forced back into active duty, so we won’t have any fucking choice now if our orders split us up."

Armin shrinks into his seat. Reiner’s voice twists into a snarl.

“You used us.”

“I’m sorry. But Reiner, please, please try to understand, this affects the entire world—“

“Me and Bertolt have heard that before.”

Armin knows that he’s lost control of the situation.

“I really just wanted us to all get together to talk through details before things started to happen. We’ve all done a lot of damage, and I think we owe it to each other t-”

Bertolt, who has been staring numbly into the void of his teacup, laughs out loud. He looks up from his tea leaves to find himself confronted by staring faces.

He lets the venom he’s been holding in his mouth spill quietly onto the table.

“You executed me. That’s not enough?”

Bertolt waits for someone to answer. When nobody does, he elaborates.

”I’m asking. You all judged me, found me guilty, and carried out my death sentence in the space of an hour. Fine. That’s war.” He slots the teacup carefully back onto its saucer. “But you’re talking about what we owe each other. I got the death penalty. What do I still owe you?” 

Why isn’t anyone answering? He pokes at the plate of cookies in the center of the table and selects a few choice treats while he waits for someone to talk. No? He barrels onwards, looking from Armin, to Jean, to Connie, and then back at Armin.

“Did you buy my life with your leg?”

“No of course n-“

“Then why? You killed me, and then I came back to help save the world from your psychotic friend. I have my life back, and you want me to give it up again to help you save your island from more psychopaths? Why did you think I’d want anything to do with this?”

“I was thinking that it’d be more Reiner who-“

Connie and Jean both look at Armin with horror, and Armin almost claps his hand over his mouth to stop the rest of the sentence. Reiner’s face looks savage.

Bertolt boils over. “You manipulative little fuck. Do you hear yourself? Let’s ‘get together to work out the details’. When was the meeting to ask if we wanted to be part of this at all?” 

He picks up his butterknife and coldly points it at Armin, in judgment.

“You’re worse than Marley. At least Marley never pretends we aren’t pawns. At least they pay us to be propaganda.”

“Bertolt, I didn’t-”

Too late. Bertolt is on a tear and has no interest in whatever Armin’s about to say. He flings the butterknife at Jean. It leaves a long, jammy smear down the center of his fancy shirt. He points down at his thigh.

“How about this, Jean. Get Armin his leg back. If that’s the debt then let’s settle up. Whatever it takes.”

Armin makes a last attempt. “It’s completely understandable that you’d feel-“ 

“No. Don’t talk about how I feel. What I need is for you to tell me exactly what I have to do, to convince you to leave us out of your ego-soaked, pain-in-the-ass plans to put yourselves at the center of saving humanity again.”

He can see the maitre d’ oozing towards their table out of the corner of his eye. He’s done anyway. He shoves his chair back and stands.

“You won. Right? You killed me and you lived. You still have your godforsaken island and I’ll never go home again. You ate my first life, and you’ve annexed my second. I have nothing. Except Reiner. And you’re taking him too. Fine. I guess I lose. Again.”

He pockets a few more cookies and flips his teacup like a spiteful cat. Armin starts to get up but Reiner pushes him back down into his seat. Bertolt turns on his heel and leaves, walking fast and managing to restrain himself from spitting at the maitre d’ as he passes. Reiner is calling out behind him but he can’t stop or he’ll explode. He bursts out of the cool, echoing marble tomb of the hotel lobby onto the busy sidewalk and lets himself get swallowed up by the river of pedestrians.

The afternoon sun beats down on the people leaving their jobs in shops and offices, and the sidewalk is loud with chatter and footsteps. It’s the worst time of day for traffic. Automobiles and the occasional horse-drawn cart clog the intersections. By the market, a row of refugees in worn clothes are selling handmade crafts and items grabbed from donation bins, while luckier Marleyans, from cities that weren’t flattened to dust, rush past, trying not to get accosted.

Bertolt walks for a while, riding the comforting wave of urban chaos and the receding adrenaline of his outburst. It had been wholly satisfying, but he has no money for the trolley, and no idea where home is relative to here. 

So, what now, idiot?

He picks a direction at random.

Hah, but did you see their faces? Serves them right.

Exactly. He’s right to be angry. It all needed to be said. Hypocrites. He’s got nothing to be embarrassed about. He didn’t embarrass himself. 

He did throw a butterknife, but compared to being murdered by all your friends, what’s a little bit of jam down the front of a tacky shirt. He did Jean a favor.

Who cares what they think, anyway.

He probably didn’t have to flip the teacup.

Reiner must hate him right now.

Shit.

Sniveling in public is not behavior worthy of a soldier. Bertolt feels like some love-spurned adolescent, walking aimlessly down the sidewalk with tears rolling down his burning face. He slides out of the crowd into an alleyway and squats behind a pile of crates so he can finish crying in peace. 

Chapter Text

It’s almost eight in the evening when Bertolt finally finds his way home, depleted to his last reserves from hours of walking and from the harrowing ordeal of having had to ask multiple strangers for directions. The cookies in his pocket have sustained him. He owes them his life. He’s ready for a hot shower and a good long sulk in bed, but when he gets to the top of the stoop he realizes he doesn’t have a key. Right. Reiner has the key.

Of course he does. Why not. 

Bertolt drops onto the stoop, tired and resigned, and curls up with his arms on his knees, and his head on his arms, waiting like an abandoned puppy for Reiner to come find him.

It feels like a lot of time passes before his stupor is broken by a soft voice saying his name. He lifts his face gratefully but instead of Reiner he’s looking at a pair of huge, sorrowful globes, still too big for their owner, even with his new grown-up face.

“Bertolt…”

It’s too much right now. Bertolt puts his head back into his arms.

“Please go away, Connie.”

“Reiner said to come see if you were here.”

“I’m here. Please go.”

“I said if you were here I’d wait with you til he got back.”

“Don’t. I’m fine. Go.”

“He chased you but Armin tried to stop him, then you were already gone. I guess he came back here and waited, but you didn’t show up so he came back to the hotel, tearing his hair out.”

“Okay.”

“Scaredest I’ve ever seen him, even fighting titans. That tuxedo in the lobby told him to keep his voice down, and he ripped the bell off the reception desk and smashed it through a wall. All the rich people ran screaming. It was pretty great.”

Oh. That’s not good. Hope there weren’t any reporters. Bertolt lets the silence hang, hoping that if he stays still enough Connie will forget that he’s there and leave. Instead there’s a sigh and the warmth of a body taking a seat on the steps beside him. He knows without looking that he’s being scanned by giant searchlight eyeballs.

“Tch.”

What's that supposed to mean?

“I didn’t remember you being this young.”

Bertolt doesn’t have any response to this. He counts his heartbeats.

“When you walked in it was like I saw a ghost. You’re exactly the same except skinnier.”

Tactful as always, Connie. Good thing they made you a diplomat.

“It’s crazy looking at you. You were just a kid. I mean, you are just a kid. Sorry I don’t know how it works. I knew you were gonna be there but I didn’t think about that part, I guess it’s just been a long time.”

Bertolt replies by accident.

“It hasn’t been a long time. I just woke up.”

Connie considers this.

“Guess I didn’t think about that either.”

“The last thing I saw was all of you letting a titan kill me. And I died. And then I woke up. And here we are. It’s only been four months. And I’m supposed to…”

No. Not doing this again. He stops talking. Through the circle of his arms, he can see Connie worrying at the step with the toe of his boot.

“What Armin did isn’t right. I didn’t know about the news stuff.”

“No. It’s not right.”

“Jean and I would’ve asked you first. But Armin makes plans and does things, and then you can’t do anything.”

“I don’t want to talk to you about this.”

“Bertolt, I’m really sorry.”

Bertolt’s eyes ache. 

“Sorry for what? Feeding me to a titan? Watching me die? Leaving the pieces of me to rot on a rooftop? Forgetting me? Calling me skinny? Destroying my home? Taking Reiner away? Letting Armin steal whatever shred of control I thought I’d have over my life?”

“Yeah.”

Bertolt wrestles with the hundred possible responses. There isn’t room in his mouth for everything else he’d like to say. He doesn’t have energy left inside him right now to say any of it anyway. He’s talked about himself enough for one day. 

He says something else that’s been on his mind.

“Connie. I’m sorry about Sasha.”

“Yeah.”

They sit until pounding footsteps announce Reiner’s approach up the block. He groans with exhausted relief when he sees Bertolt on the steps with his head still in his arms, and drops to his knees to enfold him. Connie nods at him when he catches his eye, puts his hands in his pockets, and walks away.

***

Reiner pulls him to the bedroom. Bertolt lies back and lets him slide his boots and socks off. He doesn’t protest when Reiner unbuttons his uncomfortable clothes. He’s so tired. But…

Bertolt’s arms shoot out to grab Reiner's shirt collar in both hands. He forces him onto his back with strength that comes from nowhere and clambers on top of him, crushing their lips together and twisting his hands hard enough into Reiner’s shirt to send buttons flying. 

“Bertolt!”

Bertolt doesn’t let him talk. He thrusts his tongue between Reiner’s lips, and struggles with the fly of his pants with one hand. Reiner catches his wrist.

“B. Stop.”

Bertolt fights to free his arm, but Reiner holds it firm until he gives up, and then pulls him down to lie against his chest, arms tight around Bertolt’s body. 

Bertolt drops his forehead to the bed next to Reiner’s head.

“Are you gonna leave?”

“What do you think? Do you think I’d leave you for them?”

“What if you have to?”

“I won’t.”

Bertolt leans up on his arms and kisses him again, less frantically, and when he tries to unbutton the rest of Reiner’s shirt, Reiner lets him, and helps him push it down and away. 

He presses his lips into the crook of Reiner’s neck, and tastes salt while he moves up the side of his face and around again to take his lip between his teeth, dragging his fingers up through his hair. Tugging where it’s long enough to grip. Reiner gasps, and Bertolt claims his open mouth—deep, probing kisses that send heat down both of their throats.

When Reiner reaches for him, Bertolt pushes his hand away and holds it against the bed. He presses a line down the center of his body, driving the heel of his hand and the pads of his fingers into ridges of muscle, and over the curve of a hipbone, slipping under his waistband where Reiner is straining against his trousers and aching for something to move against. Bertolt feels him tense between his thighs and strokes slowly, building heat, until the powerful body underneath him becomes pliant and open to his touch. He takes him. He makes him moan. He leaves bite marks across his chest.

Bertolt fucks Reiner like he’s begging, because he is.

***

Bertolt exhales and watches his smoke trail stretch and thin as it floats away.

Reiner still has his packet of cigarettes from the ceremony. He must have been trying to steady his nerves while he searched for Bertolt, because there are only a few left. They sit side by side on the sill of the tall open window with their feet out on the fire escape, Bertolt wrapped in a sheet, and Reiner unconcernedly wrapped in nothing but his shorts and his garland of bruises. They share. 

Bertolt passes the cigarette over.

“Sorry. I wasn’t ready.”

“I shouldn’t have let you come.”

“You don’t let me or not let me. I said I was going and I did.”

They watch the city for a while. Reiner blows smoke rings while Bertolt looks on, impressed. He makes an attempt, but doesn’t know how to do it, and Reiner laughs at the fish-faces he makes while he’s trying.

“I made us look stupid. I sounded like some brat. It’s embarrassing. I should have just kept my mouth shut and left.”

“You said everything I wanted to, but better than I would’ve. I was starstruck.”

Bertolt snorts and punches Reiner in the arm.

“I liked the part when you shoved Armin into his chair with one hand.”

“I liked when you stole all the good cookies.”

“They really were good. Everyone must think I’m a toddler, though.”

“They can go to hell. I hope they all wept into the shitty little tea cakes you left them with. I was right behind you, how did you disappear so fast? I only went back because I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

“Connie said you threw a bell through the wall.”

“If Armin wasn’t hiding from me I’d have thrown him instead.”

These malicious words are as sweet as “I love you” to Bertolt’s ears. He sidles up closer, and pokes gently at a dark bruise on Reiner’s shoulder. Reiner twists his head to kiss his fingers. Bertolt sighs.

“Am I supposed to let you go with them? Is that the right thing?”

“We go together or we don’t go.”

“Then, I don’t know what the right thing is.”

“Me neither.”

Bertolt takes a last meditative drag from the cigarette and stubs it out on the bricks by his legs.

“If I learned one thing from my miserable, short, first life, it’s that when somebody tells you it’s your job to save humanity, your safest bet is to tell them where to shove it.”

***

Bertolt sleeps fitfully. 

In his dream, he’s falling through a vortex of darkness, where fishbowls of stars float apart from each other, each half-full of sand. He tries to pull himself back up out of the dream, or at least out of the vortex, but instead he hits one of the bubbles face-first and goes crashing into a dune like a meteor, getting sand up his nose.

He rises to his feet, spluttering. The sand stretches away from him in a perfect disc, a sheer precipice at his back where the surface of the bubble holds back the void. It feels familiar, and yet deeply wrong.

There’s a series of structures just over the dunes—he can see the top of a building, and what looks like a patch of trees, even though the leaves are all sand-colored. For lack of other options, he walks towards them.

It’s a bewildering sight. Jutting up from the flatness of the sand, is a three-storied brick tenement building that looks just like a million others you might find in Carbiria or Liberio, except for the small garden surrounding it, separated from the sidewalk with a fence. Around it, sculptures of people, animals and trees a create an eerie, frozen tableau of a city street. He passes through the gate, noticing an anachronistically opulent fountain, with the nude figure of a small, lovely woman at the center, letting streams of sand pour from her hands into a round pool.

He stops at the bottom of the stoop, mouth falling open as he’s arrested by something even more unexpected. 

This is a dream. But it doesn’t feel like a dream. It feels completely real. There’s sand under his feet. There’s air, of a sort, moving around him. And at the top of the steps, framed in the doorway, is a slender, freckled figure, barefoot and wearing a simple white slip, staring back at him with her head tilted to one side and a cigarette in one hand.

“Hello, Mister Bertolt. Impressive cryfuck. Never in the history of humanity has there been a pair of drama queens so perfectly matched. You two are a mess.”

Ymir takes a drag of her cigarette. Instead of smoke, a trail of sparkling sand spins tiny tornadoes around her. 

“It’s adorable. It really is. But give a girl a warning. It feels like every time I take a peek through the curtains I end up with a faceful of your husband’s nethers.”

Chapter Text

The Paths

Ymir opens her eyes.

The Paths? This place just can’t get enough of me. 

Oh. Hello, Zeke. 

You look sad. Did you miss me so much you just had to bring me back? That’s sweet. It’s not mutual. I’m not trying to be hurtful, I just wanted to let you know, so you can improve yourself.

Zeke doesn’t give her the reaction she’s looking for. Maybe he can’t hear her. 

Ymir is surrounded by others, but the only one she recognizes is Marcel.

This is awkward. I’m sorry for what happened. I wasn’t myself. 

Marcel doesn’t seem to hear her. He’s standing next to a man with slicked-back hair, and he’s got his hand raised to his mouth as he stares up at him. Even with his shadowed, dead eyes, his face looks stricken.

Bertolt Hoover!

Bertolt is far away from everyone else, standing next to Armin, looking tearful and irritated. 

Don’t cry, Mister Bertolt, it’ll all work out in the end. I guess they got you too.

She scans the crowd.

No Reiner?

Reiner is a mentally deranged meathead with an extra bicep where his brain should be, but seeing Bertolt here, dead without him, feels wrong. They’re a set.

Historia.

Everyone else here is either a stranger or annoying, but she wouldn’t mind running over to Bertolt. They can stand next to each other and throw sidelong looks when somebody says something worth making fun of. She tries to call out, preparing an appropriate barb, but she’s having trouble making noise. Their eyes finally meet, and an acknowledgement passes between them.

She stops. She can feel her Titan, and it’s not acting the way she remembers it’s supposed to. So that’s the reason Zeke called her. 

Well, yes, okay, that does seem urgent.

Armin is talking. She only half-listens (titans, save the world, etc.) because it’s much more entertaining to watch Bertolt crack under the strain of enduring his speech. His eyes, deep in their black sockets, get more tortured and impatient with every passing word.

“Lend me your strength!”

Bertolt finally breaks. You pompous blond fucks! Lend me yours!

Ymir laughs wildly.

Good for you, Bertolt! You tell them. Let’s go see what’s going on.

***

They’re back in the Paths, and they’ve won the battle—hurrah. This changes nothing for Ymir. But if it means that Historia is safer now, somewhere out there, then she’ll take it.

One by one, the other shifters return to places where you can feel the invisible pull of the River’s current.

Marcel and Porco only have eyes for each other. She remembers now who Porco is—the Warrior who’d eaten her, and the boy she’d seen over and over again in Marcel’s memories. 

Marcel reaches up to touch his younger brother’s cheek. They speak without speaking, tears glittering on their faces, and walk away back towards the River. She watches them go.

The sight hurts her. Porco being here in the Paths before his time is not at all what Marcel had wanted. But then Marcel kicks a pile of sand at Porco—it gets all over his jacket and in his boots—and Porco yells and tries to punch him, and they go running away across the dunes while Marcel laughs over his shoulder. Porco’s form shimmers as he gives furious pursuit—sometimes the man he died as, and sometimes the little boy his brother left in Marley. When they finally reach the River’s edge they look at each other and grin. They take a few steps back—on your marks, get set, GO—and then charge forward, cannonballing into the current side by side, like they’re competing to see who can make the biggest splash. They burst into motes of light that dance brightly around each other, keeping the chase game going while the River carries them away.

Ymir keeps her eyes on their ecstatic, sparkling particles, until they’re too far away and her vision is too blurred for her to see them anymore.

That’s it, then.

She sniffles, feeling dejected. She doesn’t have anyone to jump into the River with. She’s here all alone. But maybe Bertolt will go with her. Anyway, she’d like to say goodbye to him. If they’re going back to the River, it doesn’t seem likely that they’ll be back here again. Although the Paths really do seem to love calling her back, so who is she to say.

She searches the dunes. Where on earth has he gotten to?

She sees a tall figure racing away in the opposite direction from the River.

Bertolt looks like he’s on a mission. How does he know where he’s going? Ymir decides to follow him. Anything to put off going back into the River. She runs over the sand.

She yells after Bertolt, but he can’t hear her—or he’s pretending not to hear her. She loses sight of him when he crests the rim of a dune.

Damn, that stringy loser is fast.

By the time she finally finds him again, he’s already in the middle of a conversation.

Since I’m already here, I have a question about Armin. I think that some of me is still alive out there. I could feel it, especially when Armin was here in the Paths, but even now I can still feel him moving around, like I felt when my Titan was moving. But it’s stronger.

I do see where you’re going with this, says the Founder. Interesting. I’m busy right now though, I have to wrap everything up, because it’s all over. So, walk beside me.

Ymir sees where he’s going with it too, although she doesn’t have any idea about the mechanics of it. She knows it won’t work for her, because Porco was here, so that means somebody ate him, and that probably means that there’s nothing of Ymir left alive outside anymore.

The Founder strolls next to Bertolt, talking, and as she goes she pulls sections of sand behind her like she’s tearing up a hallway carpet. Each huge swath of dunes rolls up into itself and shrinks, and becomes a grain of sand that the Founder drops into a little leather bag tied to her waist. Here and there, she reaches up and does the same with a section of stars.

Ymir follows as closely as she can without being seen, keeping a close eye on where the dunes are being furled away around her. She doesn’t want to know what will happen if she gets marooned on some stray patch of sand floating in the void, or if, gods forbid, she falls down into it. Being stuck in the void without even any stars to look at sounds unbearably boring. Even more boring than the River.

The Founder and Bertolt seem to come to some agreement. He’s crying again and making excited, thankful gestures with his scarecrow limbs, which tells Ymir that he’s getting what he asked for.

The Founder walks away to the right and blinks out of existence, as though she’s passed through a door. Almost instantly she reappears from the left, carrying a disembodied leg over her shoulder like a garden rake. Presumably Armin’s. 

This dead-eyed, ragged little girl in a soiled sack dress carrying a severed human leg should be a pretty morbid sight, but all Ymir thinks is, “Aw, she looks just like an even tinier Historia.”

Historia.

Bertolt sits in the sand across from the Founder with his knees drawn up to his chest while the Founder pulls the leg into bloody chunks with her bare hands. She divides those chunks into smaller pieces, and keeps going that way until she has two piles of meat, one much smaller than the other. She scoops the bigger pile into her skirt, walks to the edge of the sand, and dumps it into the void.

Bertolt looks disturbed. He pokes gingerly at the little pile of what Ymir assumes is Bertolt meat with a ghostly finger.

The Founder returns, multi-tasking, pulling up more dunes and stars and gathering them into her bag. There’s almost nothing left of the Paths now.

She slaps Bertolt’s hand away and bends over what’s left. Ymir can’t see exactly what she’s doing, but she can see glowing, and the pile of minced Bertolt is definitely getting bigger. The Founder stands, and there’s a pale pinkish-yellow Bertolt, all lanky and naked, laid out on the sand like a broken puppet. 

Bertolt helps the Founder drag it to the edge, and she uses one little slippered foot to unceremoniously boot it over the precipice.

Ymir vaults over her dune and runs faster than she’s ever run. She’ll make it.

Bertolt stares down into the void after his body, and then back at the Founder with a look that says Um, are we sure this’ll- and the Founder gives him a swift kick to the backside, sending him flailing. Ymir shoots past and flings herself over the edge, just a split second behind him, catching a glimpse of the Founder’s impassive face out of the corner of her eye as she passes.

They’re falling through endless, billowing blackness. Ymir throws her arms around Bertolt’s neck and latches herself against his back. She startles the hell out of him and he grabs her arms trying to pull her off, straining to look back at her as they fall. His big fish pond eyes goggle as his lips form her name, but she can’t hear him, and suddenly they explode through the surface of a glowing pool at the bottom of whatever it is they’ve been falling into. There’s a flash, and something like a giant fist made of lightning wraps around them, and she feels like she’s being squeezed down into a grain of sand, and then nothing.

Chapter Text

This…is somewhat of a letdown.

Something’s moving around her again. Another titan? Did Bert manage to fall into a Titan, somehow? She can’t make anything move. She can see out, and feel movement, and she can hear ragged, pained breathing. That’s pretty much it. This isn’t much of an improvement over what happened before on the skeleton.

She can see a hand pressed into the dirt. Nobody’s fingers should ever be that atrociously long. That hand can only belong to Bertolt.

So this is how it is.

It seems like he’s in pain. He’s struggling to stand up. Ymir feels like she’s riding a newborn giraffe. He tries to take a step and falls hard to the ground. He keeps trying but this is obviously not going to work.

What about crawling? she suggests helpfully, Can we crawl?

He tries, and sort of manages, but he’s groaning and she can see his hands getting torn up.

There’s a lump over there in the ashes. She tries to nudge Bertolt towards it. Let’s go towards that.

***

The Bubble

While Bertolt is asleep, too damaged to be all the way alive yet, Ymir spends what feels like a very, very long time alone in the Paths.

That’s where she is, somehow. She’s on a floating island of sand in a bubble of stars. It’s not the whole Paths—it’s like a miniature one-person Paths. Or a miniature one-person prison that just happens to have an awful lot of sand.

With Bertolt’s eyes closed, there’s no way for her to see out into the world, although if she concentrates she can hear the clink of medical instruments and the low grumble of conversation. The voice she hears most consistently is the one you’d expect, and so she gets much better at understanding Reiner.

He is absolutely obsessed with his bedridden, beanpole of a boyfriend. He’s always nearby, talking to him about this and that. He tells him all about what’s been happening in the world. He says “I love you” and “I’m sorry” and “please wake up" about a thousand times a day, and he cries constantly. It’s hardly dignified, but she admits that it’s also rather sweet. And when Reiner reads books to Bertolt, even though he’s sleeping and can’t hear, she gets to listen, and it helps to keep her sane.

Out of sheer boredom, she experiments with sand. At first, she builds little castles and pyramids, and writes her name and Historia’s name in gigantic letters across the entire width of her island. Once, in desperation, she writes the word “HELP” and curls into the center of the P, shedding resentful tears because there’s nobody out there to read it

She eventually learns how to make the sand hold itself together so she can sculpt bigger things, or things that wouldn’t be able to hold their shape if they were made out of plain old, normal sand. A comfortable chair is the first thing she sculpts using mostly her mind instead of just her hands.

By the time Bertolt finally wakes up, she’s got a cozy sand apartment with a kitchen table, and a bed, and bowls of fruit that taste like nothing.

***

Five years ago, while Ymir was imprisoned in the belly of a Marleyan military base, waiting to die, they’d let her have a radio—and she’d gotten addicted. 

Some of the music didn’t really sound like music at first. Not like the bells and grim chanting that the cult had “treated” her to when she was being a fake goddess, or the fiddle-and-concertina noise that you could hear when you walked by taverns. The new music was more complicated. But once she was used to it, it had been pretty pleasant to lie around on her cot, staring up at the white ceiling and feeling sorry for herself while a jazz singer wailed at her through the radio about lost love.

And then there were serialized radio dramas. 

Gods above, she was certain they were the pinnacle of human invention. Actors’ voices so rich and alive you believed it was all really happening, right there in your cell. Gunshots, creaking doors, ghosts wailing in your ears.

Her favorite was Gumshoe & Gal.

Gumshoe & Gal followed Sam, a private eye, and Gal, who’d started as his secretary but became his unofficial partner in crime busting, as they solved big-city mysteries—black widow murders, kidnappings, and jewel heists.

Sometimes one of them would land in a tough spot—for example, tied to a chair by a gravel-voiced (and usually Eldian, one couldn’t help but note) gangster—and the other would save them in the nick of time.

“What took ya so long, Gal? Help me with these ropes, wouldja?”

“I had a pie in the oven, Sam. Help yourself—I just had my nails done.”

Most episodes were a single mystery, all tied up in a neat bow, but there was also an overarching plot with a nemesis lurking around in the background. While most of Ymir’s thoughts on her last day alive were centered around her unbearable longing for Historia, and her hope that the sedative would work, she also thought a lot about Gumshoe & Gal.

I am well and truly peeved, she thought, as a military medic slid a needle into her skin, that I’m never going to know how it ends. I hope that Gal and Sam don’t end up together. It’d really cheapen the friendship.

She wondered if there would be radios in the afterlife.

There aren’t any radios in the afterlife. There is, however, a tall window in her sand apartment, with sand curtains that she can close when she doesn’t feel like seeing out of Bertolt’s eyes. And when she does feel like it, she can open the curtains, and put her feet up on the windowsill, and smoke fake cigarettes like the ones in radio ads, and watch the serialized drama of Bertolt and Reiner’s pathetic existence.

***

PAY ATTENTION TO ME!

Bertolt doesn’t know she’s here inside him, and he doesn’t remember what happened in the Paths. It’s been weeks since he left the hospital, and he still hasn’t been able to hear anything she’s said, like he did in the beginning when she helped him crawl over to Armin in the ashes.

She tries everything. She writes messages in the sand and tries to will Bertolt’s inner eye towards them. She fights to seize control over some part of his body, but all of her efforts to make him drop his bowl full of coffee fail. She finally simply resorts to standing on her front steps every day and yelling at him until she feels too emotionally exhausted and hopeless to continue.

He listens to an awful lot of music. Ymir doesn’t mind, she enjoys it, actually, but she wishes he would just sit in silence once in a while so she could keep trying to make him hear her.

But surprisingly, it’s music that eventually opens a pathway. He’s listening to one of his more pretentious favorites, a confusing thing that goes on too long and has so many instruments that she can’t even say with confidence that it’s music at all. She’s about to bitterly close the curtains when a strange, new vibration runs through the sand.

The music is shifting the sand. 

It’s opening something inside him. The music is reminding him. She doesn’t know why, but it doesn’t matter why. She runs outside.

Remember, Bertolt? You were in the Paths! You went out to fight with your titan! Armin was there! I was there! Marcel was there! You talked to the Founder!

She feels his mind rumbling back at her, all confusion, but something must click, because he keeps replaying the record, and the connection—though trembling and delicate—remains open. When he goes to sleep that night she keeps yelling, hoping that her words will break through in his dreams, and she can tell from his somnolent mumbling that he’s dreaming of sand.

The next morning, as he sits with Reiner over breakfast, she finally hears the words she’s been longing for, and they make her cry with victory and relief.

"I'm starting to remember things from before I woke up naked in the desert being choked out by titan ash. I know where I was.”

"Where were you?"

"The Paths.”

He still can’t hear her directly, and he doesn’t remember the Founder, or the long fall with Ymir clinging to his back, but it’s certainly progress.

***

What’s Historia been doing, all this time? 

She’s alive and she’s a queen, according to Reiner. As she should be. Nobody is more obviously royal than Historia. 

Ymir imagines Historia on a throne, with sapphires that match her eyes on glimmering threads all woven through her golden hair, under a crown. And she imagines herself standing by the throne, ready to defend Historia’s honor and rescue her from assassins, as necessary.

Reiner had actually managed to deliver Ymir’s letter to Historia, on the same day Bertolt died. Points for Reiner.

Ymir overheard some of Bertolt and Reiner’s memories of that day. The conversation had been so agonizing, and Reiner had been so broken, that she’d eventually shut the curtain to give them some privacy. 

Bertolt hadn’t had the luxury of a sedative. And Reiner hadn’t had the luxury of dying alongside Bertolt so that he wouldn’t have to drag himself around the earth for four years like a lion with a gushing wound in its neck, mourning his loss.

Did Historia mourn for her the way Reiner had mourned for Bertolt?

Does Historia still think of her at all?

***

The Telegram

Poor Bertolt. 

It’s not as though she has any life of her own to worry about, so, yes, fine, she’s gotten invested. 

Bertolt is just trying to live, making the best of his second chance with Reiner, not hurting anyone, and of course they aren’t going to let him have that. She reads the telegram from Armin, held in his trembling hand, and feels so badly for him that it makes her want to be vicious.

Stupid. Did you really think that you were free, just because the world almost ended?

Bertolt tells her to fuck off.

***

The Article

Bertolt’s hysteria about Reiner hypothetically going to war is going to distract him from the only thing in this article that Ymir cares about. 

She doesn’t need to read more about her pet homosexuals and their patriotic romance, or whatever propaganda the military leadership of the current era is spewing. She’s already laughed herself giddy at the photo of Bertolt looking like consumptive child bride and made a perfect sand copy of it to hang above her kitchen table. Now only one thing matters: “The Queen’s present whereabouts remain unknown.”

Ymir stands on the front steps of her apartment and hollers furiously at the top of her lungs, sending her voice hammering up into the dome of Bertolt’s mind. 

Stop being unhinged. Nobody anywhere said there’s a war. But where’s Historia? What does the Historia part mean? 

She’s surprised when a tumbling echo carries his thoughts back down to her.

It means something, and it definitely has to do with Armin. Armin is all over whatever this is. 

She yells up again.

We need to put the pieces together. They’re all right here.

***

Historia Historia Historia Historia Historia Historia Historia.

***

As the date of Bertolt’s meeting with Armin grows closer, Ymir gets frantic. She needs to establish direct contact. He might not ask the right questions. He’s her special, skinny, sweetheart and he’s definitely smarter than Reiner, but he’s not smarter than HER, and they need each other if they’re going to find out where Historia is.

She quadruples her efforts. She sends him dreams about sand. She yells and hollers, and builds gigantic obscene sculptures trying to get his attention. She throws things off the edge of her island, hoping they’ll hit him in the gut on the way down. But he’s so filled with anxiety and his own frenzied inner voice that there’s no space for her. 

The day comes, and he hasn’t said anything back to her in a week.

She watches the disastrous meeting, drowning in impotence. She gets information, but not all the information she wants. At least Historia is safe for now. She’s sick to hear about “the kid”, and then delighted to hear that the father is a worthless non-entity. She doesn’t enjoy Bertolt’s incredible tantrum and his dramatic butterknife throw nearly half as much as she should.

As he stalks out of the hotel, having probably burned their bridges with the people who are their very best hope for getting to Historia, she seethes at him.

So, what now, idiot.

He picks a direction at random. He’s miserable. She can feel his heart beating, and the moving image in the window starts to blur.

He’s cocked this up immensely, it’s true, but they really were acting like a bunch of heartless monsters. Somebody could have addressed the “we let a titan eat you” in the room first, instead of treating Bertolt like a pet dog that Reiner had brought along to lunch. 

He’s been through a lot.

Bertolt’s new life is being taken from him, to be put into the service of Armin’s plans. Those plans are going to help Historia, so she’s fully in favor of them, but— 

She doesn’t like feeling Bertolt’s pain shivering through the sand like this.

She takes pity on him.

Hah, but did you see their faces? she says, kindly. Serves them right. Who cares what they think, anyway.

She’ll start calling him names again when he’s feeling a little less fragile. And she’ll figure out how to gently help him see why it really is necessary that they work with Armin.

***

She checks in later in the evening to make sure that Bertolt has found his way home, but regrets her intrusion when she accidentally catches the boys working through their feelings, stickily.

She slams the curtain shut and resolves to leave them alone for a day or two while she plans her next steps, which makes it extra shocking when that very same night she sees a lonely figure standing at the edge of the sand. 

It can’t be. 

Why now? 

How?

She stands in the doorway and watches his slow approach. He comes through her garden gate and stops dead when he sees her.

She takes a long, shaky, drag from her fake cigarette.

“Hello, Mister Bertolt.”

Chapter Text

Bertolt stares and stares at Ymir’s smirking face, and at the tornadoes of sparkling smoke around her. His breath comes in short gasps.

Ymir watches the color drain from Bertolt’s skin. Is he going to have a heart attack? Is that possible? If he has one in here, will he die again out there, in his sleep?

But Bertolt’s face crumples, he charges forward with a wail, and he throws his arms around her, lifting her off her feet and holding her way too tight against his chest with his face buried in her shoulder, while he spins and spins on the sandy stoop, sobbing her name.

***

It takes her forever to calm him down. Questions and blubbering apologies and “I can’t believe this is real is this real are you sure” tumble out of his mouth in an incoherent torrent. Finally, she just drags him over to the fountain and pushes him in, so he can calm his weepy ass down in a bath of the warmest sand she can cook up for him, with her beautiful nude goddess Historia statue pouring sand down his back like a comforting waterfall.

While he recovers, she tells him all about it. She gives him the short version, and outlines some of the different ways she’s been trying to make herself useful.

***

Once he’s regained some control over his faculties, Bertolt comes inside and they sit across from each other at her kitchen table. He glares at her, pointing up at the perfect replica of his horrible, fainting-violet newspaper photo, hanging in an ornate frame.

“Why, Ymir?”

She cackles. She’s missed having someone around to be annoyed with her.

“How could I not? It’s my prized possession. It makes me smile whenever I look at it, how could you begrudge me this one small entertainment?”

“It sounds like you’ve had plenty of entertainment,” he says accusingly, “How much have you seen?”

She opens the curtains to show him how it works, but the window is black since he’s in here right now and asleep out there.

“I close the curtains when I get tired of you both, or when you’re being disgusting.”

“God. Can you see my thoughts?”

“No, but sometimes if you’re really upset or scared, it comes through the sand, and then I can tell. But your thoughts are safe. Unless you’re thinking right at me, like when we talked even though you didn’t know we were talking. There is something I’m curious about, though.”

“What?”

An alarming little smile drifts across her lips, filling Bertolt with trepidation. 

“How come you so rarely—how to put this—conquer Reiner?”

“YMIR.” 

“Because it seems like-”

“I THOUGHT YOU WEREN’T WATCHING.”

“I’m not. But sometimes I open the curtains and there you are—or, to be more accurate, there he is—and I slam them shut again, but the glimpses do add up to an overall impression. Don’t be mad at me, I’m the one who’s scarred from it. Do I seem like the kind of girl who would actually enjoy walking in on two sweaty boys acting classless?”

“God. You’re a pain. Anyway it’s not like I never do it. It’s just…not our usual? Actually tonight I—wait, is that why you’re asking? Were you—whatever. I don’t overthink it.”

“Please. You’ve never not overthought anything in your entire life. I’m so bored and lonely, Bertolt, share.”

She’s right, of course, and skilled at the art of emotional coercion. Bertolt tries to convey his thoughts in a way that doesn’t make him vomit from embarrassment.

“It’s—agh. I hate you. I don’t mean that. Okay. Context. It’s like, when we were stuck on Paradis, he was trying so hard to be this strong leader who could take care of us—and by us I mean mostly me.”

“Big brother of the 104th, I remember.”

“But you remember how his mind split into pieces. His brain is a torture chamber, worse than mine. But under all the mess, he wants to protect, and he wants to lead, because then he can be a shield and take all the blame for everything.” 

“So Reiner is a masochist with a savior complex.” 

“What? I don’t know, I just know that when he does all that, he for once gets to feel good about himself. I like that I can sometimes give that to him, even if it’s just through, uh—”

“Fraternization.” 

“Yeah. And,” he blushes pathetically, “I like fighting him. I like that he can win fair-and-square without me letting him. I’ve always been taller than everyone. He was the only one bigger and stronger than me. Okay, is that enough? Have you humiliated me enough? Can I stop now?”

“It’s nowhere near enough, but I’ll let you off the hook. For now.”

“Thank you.”

Bertolt rolls a sand apple back and forth on the table.

“It’s nice though, talking like this. Even if you’re a twisted fucking sadist. I always wished we’d found each other sooner. We could’ve talked blondes. It might’ve been less lonely.”

“Well, now you might be stuck with me in a bubble inside your head forever. Careful what you wish for.”

Bertolt rolls the problem around in his mind, like the apple.

“We need to figure this out. There must be something we can do.”

Ymir glows inside, but carefully tempers her expectations.

Bertolt stops fondling his apple and looks worried again.

“Ymir?”

“Yes, Mister Bertl?”

“How do I get out of here.”

“Huh.”

***

It must be getting close to morning, and there’ll surely be all kinds of howling dramatics if Reiner can’t wake Bertolt up, so they go out to the sand and try things. He pushes against the surface of bubble, but it’s too terrifying, and falling through the void can’t be the answer, can it? That’s a last resort. They go up onto Ymir’s roof and he tries to use dream logic - jumping or flying the way he came. He falls off the building, screaming all the way down. Thank God nothing can really hurt you in the Paths. Ymir tries shouting through the window at his sleeping body.

When they finally figure it out, they feel ridiculous. Bertolt closes his eyes and thinks hard about waking up, focusing on feeling his body out in the real world, and he starts to fade.

“Oh. We’re idiots.”

“Okay, well, run off. I’ll be here.”

“Okay, bye. Or, I guess it’s not bye. Talk to you? Don’t watch me fuck Reiner, please. I beg you.”

“Just yell “I’M ABOUT TO FUCK REINER” so that I know to close the curtains.”

“What a turn on.”

“You know him well enough to know that it probably will be.”

“…you’re the worst.”

“Bertolt!”

“Yeah?”

“Try to come back tomorrow, or the day after. Soon. We have lots to talk about.”

“I’ll try. I’ll listen for you, too.” He shuts his eyes again and dissipates, like a dewdrop drying in the sun.

***

Bertolt doesn’t gasp himself awake, like from a nightmare. He’s not exhausted from being up talking all night. He awakens slowly and gently, and when he opens his eyes he feels better rested than he has in weeks and weeks. And it’s Saturday, which is nice, because he and Reiner don’t have anything in particular to do.

Chapter Text

When a knock and a voice calling “Telegram!” interrupt their Saturday afternoon, Reiner and Bertolt are sprawled across the bed, still in their shorts like a couple of bums, drinking beer out of bottles and looking at apartment listings in the newspaper.

“You answer it. That kid hates me. I tipped him with a peppermint.”

Reiner guffaws and jogs off, pulling a sweater over his head. He comes back with the telegram in his hand, unopened. The two look down at it, and then at each other. Reiner folds it into a paper airplane, flings it into the living room, and shuts the bedroom door.

“Hey, what do you think about this one?”

Reiner throws himself onto the bed and looks at the listing that Bertolt has circled with a pencil stub. 

“Kind of far from work, but maybe that’s a good thing.”

“I don’t care if it’s a shack under a bridge twenty miles away, as long as it has hot water and a big enough bathtub.”

Reiner log-rolls over all the newspapers and wraps himself around Bertolt like a lemur.

“B, do you think money will change us?”

“God, I hope so. I can’t wait to lose touch with the common man."

“Let’s own three of everything.”

They’re quiet for a little while. Bertolt hopes Ymir isn’t spying.

He has a mid-kiss inspiration.

“Do you think we could take Gabi and Falco and go shooting tomorrow? I want to see if I still know how.”

Reiner’s eyebrows fly up.

“How many beers have you had?”

“Huh?”

“Are you actually initiating a social outing?”

“Oh shut up. Gabi and Falco are the best people I’ve ever met in both of my entire lives.”

“Ouch.”

Bertolt kisses the pout.

“You don’t count. You’re not a person, you’re Reiner.”

Reiner reaches over the edge of the bed and cracks open another bottle for each of them.

“I think that’d be great. Let’s rent a car and make a day of it.”

“Really? How’s your driving?”

Reiner grins wickedly, handing him his beer.

“I’ve been told that it’s thrilling.”

***

Reiner runs out in the evening to visit the Brauns and to make arrangements for tomorrow’s excursion. 

Bertolt hasn’t told him about Ymir, or about the pocket of Paths inside him. He isn’t sure how to explain it. It’ll be easier if he has a way to show him. He sits at the kitchen table with a notebook and pencil, feeling a little foolish.

“Hi, Ymir? You’re there, right?”

How had it felt when she was talking to him without him realizing it? Dreams about sand were one thing, but she said that there were times that it’d almost seemed like he answered her. But then it had just seemed like her words were his own thoughts.

“Can you try talking to me?”

Nothing. He shuts his eyes and tries to picture the sand island in its bubble, and Ymir standing on her front steps or at the window, probably looking annoyed.

“I want to try some things, if that’s okay with you?”

He assumes the affirmative. He holds the pencil lightly against the paper.

“Can you move the pencil? I’ll try to stay out of it.”

He waits, letting his arm hang limp on the table, trying to move his mind outside of it to give her space. Nothing. Not even a tingle. 

It’s embarrassing. What if it all actually was a dream? Is he sure that it wasn’t? 

Just to be safe, he turns on the radio and tunes it to a variety hour, so that Ymir has something to listen to. He falls asleep trying to hold the image of her island in his mind, but doesn’t wake up in the Paths. Instead, he has a really strange dream about two detectives trying to find the culprits in a case concerning stolen sand.

***

“Thrilling” is a word. It’s not exactly the right word, but it’s in the ballpark.

Bertolt grips the dashboard with both hands, pressing himself back into his seat as Reiner almost glances off the side of an oncoming milk truck.

“Reiner!” His voice is a thin shriek. “Slow down!”

Reiner laughs, taking corners like curves and stoplights as suggestions. Gabi cheers in the backseat as they overtake a carriage by veering wildly around it.

“Kids, Reiner…stop. Reiner. REINER! KIDS! THERE! STOPSTOPSTOP!”

“We’re fine!” Reiner screeches to a stop to let a gaggle of children finish crossing safely, waving cheerily and honking the horn as they gawk at the shiny red paint and voluptuous curves on their slick little automobile, “You’ve jumped out of airplanes and fought titans on wires, how is this suddenly the thing that has you shaking?”

“I could heal myself back then! I’ll take a parachute made out of titans over your driving! Oh my God!”

“Maybe we could close the roof?” Falco quavers from the backseat, stoically holding himself together, face green.

“I’m not going to splurge on a fast car with a retractible top, and then not drive it fast or retract the top.” Reiner hits the gas as the last child lands on the opposite sidewalk and they rocket away, leaving marks on the road and Bertolt’s stomach at the intersection.

***

“Falco, you’re really good.” 

Bertolt watches approvingly. Both of the mini Warriors have impeccable form, they can surely out-shoot most grown marksmen.

“Really?” Falco looks up at him with pride. “Thanks. Gabi’s the sharpshooter though.”

“You’re both sharpshooters.”

The other adults at the shooting range have either abandoned their lanes to watch the Warriors, or left entirely, feeling discouraged and inadequate.

“Do you have any tips, Bertolt?”

“Hard to think of any advice I could give you. I guess if you want to work on something, you could practice getting a little more efficient with multiple targets. Here, look.”

Bertolt switches to a handgun and lines himself up.

“Two targets, right? You want two in each. The temptation is-” he raises his arm and puts two bullets straight through the middle of the target on the left—bang bang—then pivots to the target on the right—bang bang.

“But that’s perfect! You put your shots right through each other!” 

“Sure, but I lost time transitioning because I treated the targets like two separate things. Perfect doesn’t matter if I get blasted in the extra second.”

He reloads.

“Don’t waste time on perfect. You’ve been in battle so you know you won’t have the luxury of time in a firefight. Treat it like four consecutive shots into one moving target, instead of two sets of two. As long as you control recoil you can trust your aim to follow your eyes.” Bang bang bang bang. Four shots, center mass.

“That last one’s a little off-center though,” declares Gabi, having quietly appeared behind them, unconcerned about the hazards of startling a person who’s holding a loaded gun.

“Yeah. But they still died.”

Falco nods vigorously. “I’ll practice. Thanks, Bertolt!”

***

Before they return the car they stop for ice cream, and the mini Warriors get theirs for free when the proprietor realizes who they all are and begs for a photograph of them standing in front of his shop, to hang on the wall. They eat in the parking lot, leaning against the car so they won’t get drips on the upholstery.

“You promise we’ll do this again soon?” Falco asks through a mouthful of strawberry and sprinkles.

“Damn straight. We’ll rent an even faster car.” Reiner’s proclamation elicits two groans and one whoop.

“How come you weren’t sure you could still shoot? You were even good at the new guns.”

“Since I got back I haven’t been able to do a lot of the things I used to, at least not as well.” Bertolt bites the bottom of his cone and slurps through the hole, feeling five years old.

“Because you aren’t the Colossal?”

“Partly. But also because I was injured.” He looks down at his hand, flexing against a soreness that wouldn’t have been there in the old days. “I’m not as strong anymore.”

“You’ll get strong again. You’re the best shot I ever saw.”

Bertolt suddenly understands the adult urge to tussle hair, but remembers how much he hated having his hair tussled as a child, and restrains himself.

“He’s pretty good,” Gabi admits, licking chocolate off of her wrist and honoring Bertolt with a rare, regal, nod of respect.

“He’s my hero.” Reiner puts an arm around Bertolt’s waist and plants an ice-cream-cold kiss on his cheek.

“Gross,” says Gabi, “there are children present.”

Chapter Text

Hi R and B STOP A knows he fucked up STOP Understand if you don’t want to talk but K asked if maybe you would talk with her STOP If any chance then contact at this address STOP Connie STOP Sorry STOP

K must mean Krista, since H would be too obvious. Bertolt listens for Ymir’s voice, certain that she’s in there somewhere, yelling at him.

***

Command Central is a titanic gray slab of a building that rises from the far end of the compound’s quadrangle, with two banners in the colors of Marley hanging down three stories like twin rivers of blood.

Owing to his diminished physical condition, the duties that Bertolt is assigned as a returning Warrior are mostly administrative. Pushing stacks of paper, instead of carrying crates of coats.

Reiner’s relaxing days of carrying crates are over, but his new obligations have an upside: being brass means working at Command Central, and since Central is where paper most requires pushing, Bertolt is working there too.

They’re back to being two soldiers, doing soldierly things in close proximity. How it’s always been.

Reiner and Bertolt in their white shorts, racing to Warrior training, talking about airplanes and frogs. Reiner and Bertolt in their straps and cropped jackets, leaving the barracks, talking about swords and walls. Reiner and Bertolt in their black boots and trench coats, walking from the trolley to Central, talking about apartments they might go see next Saturday.

It’s the most familiar thing in the universe.

***

Reiner speaks to the higher ups with an impressive lack of deference. In the old days they’d have dragged him off to military prison, shot him against a wall, or at least washed his mouth out with soap. In the old days, Reiner would have felt he deserved it. But since the Rumbling, and Bertolt coming back, nobody’s been able to get him to give a single brass ball about any of it. Saving the world puts you on equal footing with a general, no matter what the pin says.

Bertolt is heavily reminded of someone else. Levi. Reiner is acting like Captain Levi. Audacity can be purchased with success.

So, Reiner gets away with a lot. But concealing a meeting with foreign agents when your boss is the nation’s most formidable spy would be an act of hubris, even for him. They request a meeting with General Dusko in the interest of “responsible disclosure”, and in order to find out what the bastards at the top already know.

***

“General.”

“Hello, Major. Hoover. Sit down.”

The General’s office, like the building, is spare and intimidating.  There’s a leather chair, nothing grand, and large metal desk with a lamp, a telephone, and a tidy stack of papers. It looks sterile and un-lived-in. It holds no clues as to the character of its occupant.

Bertolt sits quietly and lets Reiner tell the General about the telegrams and the meeting, supplying a “Yes, Sir,” or “No, Sir,” as necessary.

“Why didn’t you come to me when you received the first telegram?”

“Couple reasons. You don’t know these people. We grew up with them. Everything’s a goddamn world-ending, life-or-death, vitally crucial issue to them, so we weren’t particularly concerned. For all we knew, Armin could’ve been talking about a Paradis pony shortage. Second, it came the same day that we found out about my promotion, so we were busy being miserable about that. And then we had the ceremony to get through. We decided to wait to see whether the meeting would be about anything of consequence, and then I requested this meeting.”

“Mhm,” says Dusko, his face impassive, “Well, no harm done.”

Reiner looks thrown.“Did you already know all this?”

“I did.”

“I—how?”

“Telegrams from foreign actors that say ‘GLOBAL CONSEQUENCES’ tend to find their way to my desk. Frankly, your friends are naive idiots.”

“They’re not our friends,” says Bertolt, “uh. Sir.”

Dusko nods. “Understandably not. You’ve been through a lot at their hands.” He lets the mask drop, just a sliver, and a whisper of self-satisfaction bleeds through. “The butterknife was a nice touch. You aren’t as passive as you like people to think, are you, Hoover?” 

“How would you—oh my God.” It all comes together, clear as day in Bertolt’s head. "The maitre d’.”

“Yes, well done.”

Reiner and Bertolt sit for a moment, feeling sheepish, like children caught in a lie about a broken window, but then Bertolt has another realization, and the floor falls out from under him.

Oh my god I talked about coming back from the dead I talked about them killing me I talked about all of it they’re going to haul me to a lab and dissect me and I’ll never see Reiner again and—” 

“Hoover!” The General’s voice is sharp enough to cut through Bertolt’s panic. Reiner grabs his hand and holds him to the earth.

“Hoover. Your poker face is pathetic. Relax. Are you in an underground cell? No? You would be if that’s what I wanted. So take a breath.”

Reiner is pale, “Sir, please understand—”

“You relax too, Braun. If you both have strokes and die here in my office there’ll be paperwork, and I’ll have to have the carpet cleaned. I have other priorities.”

“Sir, please. if you could find it in your—”

“‘Sir, please?’” interrupts the general, leaning back in his chair and putting his hands behind his head, all casual reassurance, “Is a near stroke all it takes to squeeze respect out of you? I should have called you in on Monday, might’ve saved everyone a week of your delinquency.”

“Unlikely.” Reiner says without thinking. Bertolt tries to discreetly kick him under the desk, but accidentally kicks the desk, and the General’s dark eyes crinkle at the corners.

“You two are fun. Listen. I make no secret of being Eldian, and we were ALL called into the Paths before the Rumbling. There are things we understand that others don’t, and I have no intention of letting this get out. First: it’s yet another thing that could cast suspicion and envy on our entire race, and I’ve worked too hard to allow that. Second: it’d take you off the table, and your links to Paradis are useful. Third: as long as nobody but me knows, I’m in the privileged position of being able to tell Major Braun to eat shit whenever I want to.”

“But the maitre d’…”

The General’s eyes don’t change. Bertolt’s blood runs cold. 

“Did you-”

“I’m working on next steps. The Yeagerists present a threat. Continue to act as you have been. You have permission to meet the Neo-Historians, and to tell them that you’ve met with me. In fact, that’s exactly what you’re going to do. All above board. Then report back. Understood?” 

“Yes, Sir.” Reiner says, “but what do we say about the tour?”

“I’m not sending you out on a global vacation with your island comrades for now. Advise them to come here with the Queen. We can offer her better protection, and we can discuss it then. For now, I’m assigning a few more personnel to this project, and if the tour does proceed, Braun, expect to be on it.”

“We have a condition.” Reiner folds his arms and stares straight at the General.

“A condition? After almost having an aneurism in my office? How very you of you.”

“Yep.”

“Well?”

“Neither of us goes unless the other does too.”

“Bold request.”

“Not a request. A condition. If you send me without him, I’ll be pissed off and worried the entire time, and, frankly, I’ll resent those Paradis assholes so much that I’ll be disinclined to be helpful.” Reiner gifts the General an endearing smile. “And splitting up the Miracles of Marley? Think of the headlines. It’s a matter of national morale.”

“Hoover?”

“Yes, Sir,” says Bertolt, both touched and humiliated by Reiner’s declaration.

“I’ll consider it.” He waves a hand and turns back to his papers. “Now scram. Oh, Hoover—your rank will remain Warrior. Less headache. I’ve got plans for the Warrior program, but we’ve had enough entertainment for one day.”

They take their leave, saluting on the way out.

“God. That was fucking harrowing,” groans Reiner as they make their way out of the building. 

“I’m on my third life. That killed me. I thought all my insides would fall out.”

“Hey, you have your rank back. Wonder if you’ll have a ceremony too,” teases Reiner as they walk through the doors that will take them to the quad, and then home.

“Don’t say it, don’t think it, don’t you dare hint at it to anyone who might make it happen. If you do, I swear on my life I’ll leave you and marry General Dusko.”

***

So this is what it’s like to be Reiner, thinks Bertolt a few days later, as he sits on an iron bench in the small plaza across the street from Central, eating a slab of fried fish out of newspaper cone and washing it down with a sugary soda pop. The food-stall garbage lunch lifestyle. It’s delicious, and it’s probably doing active damage. How does Reiner still have arteries.

“Hi, Warrior. Mind if I join?”

“Why?” Bertolt asks bluntly, squinting up into perfect silver eyes under perfect arched eyebrows.

Xavier laughs, as if Bertolt’s rudeness is harmless banter between good pals, and plops down, carelessly leaning back with his arms spread wide across the backrest. His hand lingers unsettlingly close to Bertolt’s shoulder.

“No deep reason. I saw you and I guess I just want to know you better.”

“Do I need to repeat my question?”

Xavier sighs and throws Bertolt a look of weary tolerance.

“Alright. I’ll go ahead and say it, Bertolt. I came off badly at the ceremony. I’m sorry.”

“Okay?”

“You know, he dropped me like a rock the second you reappeared. Not even a letter. Or an apology.”

When exactly was the last time Reiner touched Xavier? 

Did Reiner ever call Xavier pretty?

The idea makes Bertolt want to throw up his fish.

“Xavier…what do you want?”

There’s a near-imperceptible falter in Xavier’s smile—a flicker of hurt, quickly masked when the malice from the day of the ceremony reappears.

“How old are you, really?”

“Twenty three. Check the papers.”

“You look much younger. Is that how he likes it?”

“For fuck’s sake!” Bertolt explodes off the bench, flings the rest of his lunch into a trash can, and stalks away. Xavier uncoils himself and follows.

“No—Bertl, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Xavier walks next to Bertolt as he crosses the street towards the compound.

“Look, I’m still being awful, my sense of humor is shit. I want a truce. There’s no good reason for the next few months to be messier between the three of us than they need to be.

Bertolt stops, sensing subtext.

“What are you talking about?”

“You haven’t heard.” 

“Will you please just say what you want to say.”

Xavier’s voice slides between his teeth like a paring knife.

“I’ve been drafted for a project.”

Bertolt stares at him. Xavier’s voice drops to a whisper.

“Direct from Dusko. Medics get around, you know.”

Heat rises under Bertolt’s collar and he wordlessly veers into Central, ignoring Xavier’s jaunty goodbye. He balls his fists in his pockets as he walks down the hallway towards the mail room, trying to force the encounter from his mind. 

There’s something else mixed up in his agitation and resentment, and it’s making it that much more intolerable: a tiny, needling, splinter of sympathy.

***

Paradis, 6 years ago

“She’s there again.”

“Yeah. She said she’d be around.” Reiner waggled his eyebrows at Bertolt as they circled each other, fists raised. “Guess she likes to watch.”

“You’re gross. Are you gonna talk to her?”

“Not right now.” Reiner tried to sweep Bertolt’s legs out from under him. “Gotta make em wait.”

Bertolt cleared Reiner’s strike just in time and threw a kick of his own. Reiner deflected, almost knocking him off balance. He quickly checked to make sure the girl leaning against the fence that surrounded the practice field had seen his maneuver. 

“That’s messed up,” said Bertolt, rolling his eyes. The boys circled each other again, waiting for openings.

“Hey, don’t knock tactics just ‘cause you have no game.” Reiner jabbed, his blow glanced off Bertolt’s shoulder. 

“Ow. She looks like she wants to come over here.”

“I’d rather see her walk away.”

Bertolt felt a bloom of relief, and didn’t know where to put it. “Really? I thought you liked her?” Reiner’s allowed to like a girl. Reiner’s allowed to like a girl. Reiner’s allowed to like a girl. 

“I meant ‘cause she has a nice ass. Have you seen-”

Something flared up in Bertolt’s chest. Shut up. Stop talking. Fuck you. He faked to the left and threw a hard punch. It connected dead center with Reiner’s mouth, and he reeled back.

“Shit! Sorry are you-“

“Fuuuuuuuck. Oh, you’re dead now.” Reiner laughed viciously and spat a mouthful of blood. He went back into his stance, ducked Bertolt’s jab, then charged forward shoulder-first. Bertolt twisted aside and kicked him in the gut with the full strength of his fury.

Reiner doubled over with an agonized groan and collapsed to his knees, then flat onto his back. He lay there for a while, gasping.

“Reiner! Oh shit! I’m sorry!”

“So much for ‘lack of initiative,’” Reiner moaned, grinning up at him from his prone position, his teeth swimming in red, “Damn, you really got me.”

“I didn’t mean to-,”

“Nah, it’s fine. Good job.” Reiner glanced at the fence. The girl was gone. Bertolt floated in another inexplicable wave of relief. “You scared her away. Guess that’s it for that.” 

He heaved himself to sit, the grin turning into a grimace as his stomach flexed around the hurt. Bertolt put out an arm and helped him to his feet. 

For a fleeting second, Reiner held on, looking down at their clasped hands with a soft expression. Bertolt felt a flutter in his chest as the warmth of Reiner’s palm sent a little buzz of electricity over his skin. Then Reiner took his hand back and clapped him on the shoulder, no hard feelings. “Anyway, dinner?”

“You’re bleeding! Oh my gosh, Reiner! Are you okay?” The girl ran up with a handkerchief outstretched, wreathed in a look of motherly concern, strawberry blonde curls bouncing.

Yeah, she’s cute. I can see why Reiner likes her, thought Bertolt, and then, confusingly, I hope she gets eaten by a fucking titan. An image unrolled across the cinema screen of his mind: her pretty curls disappearing behind boulder-sized teeth, her freckled face bursting like a grape. What is wrong with me?

“Ah, I’m okay. Bertolt packs a punch though.” Reiner pouted down at her, putting a hand to his cheek and wincing.

“It’s supposed to be practice, you’re not supposed to hit that hard.” The girl frowned accusingly at Bertolt and turned her attention back to Reiner. “Can I walk you to the infirmary?”

“It really doesn’t hurt too bad.” He smiled ruefully. “At least not as much as my pride. I just gotta sit for a while. ’Til my ears stop ringing.”

“I’ll sit with you. Come on, I know a good place. It’s quiet.” The girl chirped sweetly. Her friend looked at her and then up at Bertolt. He pretended not to notice. Should he—no. Not really my type. Not interested.

“Aright,” Reiner drawled casually, "Go ahead, I’ll follow you in a sec.”

The girl nodded and gave Bertolt another dirty look. She strolled slowly in the direction of the stables with her friend. Reiner took a performative, appreciative look at her backside as she went.

“Alright. Later, buddy. Catch you at bedtime.” Reiner waited until the girl was a few more steps ahead of him and threw Bertolt a rakish wink and a whisper, letting the tiniest trickle of steam escape from his mouth. “Unless I don’t.”

Bertolt bit a hole into the inside of his cheek as Reiner jogged to join the girls. Her friend waved as she headed off in another direction. He watched them walk away with his stomach in his boots and another disgusting thought in his head.

I should’ve knocked him out.

***

Much, much later, Reiner told Bertolt the true story of the girl with the strawberry blonde hair.

By the time she dragged him up the ladder to a loft above the stables, he had stealthily finished healing his bloodied mouth, but things still didn’t quite go to plan. They necked for a while, kisses hot and heavy, his injury forgotten. And it was alright, but he found himself losing interest right as she tried to guide his hand up her shirt. Maybe she wasn’t that cute after all, or a bad kisser, or he was too much of a gentleman. Whatever. For some stupid reason, when he pulled back she got all upset and stormed away, and they didn’t talk again.

It kept happening. Plenty of girls, and a few boys, tried their luck, and he spent afternoons in haylofts and storerooms being disappointed by kisses, and by the way other people’s bodies felt under his hands. Waiting for it to feel like it was supposed to. Coming up with reasons to walk away just when things were getting “good”. He left a string of hurt feelings in his wake.

That didn’t stop the rumors, and Bertolt refused to press him about any of it. Reiner kind of wished he would press him. He could be a little bit bothered. Bertolt was supposed to look at him with concern in his big, green eyes, and drag him somewhere private for a good talking to. But Reiner’s antics were met with a cool, quiet indifference that made him feel like he’d become invisible to his best friend, the only person who’d ever really seen him.

Worst of all were the times when he’d come out of a daze, with his tongue in somebody’s mouth, wondering how the hell he’d gotten there. By then he knew something wasn't right with him. He was losing stretches of time, or remembering things with a sense of having drowsed for a while in the back row of his own mind, like a shifter inside of a titan, while his body moved around him, doing whatever it wanted.

But the girl with the strawberry blonde hair was different. Because Reiner had been himself the entire time. 

What the hell am I doing? he wondered, circling Bertolt with his fists raised, hearing the crudest, stupidest words imaginable leave his lips, and desperately scrutinizing Bertolt for any reaction. As his mouth filled with blood from the blow to the face, his heart glowed. Is he finally mad at me? The knee in his stomach was even better. He lay on the ground feeling giddy.

As Bertolt helped him to his feet, Reiner saw a ten-year-old with nothing but sympathy written on his face, holding out his hand and telling him to stand up, not caring that he was the least of the Warrior candidates, or that he’d just had the shit beaten out of him by Porco. The exact moment he’d decided that Bertolt was his best friend, forever.

His eyes fell on their clasped hands, much bigger now, and it looked… so right. How it was supposed to be. How it’d always been. He took a chance, and squeezed a little, but Bertolt didn’t squeeze back. He quickly switched to damage control. “Anyway, dinner?” 

He’d been relieved to see that the girl was gone after he lost the fight, but of course she had to come running up with her handkerchief held out like a battle axe. 

Caught in his own ridiculous trap, he pulled out all the stops.

“Alright. Later, buddy. Catch you at bedtime.” He let himself heal a little, showing a trickle of steam. Please stop me. I’ll stay if you stop me. “Unless I don’t.”

Bertolt’s face betrayed nothing. No anger, no disgust, no jealousy. Just distance.

You aren’t even going to yell at me about the steam?

And it went how it went.

But then an intoxicated Bertolt let a girl kiss him in a pub, and Reiner walked by just in time to see him being pulled down by his collar so she could reach his lips. He watched him raise a hand to run his long, beautiful fingers through her hair. And Reiner went outside with his heart in his throat and punched a hole straight through a stable wall, bruising his knuckles and scaring the horses. 

Bertolt probably never punched holes in things about him. 

What the fuck is wrong with me?

…

………

Oh.

So Reiner stopped looking for things in haylofts and storerooms, because he knew there wasn’t any point.

When it finally happened, it was after putting Bertolt in a warm shower in the Officer’s Washroom, and pulling him into his lap in a bottom bunk, knowing they had the whole Survey Corps HQ and the whole night to themselves. The second Bertolt leaned forward to press their lips together—tasting of mint and smelling of soap—it all made perfect sense. Just like he’d hoped it would.

A few months later, they stood on the wall at Shiganshina.

***

Marley

It’s been a while since they’ve been out for a drink, so they stop at a pub just around the corner from the apartment, and order a couple of whiskeys to commemorate Bertolt’s return to the working world. They entertain themselves by tossing darts at a target in the corner. Bertolt is so good at it that Reiner finally throws his hands up in mock despair and slinks back to his barstool. 

“It’s not fair. You’re a prodigy at hitting targets.”

“It’s completely fair. My being a prodigy isn’t disqualifying. Look up to me as something to strive for.”

“I look up at you every day, B. Hey, I forgot to ask—did Xavier harass you? I passed him on the quad and he said some snide thing about paths crossing, but I didn’t stop.”

“Did you know he’s assigned to the Paradis project?”

“WHAT? No. He said that?”

“Yes. And I was thinking…is he—this might sound crazy—is it possible he’s a spy?”

Reiner tosses back his drink with a tense grimace, then looks down into his glass, thinking about it.

“He’s a medic. But…yeah,” he admits, “It’s possible.”

Bertolt takes this in, but doesn’t know what to do with it.

“Reiner?”

“Hm?”

“When did you stop seeing him?”

A cloud drifts over Reiner’s face.

“Why do you ask? What did that shit-stirrer say?”

“Nothing specific, but it seemed like he was surprised he never heard from you after I came back. So I wondered if-”

“Really? You’re really going to let him do this?” Reiner wheels on his bar stool to face him and folds his arms, gripping his sleeves, a sudden harshness in his voice. “This is exactly what he wants. This is fucked.”

“Woah. I’m not letting him do anything. I told you I understand. I was just-”

“We weren’t together. I owed him nothing.”

“I know! I know. It just seems like maybe he didn’t. Did you ever break things off with him?”

“Guess I didn’t. Guess I’m an asshole.”

“Reiner.”

“Why are we talking about this? What do you want me to say?”

“Nothing. I shouldn’t have—it doesn’t matter. I’m sorry. Let’s stop.”

“Great.”

Bertolt orders another round and nurses ice cubes, feeling hurt and abashed. It’s the first time since coming back from the dead that Reiner has snapped at him.

Reiner sips his whiskey, glaring past the bar at the rows of bottles and glasses lined up against a mirrored wall. They drink for a while without speaking. Then Reiner puts his arm around Bertolt’s waist and gives him a soft squeeze by way of apology, and Bertolt accepts it. They pay the tab and head home. 

Bertolt decides not to bring the Xavier issue up again, and tries not to think about how the snap in Reiner’s voice had sounded almost exactly like a box slamming shut. 

***

Paradis, 6 Years ago

“Hey! Bertl, I’ve been looking for you.” Reiner paused in the common room doorway and took in the scene. Armin and Bertolt were bent over a gargantuan book with their heads close together, Bertolt watching intently as Armin sketched precise lines onto a diagram. A flash of irritation crossed Reiner’s face, then he broke into an amicable grin. 

“Sorry to drag him away, Armin. We said we’d help Eren out at the stables today. The horses hate him.” He laughed loudly, shattering the comfortable quiet.

“Hi, Reiner!” Armin said cheerily, “Bertolt’s been going over tactical diagrams with me. Who knew he was so good at structural formation! He’s full of surprises.” He smiled shyly up at Bertolt, who towered almost a foot above him even sitting down, and Bertolt reciprocated, a little pink around the nose from the compliment.

“Oh yeah? That’s great.” Reiner circled around behind them and put a hand on Bertolt’s shoulder. “Thanks for watching him.”

It was an awkward thing to say. Bertolt looked up at him and back down at Armin, embarrassed.

Reiner squeezed. “So, you coming? You said you’d help.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

Armin looked disappointed as Bertolt pushed his chair back. “Okay. Bye, Bertolt. Would you… maybe want to come back tomorrow? This was really nice.”

Bertolt smiled and nodded, waving as he followed Reiner out of the room.

“You? Making friends? Pigs fly.” Reiner laughed. “That little bookworm looks like a gumdrop though, stupid fucking haircut.” Bertolt blinked at him in surprise, and Reiner looked away. “Anyway, you should be careful. You’re always preaching at me about not getting too close to them.”

What? That’s my line. Reiner gets too close to everyone.

Bertolt didn’t go back the next day, or the day after that. He found excuses to decline Armin’s invitations until they finally stopped coming.

Chapter Text

Of course, Armin did get close to Bertolt, in the end.

When Reiner woke up in the belly of the ship back to Marley, breathless with pain as his body tried to regrow all its missing pieces, the first thing he did was ask for Bertolt.

He actually got his teeth around Zeke’s Adam’s apple when they told him, and if it wasn’t for Pieck and four able seamen, he would have torn it out and swallowed it whole. 

He was blind. He was nothing but a thundering hollow scream. His mind was blood red.

He wanted to die. He could think of a hundred ways to do it, right now, right here, and he’d take the whole boat to the bottom of the sea with him. He’d never rest. He’d sink every ship that floated over him for the rest of time. Fuck Pieck. Let her drown. Let it hurt. Fuck Zeke, he’d chew his spine and take his Titan for himself, just so he could scream in the voice of the Beast and set pure titans loose on all their cities.

Bertolt was worth a thousand cities. 

Fuck your cities.

***

Where are you?

What did they do with your skin? You’re so smooth. Salted caramel and cream. I ran my fingers down your skin, to make you shiver and bloom. I make trails of goosebumps, and the soft, invisible hairs on your arms stand on end. Your skin sings for me, when I touch places no one else has ever touched—the translucent places where I can see the veins in your wrists and throat. I put my lips to your veins and hold your life in my mouth, and you let me. You can’t leave—those places are mine. You don’t have any right to take back what you gave me. Come back.

Where are your eyes? Your green eyes are the only eyes that have ever seen me, B, even when we were little. No matter who I am, even when I’m all wrong, you never take your eyes off of the me I’m supposed to be. You find me in the crowd of myself, every time. You have to come back, because if you aren’t here to look at me, I won’t know which one of me I am.

Bertolt, you’re so funny. You crack me up. And you’re so quiet with everyone else. They don’t know that you’re a mean bitch who sees right through them, just like you see through me. Your voice is like your skin—soft and smooth and warm, and full of secrets that you’ve only ever shared with me.

What do you see right now?

Nothing. Of course you see nothing. 

Who am I talking to? You’re supposed to tell me when I’m talking to people who aren’t there. You’re not doing your fucking job, B. I’m talking to your ghost and I’m all wrong. I know you aren’t here, you aren’t anywhere, but I keep forgetting, so you have to come back, because I need you to remind me.

Please come back. Please please please please please.

***

The journey continued for five days, with Reiner’s rage and grief echoing down corridors. 

He became the kind of phantom that sailors have always told stories about, and although the ship would remain in commission for many years, it never recovered its reputation.

Superstitious seamen knew that a real haunting doesn’t always require a death. Grief itself can build a specter, infecting the walls of a craft with contagious misfortune.

When they landed in Marley, Zeke made sure to leave first, stepping quickly down the gangplank and into a waiting car, long before everyone else, and especially long before Reiner.

And when the ten-man security force sent by General Magath opened the door to the cabin that had become Reiner’s padded cell, armed with sedatives and paralytics and strict instructions to debilitate, but not kill, they were all expecting to be charged by the Armored.

Reiner sat, grey and stone-faced, on the edge of his berth. When the door opened and he was confronted by the sharp ends of guns, he stood, held his hands up, and walked off the ship at the calm center of a ring of nervous soldiers.

He spent the next few years in a state of numb indifference, stripped of everything but his cruelest and emptiest parts. 

Anything else that was once part of Reiner Braun curled up around itself and went to sleep, nestled deep in the hole at the bottom of his heart.

***

You’re never coming back.

You left me here alone. How dare you.
How could you die with your heart broken, and leave me behind to live, knowing that I broke it? 

I sent you to your grave with the shards of your heart in your hands.
How dare you die without letting me fix it.
How dare you fucking die before I could tell you that I love you.

_____

I’ve been home for a while now, B. More than two years. But I knew before I walked off the boat that it wouldn’t be home.
You aren’t here.
Nothing will ever be home again.
You are my home and you’re dead.

Home only meant something when I thought we were coming home together. 

_____

Maybe you’re punishing me for what I did.
I hope so.
I fucking hope so. 

I hope you’re here, a bitter ghost, reminding me that I was hurting you right up until the second you died, and making sure I never sleep through the night, and that I never walk into a room without noticing that you aren’t in it.

_____

B? If I could still miss things, I would miss you so much.

_____

Hey, guess what?

I’m fucking people who aren’t you.
How do you like that? 

That’s what you get for dying without me, you selfish prick.
Come back and bitch at me about it—see if I care. 

I’m running my fingers down her skin and she feels nothing like you.
None of them do. 

I put my hands around his throat when he asks me to.
I could kill him, I guess, if I wanted.

I make her scream and toss her hair back, and her voice is broken glass in my ears. It isn’t your voice. I wish she would shut the fuck up.

I let them scratch grooves into my sides and fuck me and smack me around, and when I heal I make sure to burn them a little. 

They’re all so impressed with me, like the stupid not-you assholes that they are.

_____

He wants me, Bertolt.
He’s smaller than me, not at all like you, you fuckin’ giraffe.
I feel big when I’m with him. I feel like a monster. 

I only fuck him in the dark, because he has caramel skin and dark hair like yours.
I’m afraid to fuck him in the light in case I call him Bertolt.
And every day by slow degrees, being near me chips away at him.

That’s what he gets for not being you. 

But he’s still better than you, because no matter what I do or say to get him to fuck off—for his own sake, and because I don’t want him here—he stays. 

_____

He asked me if I want to talk about you.
Can you believe that?

I wanted to beat his teeth in, for daring to hold your name in his mouth. He saw it in my face and shrank away from me like I’d burned him with steam, and I saw the hurt all over him, and said I was sorry, and I let him put his arms around me. 

But I looked for the sorry inside myself, and I couldn’t find it.
The voice that tells me to care when I hurt people has been quiet for so long.
I keep listening for it, B, I swear, but it won’t talk to me. 

It’s buried in a box in your grave, if you have one.

_____

His arms feel like a noose around my neck.
And I let him stay.

Fine.
Here.
Climb into this box.
It’s all I have left to give.
I know, it’s not the right size.
Sorry, I guess.
Take it or leave it.

____

What is wrong with me.
Why am I doing this?

Why am I sinking my teeth into everyone who comes near me, like a cornered stray with a broken leg? 

Who cares. 

Fuck you, Bertolt.
I miss you. 

Or I would.
If I could still miss things.

***

Almost four anesthetized years had passed since Bertolt’s death, when Reiner suddenly realized that he loved the mini Warriors.

When he wasn’t being sent off to the far corners of the earth to kill people, his mind was consumed with anxieties about their safety, and frantic scheming about how he might save them from Marley and the curse of becoming Titan shifters.

It’d been so long since he loved anything. It snuck up on him. 

He watched Gabi, Falco, Udo and Zofia cry over low test scores and cheer about winning races—really rubbing it in each other's faces. He comforted them in the barracks when they woke up with nightmares about battles they should never have fought in. 

He’d take them swimming in the river when he was supposed to be training them in hand-to-hand combat, and he’d toss them into the water one by one while they shrieked. They always came running back so he could throw them again.

And the whole time he thought about Bertolt, and Marcel, and Annie, and remembered that he was the only one left, even though he was the one who should’ve died, any way you sliced it. 

It was on one of those afternoons—watching Udo and Gabi fight over who rightfully owned the poor, doomed frog they’d kidnapped from its watery home—that he flashed back to an almost identical conversation he’d had with Bertolt when they were kids. Bertolt had smiled at him and said he could take the frog home, and that it counted as sharing because Bertolt could still visit it whenever he wanted. And then they decided, together, to let it go free in the duck pond.

Reiner made up his mind to kill himself.

He did a couple of dry runs, just getting a feel for the process. And then it became a habit to sit there, sucking on his rifle like a pacifier, feeling close to Bertolt because any minute now they might be dead together.

The day it happened wasn’t unusual. That is, nothing unusual had happened. But he’d taken some extra steps, and that ended up making the difference.

Once he’d sent the four mini Warriors off with a thick wad of cash for snacks and comic books, and four tickets to a two-hour-long moving picture, Reiner stacked his empty wallet and a notepad on top of a crate and pulled a wooden chair into the center of the room.

Hey Bertolt - it’s been four years.
What’ve you been doing all this time, wherever you are?

I’m sorry you had to see all that, if you were watching. You probably hate me. God knows almost everyone else does.

I deserve it. You’ve seen how I’ve been acting. Four years of unforgivable shit. And I shoved you into a box. That’s the worst thing. 

I said a lot of things I didn’t mean. I’m sorry. 

I couldn’t face it all.

He carefully loaded the rifle and tried to find the best position, strategically. What would make the least mess? Better to be by a wall, away from doors. Not ideal to have the gun pointed at a window, though. He’d make sure to aim straight up.

I miss you so much that it sets my lungs on fire. I miss you so much that I can’t see color, or taste food. I miss you so much that even when I’m the Armored Titan, my body isn’t big enough to contain it. I can’t stop hurting people and I’m so tired of it. I’m tired of disappointed faces, and soldiers screaming while I crush them. 

I’m tired of me. 

He took a deep breath and settled into his seat, balancing his weapon between his boots. He’d gotten good at this part, from sitting in different chairs in different private places with his thumb on the trigger.

Bertolt, are you there? 

The rifle was cold against the roof of his mouth. He waited, with irrational hope fluttering in his chest.

Tell me to stop. I’ll stay if you stop me. Say anything. Tell me I’m an idiot. I know you don’t want me to do this. So stop me.

But of course Bertolt wasn’t there. He never would be. Reiner knew that. He chuckled around the barrel of the gun. What the hell was he doing, sitting here holding himself hostage, as if Bertolt, dead and gone, would respond to blackmail.

Ah. Enough of this. Enough bullshit. Hey, Bertolt. Love you, I’ll see you later, and even if I don’t…

The explosion blew his body backwards into the stone wall. His vision shattered and the great throbbing pressure he’d been holding in his head for four years evaporated in a burst of white light. He’d faltered a little at the very last second—knocked off course just an inch or two, but it didn’t matter, he could feel himself ebbing away. 

He held Bertolt’s face in what was left of his mind.

Was that him, reaching out his hand, telling him to stand up? 

If he still had a mouth he would have been smiling, but most of his jaw was on the floor halfway across the room. 

***

No. No, it can’t be.

Reiner stared at a bloody chunk of flesh and teeth lying on the ground a few feet in front of him. The wall was cool against his back. The scent of blood and gunpowder hung in the air and there was a persistent whine in his ears that he recognized from guns going off too close to him in battle trenches. The ache in his head was back. His whole goddamn head was back.

What. The. Fuck.

After he’d finished scrubbing his own brains off the wall, so the kids wouldn’t accidentally see, he sat dazed for a while in the chair he’d been so sure he just died in, and then he threw his brand-new head backwards and cried with laughter. Snot and tears coated his face, mixing with the steam from his pain-in-the-ass Titan trying to heal him.

B, I’m sorry. I’m such an idiot. I can’t believe I just fucked up dying. You were so good at dying. You’re so good at staying dead. You’re better at everything than me.

Chapter Text

A handful of rhapsodic nights in bunks and tents. All she and Historia ever got to have. Fate doesn’t know what it’s doing.

Ymir had gotten accustomed to lurking next to Historia like a territorial sheepdog, and if she’d been a better person, she might have felt honored and satisfied with the privilege. But Ymir had been long past pretending to be a good person by the time she met Krista Lenz.

The strangest thing was that once Historia had really grasped the aching truth under Ymir’s lack of boundaries, it hadn’t been hard. The opposite. Historia wanted her there. Ymir spent a few longing, quip-throwing years shaking the bottle, but, ultimately, Historia pulled the cork.

Pop.

Two frozen noses. Icy lips that parted, exposing a place of secret heat. Ymir’s reward for leaving Historia buried up to her ass in a pile of snow, so that she could turn Titan, pull off the stupid, stupid rescue mission that Historia had committed them to, and rob her of the credit. To teach her a valuable lesson about playing angel for the benefit of idiots.

And just, the symmetry of it all.

Ymir was a nobody stuck playing a goddess. Historia was royalty, pretending to be nobody. Historia was a dark thing disguised as a feckless angel. Ymir was pathetically soft underneath her carefully curated cloak of spiky vulgarity. 

Historia was a selfish lover. Historia could crawl into her bunk in the dead of night with her cool little hands, demanding worship, and disappear again, her mask expertly restored by the time the sun rose. Utterly unrepentant about any of it. 

It was one of the most beautiful things ever brought to light in the history of the human search for knowledge. Ymir had rejoiced in this discovery. What better evidence was there of her exalted position in Historia’s life than that she couldn’t hide—didn’t want to hide—her imperfect, greedy self in front of her? 

Ymir had met the queen inside Historia before anyone else even dreamed it was there.

Has anything ever been so poetically perfect? The newspapers should write about that story, not about those two oversized tin soldiers, sweating and sniveling at each other and making bloodthirsty speeches in front of crowds of people who only yesterday wanted to murder them and their entire race.

When I’m princess consort, thinks Ymir, lying flat on her back and using her mind to bounce heart-shaped blobs of sand off the ceiling of her bubble, I’ll write a novel about all of it, and give it to Historia for our ten-year wedding anniversary.

***

Bertolt is trying to reach her. He’s really trying. Ymir tries right back at him. She tries to move the arm he considerately leaves limp for her. She responds out loud to every question he asks. She screams and swears and writes words in the sand when she knows he’s expecting or hoping for a message. The only things that seem to get through are the fleeting visions of sand that she whispers into his dreams.

It’s worse than before. It’s so much worse. Now she knows for sure there’s a chance, and if she wasn’t already dead, it would be killing her.

Their direct connection has been severed, somehow. Maybe they used up all their credit when he visited. Maybe Ymir will be alone—a trapped, voiceless spectator in Bertolt’s mind—forever. She builds little sand cities and wipes them out with sand tornadoes, to cope.

But there’s some light. That very dangerous man who seems to be in charge of Marley now has mandated a meeting with Historia. What worries Ymir is the possibility that Reiner will go, but Bertolt won’t—then Reiner will probably try to shield Bertolt from whatever happens at the meeting, because Reiner is a simpleton.

Unacceptable.

If Bertolt DOES get to the meeting, and Historia is there, then Ymir will look and look and look and look, and etch every word that touches Historia’s lips into her mind, and maybe that will be enough to get her through purgatory.

It won’t be enough. Of course it won’t. But a girl’s got to cling to something.

***

When Ymir sees a figure on the edge of the sand, she forgets her dignity. She screams, leaps off the stoop, and sprints towards it. She stops like she’s hit the edge of a cliff when she realizes it isn’t Bertolt. It isn’t even half of Bertolt. And its slow steps are moving it across the sand towards her much faster than they should.

“What in the world,” she gasps, almost falling backwards.

The figure stops dead a few feet in front of her. Ymir gathers her courage.

“Oh. It’s you. Hello.”

Hello, says the Founder.

Ymir knows an opportunity when she smells one. She arranges her face into a courteous smile and extends her hand towards her building.

“Would you like to come in for a cup of tea that tastes like sand?”

***

It’s an absurd sight, the Founder sitting at her kitchen table with her feet dangling, looking around Ymir’s apartment over the rim of a cup held in her dusty little fingers. After spending some time in silence, Ymir breaks the ice.

“Have you come a long way?”

The Founder tilts her head and looks at Ymir with eyes that are surprisingly alive. Her voice isn’t a sound, so much as a sandy impression of intention and meaning. 

Distance doesn’t mean anything here, so it depends. On how you measure.

“Oh. I see.”

Another awkward few moments pass. Ymir taps her foot against the leg of her chair, and tries again.

“So, Founder. What brings you over to my humble bubble?”

A variety of things.

“…yes?” Ymir says patiently, “What sort of things?”

Time. Death. Fate. The future. Necessity. Sand. Dreams. Titan serum. Paradis. Meetings. Bertolt. The view.

This is a rather ambitious list of cosmological and esoteric concerns. Ymir chooses the item with which she’s most familiar.

“Are you stuck inside Bertolt too? 

No. I could leave at any time. 

“Then why-”

Though it would mean your end and mine, and possibly his.

Ymir and Ymir have different conceptual understandings of “stuck”.

“Do you have your own bubble?”

I have every bubble. Every bubble is mine. Your bubble is mine.

“Ah. Yes, of course. Well, thank you. For letting me stay.”

 The Founder looks around with the appraising eye of a professional.

I like what you’ve built. I like the animals on the street outside.

“Thanks. I do what I can with what I have, although I’d prefer it if the apples tasted like apples.”

The Founder casually waves a hand over the console bowl sitting between them on the table, and the sand apples swell—rosy, juicy, and lush.

Ymir gasps and snatches an apple, tearing into it with all her teeth at once. It explodes in her mouth like nectar, and life, and sweet, cool water. She closes her eyes, letting the juice run down her chin. It’s orgasmic. That’s the only way to describe the taste of an apple, when taste has been absent for so long. 

“God. Oh. Thank you. How?”

It’s just a rearrangement of matter. Flavor is just matter that lies in a particular way against the matter of your tongue and nose. If I can make a titan bleed, rich with the scent of iron and rot, I can make an apple bleed too.

“That isn’t the most appetizing way to put it, but it does make sense.” Ymir mumbles through a mouthful of apple, choosing to block out the visual.

Bertolt bleeds, and I made him. He’s juicy as an apple. Reiner agrees.

Ymir chokes, and she’s surprised to hear the Founder laughing with her. The Founder's laugh is like the whine of radio feedback. It sings thin and white through the atmosphere and makes Ymir’s hair stand on end.

Once she’s dislodged the chunk of apple from her esophagus, and her hair has settled back against her head, she smiles at the Founder with new appreciation. A dirty joke says a lot about a person. Or, about a whatever the Founder is.

“I saw when you made Bertolt, it was really something. I was behind a dune.”

The sand takes on an amused quality.

Didn’t I leave you a road of sand when I took everything back from the void? Do you think I didn’t know?

“I—“ Ymir catches her own idiocy mid-thought. “I suppose it would be rude, for me to say yes, if you’re asking the question. But then, why did you…”

To see what would happen.

As valid an answer as any.

“Why not the others? You could have brought back Porco, couldn’t you?”

Nobody else asked. I was busy wrapping things up, and Bertolt is the only one who came looking for me. Both of you found ways around going back to the River.

“Are you angry at me, for hopping on?”

No.

“You’re not so bad, Granny.”

Granny?

“Aren’t you the big progenitor? You’re the grandmother of all of us. And we have the same name, I’d feel awkward calling you by my name.”

I had the name first, and you had another name first. But Granny is fine. I like it. Would you like to know your first name?

“I’ve got my own reasons for sticking with this one.”

Alright.

“Granny, weren’t you going to tell me why you’ve come to visit?”

Yes.

It seems that when speaking to the Founder, direct questions are better than polite ones. 

“Granny, why have you come to visit?”

I’m here to interfere. I don’t have influence anymore. I need to do things differently. My view has shrunk to almost nothing. One window.

“Bertolt’s?”

Yes. 

“Isn’t that a bit of a comedown? You must have had murderous kings and jewel thieves and nasty politicians and all kinds of other fascinating people to watch.”

Kings are the dullest people of all. There are more differences between newborn twins than there are between kings.

If mythology is to be trusted, the Founder has good reasons to dislike kings.

When I realized how small my access to the world had become, I was concerned I might go mad. But no. When you’ve had all the eyes in the world to look through for millennia, it’s novel to be constrained.

“But Bertolt and Reiner, of all people.”

Granny swings her feet, sipping meditatively at her sand.

There’s something about watching them that I find irresistible. Reiner suffers so exquisitely. They’re saturated with picturesque longing even when they’re together. So many twists and turns. Will this or that ordeal be the end of their overwrought love affair? Who will lose their mind tomorrow? Who will almost die, or put their fist through a wall? The little speeches when they overcome things or recount past injuries in each other’s arms. And the sex, especially after something terrible has happened. I’m always eager to see what they’re going to cry about next.

“I know exactly what you mean. Do you know about radio serial dramas?”

Yes, it’s that sort of thing. 

“Our Bertolt hates that I can see everything. He hates having an audience, generally. I don’t think he even likes having to look shopkeepers in the eye when he buys things, poor thing. If he finds out that you’re watching too, he’ll probably sweat an entirely new ocean.”

Were you watching when he threw the butterknife?

“Yes! I didn’t get to enjoy it, though. I was worried about Historia. Do you watch everyone, like that?”

Not everyone is interesting. And I’ve been very busy for a very long time. For a moment, the Founder looks defensive. If you had millions of children and grandchildren over hundreds of thousands of years in the Paths, you would lose track of some too.

Ymir quickly smooths things over. “Oh, believe me, I’m not one to judge. I doubt I’d be able to keep track of even one.”

Bertolt was never interesting. I’ve built and watched so many suffering Colossal Titans, nearly 150 of them. The Colossal has always been a particularly miserable and lonely Titan, and it calls to particularly miserable and lonely shifters. While he was on the island, I forgot all about him, except for when I had to construct him. 

As she talks, the Founder is idly changing things in Ymir’s apartment—sprucing up the place. She nods and the rumpled blankets on Ymir’s bed straighten into fluffy perfection. She spins some elegant throw pillows out of nothing. She points at the sandy vase of flowers on the table, and colors of nebulae bloom across their petals. She straightens Bertolt’s photo in its frame. 

Ymir feels a twinge of irritation at this unsolicited interference in her decor, and then softens… after all, isn’t this what grandmothers are supposed to do? She’s never had one, but she’s heard.

Reiner is the one who made them worth watching, says the Founder, weaving swirling patterns into the floorboards, The boy is a sentient landslide. He makes such delicious mistakes, and takes everything crashing down along with him. He should have died a hundred times over, but I interfered constantly. Did you hear about the nonsense I did to save him, when he lost his head in Shiganshina? Annie almost killed him twice by pure accident. And I interfered again, when he tried to die last year.

“When he—he tried to die?”

I nudged the rifle in his mouth, and I pressed his Titan to heal him before he could drain into the River. All kinds of things. I wanted to keep him around. For the story. And when Bertolt was dead, Reiner was all the more interesting for his absence. The pain and chaos he inflicted on everyone around him still ripples through the world. The story was disrupted beautifully by Bertolt being dead.

“That’s a bit cold.”

Everyone ends up in the River. Everyone dies.

“Yet here we sit.”

Don’t be smart.

“Sorry. But, so much suffering? Reiner, Bertolt…me.”

Shifters suffer. It’s part of it. Even my daughters. I’ve watched almost every shifter since the very beginning be eaten alive. I watched you. I designed all of this when I was very young, and very, very angry. And I didn’t like Bertolt as much as Reiner.

“I really can’t understand that, I feel the exact opposite.”

The Founder doesn’t answer, possibly thinking that Ymir’s tastes are questionable and gauche.

“Did you watch me and Historia?”

No. You’re worth noticing now, because you’re here, but you weren’t, before. At all. 

“You’ll pardon my taking some offense. Why weren’t we interesting?”

The two of you are simply less broken. Despite everything. Your separation doesn’t result in utter dissolution. You’re two people, joined by free choice. 

Ymir is offended to the point of anger.

“I love Historia just as much as-”

Love, quantity or quality thereof, has nothing to do with it. Ymir doesn’t know why the Founder seems to take this personally, but irritated energy vibrates around the room. They would be this way regardless of love. It’s foolish to think that love is measured in proportion to the destruction it inflicts on the lovers. A child’s thought..

Ymir shrinks back in her chair, but The Founder’s placid inscrutability returns. 

I admit that them being in love makes them more exciting. They’re incomplete beings. Split atoms explode. Explosions are exciting.

Ymir has no idea what an atom is, or why one would split. An atom sounds like a thing best avoided. While she can’t help feeling a little bit miffed at the idea of her own romance being less interesting than Reiner and Bertolt’s terminal codependency, she certainly wouldn’t want to be an atom. 

And the Founder is right. Bertolt and Reiner are undeniably addictive, as far as entertainment goes.

“Granny. We’re sort of alike, aren't we?”

In some ways.

“I still don’t like seeing them suffer though.”

I don’t think their suffering is over, but I might not get to see how it all ends, which is a shame.

The dark implication isn’t lost on Ymir.

“Why? Why wouldn’t you see how it ends?”

The Founder looks grim.

I can only do so much. I’ve preserved what I can, but everything is diminishing. At the end, even my extension runs out. Your presence here further saps my energy.

Ymir swallows, a shadow of dread looms.

I am not going to dissolve you.

“Oh.” Ymir exhales. “Thank you.”

But the effort of maintaining all of it takes its toll, with or without you. The bubbles help. But I won’t be able to hold the integrity of the Paths forever.

“But then what happens to me?”

I don’t see how you survive, once the Paths are gone.

“What about Bertolt? If the Paths are gone, will he dissolve?”

I don’t know. None of this has happened before. What you did didn’t help.

“Did…did I doom him?”

Nobody dooms anyone. Everyone’s doomed to begin with.

“I suppose that’s true, but-”

I know. I understand what you’re asking. I don’t know the answer.

“Granny?”

?

“Why hasn’t Bertolt come back?” Ymir asks plaintively, “I can’t reach him, and he’s worrying himself absolutely bald about me. Can you bring him?”

Bringing someone to the Paths is exhausting. I have to hold the connection open from both ends until they go back. It takes me a long time to renew. Before, I could fit an infinity of rest into a fraction of a second. When we brought everyone here, before the Rumbling, I rested for one thousand years between two of Eren’s words, and he helped with all of it.

Ymir doesn’t want her voice to falter, but it does. “So, is it hopeless? Am I stuck here alone, forever, with nobody to talk to?”

When I’ve recovered, I can bring him again. But I don’t know how long that will take. Maybe too long. I’m out of practice, when it comes to urgency. It has been a very long time since time mattered to me.

“I was able to talk to him, sometimes.” 

Usually with my help. But the world isn’t tidy. Sometimes you happen to be in the correct place and time, and your voices find each other. Sometimes your positions are all wrong, and even I can’t do anything about it.

As she says this, the Founder moves her voice around in three-dimensional space, bringing it close and clear, then veering it away into a static-filled distance. Ymir realizes she’s demonstrating.

“Why did you help on the day of the telegram? Or when we read that article? And after the meeting?”

The article alarmed me. And when he met Armin and the others, I heard something in their conversation, that aligned with a feeling I’ve had. It justified my alarm. I can hold the pathways open, or I can meet with him, but I can’t do both at once in my diminished state. I hoped that you might selfishly convince him to pursue the issue.

Ymir connects the dots. 

“Titan serum. Our goals are aligned. You care about Titan serum. I care about Historia. We need Armin and company to do anything about any of it.”

Titan serum was always an abomination to begin with. The added labor once they started turning people into titans almost killed me all over again. AUDACITY. 

Ymir’s hair stands on end again as the Founder’s fury shivers through the atmosphere. Then everything explodes at once. Her voice thunders against every surface, it sizzles the air. It veers and wheels wildly in space and splits into a keening chorus. Gravity loses its integrity—everything from apples to sand animals to Ymir in her chair floats off the ground.

It wasn’t AT ALL part of my design. I had to keep track of YOU ALL. That sliver of time where you had TITAN SERUM cost me INNUMERABLE CENTURIES, hauling sand in the Paths, coming up with NEW DESIGNS. I sincerely considered starting the Rumbling on my own. If I COULD have found a way, I WOULD HAVE DONE IT. I’m GLAD, I’m GLAD, I’m SO GLAD that we DESTROYED MARLEY.

Ymir sits as still as she can with her eyes squeezed shut while the terrifying sandstorm whirls around her, praying not to be struck by lightning or ripped to pieces.

When she opens her eyes, everything is exactly as it was. Apples sit in a neat pyramid in their bowl. The Founder calmly straightens the carpet, as though she didn’t just almost blow up the entire Paths.

We’ll work together.

“I see,” whispers Ymir, shaking, “What do you need me to do?”

I’m going to teach you about dreams. It took me hundreds of years to learn to send people dreams about sand. A hundred more to shape the sand in their dreams to match my intentions. Both you and Bertolt are strangely good at sand. While he was in the Paths he moved the sand under Armin without thinking about it, and he knew how to find me. I should devote more thought to that. I was very proud of you when you managed to put sand in his dreams. But, you will need to understand that dreams, like titans, are a creative art, not an exact science.

“Alright, Granny,” says Ymir gamely, but politely, “I’m dying to see where you’re going with this.”

Chapter Text

“I like it! Do you like it?”

Reiner casts a critical eye over the peeling paper, the scuffed floorboards, the kitchen shelves, sagging in the middle, the water stains in the corners of the ceiling, and the living room windows with a scenic view of a brick wall.

“B, it’s a shithole. You want it ‘cause of the bathtub.”

“But LOOK at it.”

It’s huge bathtub, practically big enough for three people, seashell pink.

Reiner folds his arms. “I’m not living somewhere where the view is the side of a building. And it’s creepy, how that tub is the only fancy thing in the whole place. It feels unsavory, somehow.”

“But-”

“Unsavory, Bertolt.”

Bertolt, dejected but unable to argue with Reiner’s logic, surrenders. He casts a last sad look at the tub that’s almost a swimming pool, and they wave to the landlord as they leave. 

Reiner pulls out his notepad, where he’s scrawled all the addresses they’ve found in the newspaper. “Where next?”

***

A quiet, cobbled side street, close to the city center.

The building isn’t the usual multi-story tenement with two apartments per floor in boxy formations. It’s a three-story, square, brick building with a tailor’s workshop taking up the first two floors, and a side door in the alley leading to a single unit on the top floor. The tailor is the landlord.

It’s not perfect. The kitchen is a disaster, with a busted iron stove that looks like it was installed fifty years ago. The floorboards are wide and worn, and there aren’t enough places to store things. Not that they have things to store, but if they should want to have things at some point in the future, then they’ll have to build closets and cupboards. 

But it has tall ceilings, and wide windows, and hot water, and a bedroom with a door that closes. The sounds of the city are just close enough to be comforting without being a racket. It’s four trolley stops from where the surviving members of the Braun and Brice clans have settled, and, more importantly, it’s a ten minute walk from the school that Gabi (unwillingly) and Falco (eagerly) have been attending in the months since the disbanding of the Warrior unit and the almost-end of the world.

At one end of the apartment is a bathroom with a black-and-white tiled floor. A small round window sends a stream of light into an old-fashioned clawfoot tub that might very well be big enough for two, if they don’t mind a snug fit and if the floor can hold the weight of both of them plus water. It’s as though the gods themselves are pointing it out to Bertolt.

Bertolt runs a finger along the edge of the faucet and returns to the living room to stand next to Reiner, who’s looking approvingly through the windows at a view of rooftops and just the tiniest sliver of harbor, visible between two buildings on the left.

“This is it.”

Reiner leans his head on Bertolt’s shoulder.

“This is it.”

Moving is incredibly easy, since they own about five things between them. The first thing they set up is the phonograph. The first thing they buy is a stack of boards, so they can build a bookshelf all the way across the living room wall.

***

“Ymir. Are you okay? I’m worried.”

Bertolt waits. Nothing.

“I keep trying to get to you, but I can’t find my way there. I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know if you can hear me.”

No answer.

“Are you even there at all? Was I dreaming? Am I crazy?”

Not a whisper. No rustle of sand.

“I feel like I’m letting you down.”

Silence.

It’s been two weeks. 

Bertolt curls up in the brand new bed in the brand new bedroom, and the smoky, sultry jazz he leaves playing on the radio leaks into his dreams.

***

Another one of those nights. Those nights when you can hear the cries of a city that’s been left for the dogs to fight over, under the dirty glow of taxpayer-funded streetlights.

I was getting ready to to put the day out of its misery, when the meat cake I’d hired to run reception cracked the door to my office. I’d box his ears later, to give him a lesson about knocking.

“Miss Sands? We’ve got a customer.”

“Yeah? Well I’ve got a date with three dry martinis and a gal who delivers them for a two-penny tip. Tell him to come back when the sun’s out.”

“She’s awful insistent. Pretty too.” 

“Redhead?”

“Blonde.”

“Alright. Send her in. Make it a slow walk. And shove your globes back in their holster, all four of ‘em.”

“Yes, Miss Sands.”

While he solved the mystery of how to get back to the front door without a map, I tried to tidy up the place. Blondes have high standards. Except for the meat cake. The only standards he knows are the ones playing on the radio while he gives it up to whoever brought the longest antenna.

A knock on my office door. Seemed his grasp of good manners depended on who was watching. 

“Come in.”

The second I saw her, I knew she was trouble. 

She blew into the room like a cool breeze on a desert night. She looked familiar, somehow. A face I’d seen in a thousand dreams. Eyes like two blue lagoons. I knew if I drowned in them I’d go down thanking her for the drink. She was about the size of one of the meat cake’s arms—a half-pint of pure prima donna, poured into a skintight dress.

“That’ll be all, Brawn.”

“Yes, Miss Sands.”

He took a long look before he shut the door behind him, and I made a note to deduct his eyes from his paycheck.

“Thank you for seeing me, detective. I know it’s terribly late.”

“Sit down, Miss…?”

“Reiss. Historia Reiss.”

Reiss. I knew the name. So, this was a royal reception.

She landed on the leather chair like a butterfly at a cockroach convention.

“So, what brings you here, Ms. Reiss? Get lost on your way to the ball?”

She didn’t crack a smile. That was alright, somehow I knew that seeing her smile would leave me dead, face down on my desk. Or face up, so I could keep looking ’til the lights went out. She held a cigarette in a long silver holder, and I lit it for her. She tapped twice and spoke with a voice that trickled like hot honey.

“Miss Sands, perhaps you’ve heard of my father.”

“Maybe I have.”

I’d heard of him, of course. Rod Reiss, kingpin of Paradis Corp, the biggest conglomerate this side of the Mid East territories.

“Well, he’s dead.”

My eyebrows hit my hairline.

“Dead? It wasn’t in the papers.”

She crossed her legs. Gams like that could make a girl lose sight of her priorities.

“It’s all been kept under wraps. The company doesn’t want it getting out until everything’s settled.”

“What’s to settle, Queenie?” She didn’t seem keen on the nickname—but if the crown fits. “Doesn’t this leave you in the big chair?”

She took a long pull on her cigarette. I envied the smoke for its proximity.

“I’ve been ousted. That’s why I’m here.”

Ousted? How dare they. I took it personal.

“How’d that happen?”

“I don’t know. Somebody’s working behind the scenes to keep me from my rightful place. It’s a hostile takeover. I’m in hiding, Miss Sands. I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

Her lagoons welled over. My heart melted like an ice cube in a floozie’s mouth.

“And what kind of help could a mutt like me give a poodle like you, Queenie?”

“I want to hire you. To help me find out who’s behind this, and to help me take back what’s mine. I’ve still got resources, and I’ve still got friends, but my son and I are in terrible danger. My hands are tied.”

I tried not to let this image affect me. And the mention of a kid dimmed my flame a little.

“What about your husband?”

“To hell with my husband. He’s working with them.”

Bad news for her. Good news for me.

“Now, Miss. I’d like to help you, truly I would. But you gotta give me something to work with. What’re my leads?”

“You’re the professional. But I do have a thought.” 

Just like that, the tears went the way of the titans. Had I been had? Maybe this daisy had some thorns.

“I’m sure you’ve got all kinds of thoughts, Queenie, and I’m all ears.”

“There’s a charity gala this month. At the university. All of them will be there—Paradis Corp, Titan Trust, heads of state—and some of my people. I think that’s the very best place to start.”

“And how do I get access?”

“Like I said, you’re the professional. Oh please, Miss Sands, you’ll help me, won’t you?” 

I stood and gave her my winning smile. Not that it’s ever won me anything, but I figure I’m playing the long game.

“Queenie, I’ll see what I can do.”

University, huh? For this one, I’d need my partner.

__

Today’s serial is brought to you by TITAN TONICS & TINCTURES. 

Feeling tired? Feeble? Not getting the respect you deserve? No more! With TITAN TONICS & TINCTURES, one draught will have you breaking down walls and eating your critics alive—while the folks around you ooh and ahhh! TITAN TONICS & TINCTURES, with our famous thirteen-year guarantee: one dose or your money back! 

And now, we return to our program—“Sands, PI: Trouble in Paradise”

__

The voice came crackling down the wire like a collect call from the moon. I could hardly make out the words.

“Classical Studies Department, Pickens speaking.”

“Slim, it’s Sands. Been too long. I need your- ”

“Oh no. No. Never again, Sands. I told you, I’m out. I’ve still got rope burn from the last one.”

“Aw, Slim, you can’t pin that on me. How could I have known the perp had a weakness for sweater vests?”

Slim Pickens, codename “Crybaby”, a six-foot-something shot glass full of sniffles and social anxiety. He had wrists like wet spaghetti, but he was the best there was in the book business, which made him real good at going under cover.

“I liked that sweater vest! I would’ve liked keeping that sweater vest on, in a room full of gangster degenerates! I’m done letting you sucker me into-”

“I got you out of there, didn’t I? If anything, you owe me—so hear me out, I think this one’ll grab your interest. You ever heard of Paradis Corp?”

“Of course I have. Why do y—NO. Sands. Please tell me you aren’t going up against the Reiss family.”

“Switch it around, Slim.”

“You’re working for the Reisses?”

“Dingaling. You win. As a reward, I’m cutting you in on the deal.”

A long pause on the end of the line told me his clock was ticking overtime.

“No. I don’t believe you. There’s a catch. Why would they hire you when they’ve got the entire Marley MP under their thumb?”

“I knew you’d be interested. I’m working for the princess—should-be queen, but somebody’s bumped her off the throne. And the kingpin is dead.”

“WHAT? Rod Reiss?”

“Dingaling again. She wants us to find out who’s behind the crown heist.”

“But why would you need me? I don’t have anything to do with those people.”

“There’s a bigwig to-do at Marley U, end of the month. You got what I don’t, Crybaby. You can swim with the big fish. Put me in a room full of caviar and I’m chum.” 

“I hate parties! You know that! I’m the worst person to send!”

“You’ll make some friends with deep pockets for your department—I hear the price of parchment is up.”

I’d hit him where it hurts. I knew he could taste fresh ink. I brought out the big guns.

“Do it for an old war buddy, Slim. I’m not one to call in favors on a friend, but I seem to remember getting between you and a bullet with your name on it. ‘Least that’s the song my leg sings, when it’s about to rain.”

“Sands…of course. I know, but—I really don’t think-”

He was leaning like a tree in a heavy wind—all it’d take was a last swing of the axe.

“C’mon, Crybaby. I’ll bring the meat cake so you have something to chew on.”

“…fine.”

For a guy whose racket was ancient tomes, Crybaby was awful easy to read.

***

Bertolt shoots up in bed with a gasp.

Reiner stirs next to him, and throws out a sleepy arm. “Mmph…B. Y’okay?”

“I—yes? What?” He looks all around him, but he isn’t wearing a sweater vest, and he isn’t in a dusty, book-lined office, and he isn’t on the telephone with someone who sounds exactly like a dime-store novel version of Ymir. “I just had the weirdest dream.”

“Oh. Okay.” Reiner pushes him down flat with very little effort and snuggles up, trapping him under a tangle of heavy limbs and immediately falling asleep again.

Bertolt stares at the ceiling for a while wondering what the hell a meat cake is, and wishing Ymir would talk to him, so he could ask.

Chapter Text

All of Bertolt’s calisthenics are finally starting to pay off. He’ll never be quite as tall as he was before he died, and he’s not sure if he’ll ever get quite as strong, but he’s beginning to feel less like a daffodil and more like…what’s the next thing up? Some kind of swamp reed?

Still, today the apartment is shrinking around him. It’s pouring rain.

Xavier is lurking in his thoughts, flashing perfect, pearly fangs, while a simpering, imaginary Reiner calls him pretty. And thinking about this reminds Bertolt of Reiner’s dissociative Soldier persona drooling over Krista. They all roll around in the hayloft of his mind in a sort of a nightmarish ménage à trois. 

He still can’t reach Ymir, so maybe she was never there. Maybe he’s going crazy, after all. Or maybe she hates him, for some reason. Maybe she’s dead again. 

But last night’s dream is nagging at him. It has him thinking about all the different reasons that he really does have to go to the fucking meeting with Armin, even though he’s been plotting all kinds of ways to get out of it.

If she’s real, then he owes it to Ymir. And anyway, if he doesn’t go, Reiner will go without him, and Bertolt will spend the entire time at home, imagining his meat cake reassuring Historia about all the ways he’s going to protect her, while he gallantly pours her tea. 

Maybe motherhood has made her dumpy.

The other day Reiner snapped at him. Reiner shut him down. For the first time since…he won’t think about it. 

Please. Of course he’ll think about it. 

He’ll think about it—is thinking about it—relentlessly, wondering what it means. Scrutinizing Reiner’s words and wondering if he’s less loved, now that he’s been out of a coma long enough to become a boring old everyday object.

Bertolt tries to read a book, but he keeps finding himself at the bottom of pages having retained nothing, because his mind has been sidetracked by this parade of seething ruminations.

Reiner, sensing the dangerous energy saturating the room but likewise trapped by the rain, is stretched out on the sofa, being inconspicuous and quietly leafing through a book about architecture. Bertolt stops pacing around his cage and turns his attention like a prison searchlight on his nervous companion.

“Hey Reiner, want to spar? How long has it been? Almost a year, for me.”

Reiner keeps his eyes safely glued to a picture of a renovated castle with tall, lonely spires.

“Years. Yeah. No. I don’t know if y—if we should…”

“Excuse me? Why? Insulting. You think I can’t take it?”

“It’s not that, B. I just don’t wanna hurt you.”

“That’s the exact same thing!”

“I’ll probably just beat you.”

“So? You beat me all the time before and you never cared.”

“Yeah, but back then we could heal ourselves.”

Bertolt grimaces.

“Reiner. I’m going to explode. Either help me or escape from the room now, because I’m very close to resigning myself to a full day of punching holes through the walls.”

Reiner waffles but Bertolt circles him like a mosquito, childishly trying to rile him up by throwing nasty, irritating little jabs and pinches. Reiner finally gets fed up and pitches his book across the room.

“Okay! Okay. God. Fine. I’ll scrap. How do you wanna do it.”

“Freestyle, anything goes, three rules: stop if there’s blood or a knockout; fight’s over when someone forfeits; and no murder.”

“Screw it. Fine. You can see all your old friends at the hospital.”

They clear things out of the middle of the living room. 

The practiced stance—bent knees, fists up, circling—feels good. It reminds him of dust on his boots, the smell of horses in the air. Feeling effortlessly strong and in command of his body. Being better than almost everyone else, even while he was trying not to be as good as he really was. 

Nice while you have it. 

“Ready, B?”

“Worry about yourself.”

Bertolt throws the first punch, relying on his reach, but he’s not quick enough. Reiner catches his arm mid-swing and sends him hurtling into the wall. He collides with the wallpaper with a satisfying boom that knocks some of the frustration out of his body. He laughs at the worry that flashes over Reiner’s face and goes back into his stance. 

He tries to read Reiner's movements, just like the old days. When he senses the attack coming he dodges, and his foe’s fist smashes into the wall behind him.

“Damn you really tried to get me, Reiner! Too bad.”

“Yeah, you’re getting fast again. I’m still gonna fuck you up, though. It’ll just take thirty seconds instead of five. Good for you!” Reiner’s voice drips with condescension as he retreats, rubbing his knuckles.

Bertolt waits patiently for an opportunity. He lets Reiner get halfway through his next taunt before rushing forward to wrap him in octopus arms, trying to drag him down to the floorboards. He briefly manages to get a surprised Reiner into a headlock, but Reiner breaks his hold and moves to flip him. Bertolt wriggles free and throws a highly satisfying kick that catches Reiner between the ribs.

Reiner rolls to his knees wheezing and barrels into Bertolt head first. When Bertolt flails backwards he catches him by one windmilling forearm.

Bertolt pummels at Reiner, but he only has his non-dominant arm, and anyway hitting Reiner anywhere besides the face or gut is like punching a goddamn elephant. Reiner grapples him across the room, ignoring the blows raining down, and when Bertolt tries to squirm out of the hold he pins him face down against the kitchen table. Bertolt roars and struggles. He sinks his teeth into Reiner’s forearm.

Reiner yells and his tightens his grasp. “Damn, B! I win! Stop!”

“I don’t see blood and I’m still awake, so go to hell!” Bertolt throws a leg up behind him, narrowly missing Reiner’s moneymakers but catching him sharply on the inner thigh. Reiner’s shocked yelp turns into a snarl. 

“Oh, that is fucking it.”

He throws his weight down on top of Bertolt, vengefully driving his tooth-bruised forearm into his upper back. Bertolt, robbed of air, tries to throw a punch backwards, but the angle is awkward and impossible, and Reiner locks his arms against his lower back.

A hand slides down Bertolt’s side. Reiner pops open the front clasps on his suspenders and pulls them off. 

Shit.

Essential Warrior skills. Neutralizing a prisoner with whatever’s available, in the shortest possible amount of time. Bertolt gets trussed. As soon as he knows what’s happening, he knows it’s hopeless and doesn’t waste precious energy fighting it. He’s still got his legs and teeth.

Reiner stretches himself long over Bertolt so he can whisper.

“Forfeit.”

Bertolt snaps his teeth, trying to catch Reiner’s cheek.

“If you bite me again, B, I swear to god.”

“Yeah? What? You swear to god what, you dumb blonde fuck?”

Reiner decides that shutting him up is worth the risk of getting bitten. He moves around the table like a shark, pivoting around a hand pressed into the center of Bertolt back and shoving him back down when he tries to lever himself upright. 

His belt clinks. 

Bertolt watches him unbutton his trousers one-handed. “You’re hard from scrapping? You’re a pervert.”

“Yeah,” says Reiner, pulling Bertolt closer, until he’s precariously close to falling sideways off the edge of the table. He holds his cock a centimeter away from Bertolt’s face. “Open up.”

Bertolt squeezes his mouth into a line. Reiner drags his fingers through the long hair at Bertolt’s nape. One hard, fast pull makes Bertolt gasp, and he splutters when his jaw is stretched open by a sudden hard, heavy mouthful.

“If you bite me I will actually kill you, and nobody would convict me.”

Bertolt runs his tongue hatefully along the ridge under Reiner’s dick, tasting precum. Fine. He glares up at him sideways.

“What, you don’t like it? Liar. Wish I could show you your face right now.”

Reiner thrusts. Bertolt grunts and squeezes his eyes shut as it hits his palate. When Reiner pulls back, he sucks in a lungful of air. 

“You f-“

Reiner drives forward again and shoves the words back down Bertolt’s throat.

“Sorry, what was that?”

The fist tightens in his hair. Reiner keeps Bertolt trapped, waiting until he’s writhing before pulling back again, just enough for Bertolt to take a ragged breath. Drool leaks down his cheek and pools on the table. Reiner smears it back over his lips with one thumb.

“Looking good, B.” 

Bertolt growls wordlessly as Reiner fucks his face with slow, deep, mean strokes. He focuses desperately on keeping everything open so he won’t gag, and pushes back against the intrusion with his tongue. He keeps his eyes trained furiously on Reiner’s face. He swears that Reiner, staring back at him with an unsettling brew of lust and spite, is swelling in his mouth.

Reiner slides out with a wet pop. Bertolt coughs and tries to rub a cramp out of his jaw against the table.

Reiner regards him. Deciding. 

“Yeah, I think when you lose a fight, the rules are you get fucked however I want.”

He steps back to the end of the table. Rough fingers slide under Bertolt’s waistband. He twitches when they wrap around him.

“Hey, Bertolt. You’re hard too. Feel?” Reiner squeezes. “You always get this hard from sucking my dick? Wow.”

Bertolt, determined not to lose himself in Reiner’s touch, prepares to throw another kick, but Reiner is already yanking his pants down around his thighs.

The hand snakes back around. Reiner’s strokes are surprisingly gentle. Pressure builds between Bertolt’s legs.

“Admit I won, and I’ll make you come, just like this,” Reiner says softly, “C’mon, Bertl. I’ll make you feel so good. Let me.”

Bertolt flips him off, right in his loving face, with two immobilized hands.

Reiner laughs. “You’re insane.” With absolutely no warning he brings the flat of his hand down on Bertolt’s ass. Bertolt’s world stops. The pain hits like lightning—he yells as his feet come off the floor. Reiner takes advantage of the circumstances and leans forward to shove some fingers into his mouth. Bertolt tries to scald Reiner’s arm like a lobster with titan steam and then remembers he can’t do that anymore.

Reiner takes back his fingers and slides them down the cleft of Bertolt’s ass until they meet the tender skin of his hole. He tests.

“Damn. You’re tense. Is it ‘cause you’re mad you lost? Might as well relax, B, keeping me out of you is just another game you’ll lose. Hey, since you’re so tough now, you can take three, right? Whine about it if you can’t.”

Bertolt stills. He takes deep breaths and tries to unclench his muscles, but none of it matters because there’s no preparing for the moment when Reiner shoves two slick fingers past his resistance, and then a third, and goes right into massaging firm circles into his prostate, squeezing the red palm-print he’s left on Bertolt’s ass. The dull ache crashes against the electric shocks that ripple out to the rest of his body every time Reiner slides over that dangerous ridge inside him.

“Gonna say it?”

“Never,” Bertolt croaks, grinding against his fingers.

“Tch.” The fingers slide out. “Hey, I ever tell you how pink you are inside when I open you up? It’s a really pretty color.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Nah.”

Bertolt awaits the inevitable.

Something much thicker than fingers presses against him, and Bertolt moans when he’s breached. Reiner takes him inch by slow inch, until their hips meet and he’s breathless and bottomed out. Bertolt's body struggles back against his slow impalement. Reiner makes his own pained noises, being squeezed too tight. His palm cracks down again, the sound echoing off the walls. Another mind-emptying eruption of pain.

Bertolt fails to hold in a halting “Aaagh…” He drops his forehead onto the table and shivers through the burn.

Reiner rolls against him lazily and rubs comforting circles into his hips with his thumbs. 

“B, come on. You’re ridiculous. Just say it.”

Bertolt, more pissed off about the hint of sweetness under the words than the general violation, keeps obstinately taking Reiner’s cock, never for one solitary second entertaining the thought of giving in.

Reiner steps things up. He latches on to Bertolt’s bound arms and tugs him back into his thrusts while he rails him over the table.

“Why’re… you making it so hard…” He reaches up and threads fingers through Bertolt’s hair. “Just say… ‘Reiner, you win.’”

Bertolt twists his head all the way around, glares into Reiner’s eyes, and spits words between impacts:

“Reiner…is…that…all…you’ve…got?”

He revels in Reiner’s expression of incredulous frustration, but winces and throws his head back when Reiner pulls out and twists his fists into the back his shirt, lifting him off the table. He drags him to the sofa and tosses him onto his back like a sack of grain. 

Reiner pulls Bertolt’s pants the rest of the way off and forces his legs apart. He doesn’t waste time on a slow entry—he makes Bertolt scream. He pounds into him mercilessly. He shoves fingers into his mouth. He paws at his flesh and grabs his shoulders to drive him down deep against his hips. He sucks, and bites, and whispers vague threats. He uses everything in his arsenal to get the words he wants out of Bertolt. 

But he doesn’t get them.

Bertolt’s brain is a molten, overstimulated puddle, trying to process a thousand inputs at once. Pressure and friction. Reiner’s breath on his neck and his weight against his chest. The humming vibration of grunts and moans. The concussion of their bodies, slick with sweat, and the sting from sudden strikes to his flanks that linger and burn. The cramped arch of his back over his bound arms, aching in their sockets. He can’t close his mouth. He can’t swear properly.

Reiner, doggedly rearranging Bertolt’s insides, is flushed, winded, and sweating through his shirt.

“You can always tell me to stop. Say ‘I forfeit.’ I’ll stop fucking you up and jack off on your face instead. You know I like winning, almost as much as I like filling you up with my cum. Almost.”

Reiner curls his hand around Bertolt’s shaft and pulls sensation up into it while he fucks him senseless. A hot ball of lust gathers in Bertolt’s belly and squeezes its slow way down. He moans a garbled approximation of Reiner’s name and clamps tight around his cock.

“Ohhh, wow.” Reiner murmurs, shutting his eyes and letting Bertolt’s body grip him like a fist.

Bertolt’s voice hits the rafters as the ball of tension inside him expands like a balloon and bursts. He comes, quaking into a climax that wracks him like a seizure. He almost pushes Reiner out.

Reiner hammers away relentlessly while Bertolt’s orgasm pulses around him. Bertolt is pure jelly—glassy-eyed and whimpering as he’s helplessly rag-dolled against the sofa. Reiner thunders into his own climax and forces him into the cushions one last time, gripping the soft skin of Bertolt’s waist, spilling inside him in hot waves. When he finally stops shuddering, he collapses.

“Oh my god,” he groans weakly. 

He withdraws, and Bertolt cringes from the soreness of his bruised hole, the shock of sudden emptiness and the warm drip of fluid trickling from his body. He makes a pathetic, pained little noise.

Reiner pales. “Fuck…oh fuck. Bertolt.” 

He scrambles to untie him, tossing the suspenders aside.

“Reiner…” Bertolt’s voice quivers, legs still shamelessly open, leaking seed, too feeble to move.

“Yeah Bertl?” Reiner’s eyebrows are drawn up in the middle, guilt written across his forehead as he searches Bertolt’s face. “Are you—I can’t believe I went that hard. B, baby, are you ok?”

Bertolt flutters when he hears “baby.” A vanishingly rare word that always means that Reiner, for one reason or another, is feeling pitifully desperate. It’s delicious.

“I think that…might be…the hottest thing….that’s ever happened to me…in my whole entire life.”

Reiner exhales and crumples beside him with an exhausted, relieved laugh, nervous tension leaving his body. “Oh thank God.” He drops his sweaty forehead onto Bertolt’s shoulder and nuzzles his salty, damp skin. “I thought you were going to tell me to turn myself in to the authorities.”

“Psht. Please. Like you wouldn’t…have been on your knees groveling…in five seconds…if I really told you to stop.” Bertolt starts to get his breath back. “Holy shit. I can’t stop shaking. You’re still so goddamn strong.”

Reiner strokes him from chest to belly, not bothered by the mess on his stomach—a calming salve to Bertolt’s nervous system. “You gave me a run for my money, B. You’re crazy strong too. Two months ago I could’ve killed you by accident, doing that. You’re gonna have bruises though.”

“S’what happens in a scrap,” says Bertolt.

He’s floating in a pink cloud, like he’s taken opium. He’s a blissed-out cat being petted.

“Heyy,” he slurs, tongue lazy in his mouth, “D’you remember when we used to wrestle, when we were kids, and once in a while I actually beat you?”

“Hah. Yeah, actually I’m pretty sure you beat me the first two hundred times.”

“You were always stupid strong, you just didn’t have skills. Once you got skills, I was doomed.”

“Mhm. You still got me a bunch of times. Remember when you got drunk and popped me in the nose outside that pub?”

Bertolt grins groggily at Reiner. 

“I got my first real hard-on from us wrestling.”

“Ha, you horny little bastard!”

“Yup.” 

“Not gonna lie—I’m pretty sure my first really impure thoughts happened like that. How much you want to bet that it was while I was pinning you down or something.”

“You were a monster from the start.”

“Well, yeah, but I also wanted to hold hands by the duck pond, and make you a crown out of dandelions, and get matching Best Friends tattoos with our names. I’m complicated.”

He laces his fingers through Bertolt’s and runs his lips down his wrist.

“Um. Reiner?”

“Yeah, B?”

“Fuck. Help. I’m sorry. I dunno what’s wrong with me. I’m hard again. Gimme my hand back.”

“Rude.”

Bertolt rolls his eyes. “Please, o glorious victor. Have mercy and let me jerk off.” 

“No.”

“You piss me off.”

“I know.” Reiner rolls himself back on top and leans down. The kiss is all innocence—soft and undemanding against Bertolt’s swollen mouth. He runs fingers through the hair pasted to his forehead, smoothing it back—the Reiner Special. 

“You know how much I love you, right? You’re my favorite person forever.”

Bertolt smiles into a second kiss.

“I know.”

Reiner slides his hand down between their bodies to Bertolt’s somehow-hard-again dick.

“But we’ll see if you still feel that way,” sighs Bertolt, sinking into a second fog, “when I finally start winning again.”

“Looking forward to it.”

Bertolt’s mind fills with devious plans. He stores them away for the future and contentedly lets himself float.

Chapter Text

“Of course I don’t want to go. But I feel like I have to.”

Bertolt, surrounded by pillows with his back pressed against the headboard and Reiner’s comforting weight against his chest, runs his fingers through blonde hair and sips from his mug of wine. He can feel Reiner’s grim expression right through his skull.

“I just don’t wanna see you get hurt like that again.”

“I’m going to get hurt either way. I don’t know. I feel like Ymir would want me to help. And I’d rather be there at the meeting, annoyed about you being polite to Historia, instead of sitting here at home, imagining you proposing to her.”

“Bertolt…”

“What? I’m allowed to be petty.”

Reiner wordlessly leans his head back over Bertolt’s shoulder and stares up at the ceiling, letting the shirt he’s mending fall into his lap. Bertolt instantly cringes at his own thoughtlessness. 

“Sorry. That was stupid. Don’t think about it. Here.” 

Reiner doesn’t take the mug. Bertolt slides it onto the bedside table and wraps him in apologetic arms.

“That wasn’t me.” The quiet, bruised guilt in Reiner’s voice hums against Bertolt’s conscience. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“I know. Of course you wouldn’t. Anyway I’m more stressed about seeing Armin. Hey, maybe there’ll be cookies again.”

The joke doesn’t land. 

***

Everything was moving. Waves of titans crashed against the base of the tower. Rocks screamed through the air like missiles, thrown from impossibly far away, landing with concussion after concussion. Scouts, determined and frantic, barked at the trainees to stay safe on top of the tower, or inside it. But nowhere was safe. Who were they kidding.

A fur-covered leviathan strode into their line of vision. Reiner reflexively grabbed Bertolt’s hand and dropped it again.

Oh my god. ZEKE. That’s Zeke. He’s here?? Why’s he on Paradis?? That bastard. That prick. He doesn’t know we’re here. He’s gonna get us killed.

Bertolt, we should run. We failed our mission. He’ll feed me to someone, he’ll pass on my titan. Worse, he might pass on yours. 

No. I won’t let him. I’ll kill him first.

What the hell is that thing? My God, it’s huge. Is that a titan? Has to be… what? A special titan? Like Eren? We’ll kill that fucking thing. I’ll kill it. How do we kill it, though? Bertolt, have you ever seen a titan like that before? 

***

I’m sorry Connie. You’re right. That was your mother, lying on her back with her empty, dead fish eyes pointed at nothing. She’ll be there forever ’til someone puts her out of her misery. Because of that bastard Zeke. I should’ve killed her when you weren’t looking.

Reiner wandered through the tower, letting guilt bore holes through his guts. He followed a flickering light to a storeroom, where he found Ymir rummaging quietly through a crate. He shut the door behind him.

“Ymir, what’re you doing?”

“Prowling at night, Reiner? Come to see me? I’m shocked. I was under the impression that you had no interest in women.”

Pot, meet kettle. Whatever. “Yeah. And it doesn’t seem like you have interest in guys.”

Ymir smiled slyly, enjoying the warm satisfaction of confirmed suspicions. 

“Hah. I thought I’d use this time to scavenge for something that might fill my stomach. This’ll probably end up being my last meal.”

Reiner remembered why he was there.

“Hey, about Connie’s village—were you joking around on purpose? To take his mind off things? I’d appreciate if you’d keep doing that so he doesn’t keep worrying.”

Poor little guy. It’s not right.

It’s our fault.

What’s our fault?

His village is our fault. His mother is our fault. Zeke’s fault.

Zeke. Who’s Zeke again? Maybe Bertolt knows. Bertolt always knows.

“This might do the trick. Not that I like herring, but-” Ymir cuts herself off. The strangest expression falls over her face.

“Is there any more? Could I see it?”

“…go for it.”

“Canned food, huh?”

Reiner turned the silver canister over in his hands.

Food in cans? She said herring. A fish, right? Woah. What the hell are these symbols. Wait—

Wait.

Herring. HOW does she know what herring is? In a can. They don’t know about canned food here. Or the ocean. She shouldn’t know, unless…

“Ymir… you’re…”

A shout from upstairs interrupted the moment of revelation. The tower rumbled. Titans were coming.

***

The others had fallen behind, their footsteps ringing against the stones one flight above him. He reached the lowest door in the tower and listened. Nothing. He lifted the latch. At first there was only empty blackness, but he raised his torch and a titan’s vicious, vacant eyes and gleaming teeth threw the light back in his face. Reiner slammed his back against the door. The torch clattered to the ground.

"They’re here!! Bring something, quick!” 

I’m an idiot. 

The titan’s arm burst through the wood in slow motion, right next to his head. The tower wall dissolved into a blueish-gray sky. A giant hand wrapped around Marcel’s little body. Their eyes locked as he was helplessly lifted towards the titan’s mouth.

Is this it? 

Will this be it? Is this the end?

No. It can’t be. 

No. I won’t let it happen. I’m definitely going home. Zeke is here. Somebody’s finally here to find us. I’m not fucking dying, today of all days.

Bertolt hurtled down the stone stairway, incandescent and stunning, brandishing a pitchfork over his head. The titan’s eyes burst and bled around the prongs. Reiner helped him drive the weapon deeper into its misshapen head.

“Reiner! Are you okay?"

Yes! Saved my life! Best friend in the fucking world. Love him.

Love you. We’re going home, just like we promised.

“Bertolt, we’re gonna survive and go home.”

We could go home for just a little while, even if they feed us to someone. You could read one real book from the real world. You could have one last taste of ice cream, and hear an orchestra on the radio. I’ll scream and fuck up the guards until they give you whatever you want.

Bertolt’s eyes shone against the rust and stone and darkness, pure hope lifting his features and breathing life back into his voice. “Right! We’re going home!” 

Look at your beautiful smile, all over your beautiful face. God, I miss it. I could look at you all day. I’d make you smile all day. If we weren’t in the middle of killing this titan and if I wasn’t in the middle of losing my mind. When was the last time you smiled? Weeks and weeks ago. 

Another glorious sight—the others at the top of the stairs, rolling an ancient cannon. It thundered towards them, an avalanche of iron, and Reiner and Bertolt scrambled out of its path. The titan lay crushed, punctured, and twitching. 

Saved. By other people. Again.

“Looks like that worked.”

Reiner was relieved, and wasn’t sure why he hated himself for it. “Yeah, it’s not getting up from that. Not one of that size.” He rubbed the back of his fist against a sudden pounding headache.

“What now?” Connie wondered plaintively, “All we have is this knife.”

“Don’t even try. No. You’ll get hurt if it grabs you.”

The door exploded.

Reiner charged forward. He shoved Connie and Marcel out of the way, just in the nick of time. The titan’s teeth closed around his forearm.

***

Bertolt and Ymir’s joint flying kick sent the titan tumbling out of the window. Its body hit the ground far below with a wet, ear-splitting crash. 

Bertolt always has my back. Thanks, buddy. Know what? I think I’d kiss you, if there weren’t all these people around. I keep meaning to.

But Reiner had already kissed Bertolt thousands of times. Secretly in their bunk, freezing at any hint of movement from the other scouts and then laughing into the blanket. Frantically, when they were the last ones out of the showers, hands sliding across muscle and skin under frigid water. Slow and indulgent when they splurged on a room in town, paying the fee with scarves wrapped tightly around their faces, as if the proprietor gave a shit who they were. Trying everything. Loving when Bertolt bit back. Pressing his wrists into the rough, cheap sheets. Savoring the arch of his spine and the flutter around his cock and the sound of his name in Bertolt’s mouth when he entered him. The never-ending thrill of it. 

Never-ending until a month ago, when Reiner could no longer ignore the fact that he was losing whole days at a time, and that he kept waking up right in the middle of snarling at Bertolt about the mission, with his hands curled into dangerous claws and the Warrior’s contempt for his comrade’s softness still boiling in his throat. He stopped touching Bertolt. Eventually, a hurt and bewildered Bertolt stopped trying to touch him.

The Soldier didn’t know about any of that.

Bertolt was gaunt with worry, looking at Reiner’s bloodied, fractured arm. He wouldn’t be able to heal it with everyone watching. The pain and the tenderness in his hands and eyes as they moved over the wound made Reiner shudder. The touch was too good. Bertolt’s heat was too close. His hair was right there, all messed up, begging to be smoothed down.

Oh, fuck off, Bertolt. I don’t deserve this. 

Reiner pulled away.

“Krista, can you help me fix this up?”

“Of course. Come sit over here.”

Reiner didn’t need to see the hurt in Bertolt’s face to know that it was there. When Krista tore up her skirt to make a bandage, the Soldier stared slack-jawed at her skinny little legs, and neither Reiner nor the Warrior tried to stop him. 

“Reiner?”

Stop, Bertolt.

“REINER.”

Bertolt’s voice cracks Reiner back into the present. Soft bed, not flagstones. Singers on the radio, not the screams of the senior scouts being devoured alive. 

But the duck pond eyes staring at him, drowning in anxiety, are exactly the same, wherever (or whenever) he goes. Bertolt cranes forward over Reiner’s shoulder, trying to get his attention.

Shit. “Sorry, I went somewhere. What’d you say?”

“Reiner…look what you’re doing…”

Reiner looks down. The sewing needle is buried in his forearm, all the way down to the muscle. It doesn’t hurt nearly as much as he’d like it to.

***

Bertolt makes tea and rubs shoulders and says nice things, trying to make up for his mistake. After he gets the little spot of blood out of the sleeve, Reiner sits crosslegged on the floor against the sofa and finishes sewing the ripped pocket back onto his shirt.

“B, stop flailing around. I’m fine. Come here.”

Bertolt is on the verge of tears.

“You went back and it’s my fault.”

“It isn’t your fault. It happens anyway. I’m used to it. Doesn’t it happen to you?”

“Not like that.”

“Stop worrying. All you did was worry about me back then, too. Half my memories are you worrying about me.”

“But it’s my job.”

“It’s not. Never was.”

Bertolt sinks down next to him with his knees drawn up. Reiner laughs.

“What?”

“This feels just like the bunk. You being all miserable and clingy and sitting exactly like that while I fix a shirt.”

“Clingy? You dare.”

“I like clingy.”

Bertolt makes a vague “mm” sound and pokes at the new stitches. Reiner bats his hand away so he can finish his work and tie off the thread. It’s sort of fascinating to watch. Fingers that brawny have no right to be so agile, but Reiner has always worked a needle like a seamstress.

“Hey Reiner, you ever try playing an instrument? I bet you could. What instrument would you play?”

“Bongo drums.”

“Shut up. I’m serious.”

“Piano, I guess.” Reiner grins. “They had one in the rec room back home and it bothered the hell out of Zeke when I played. His office was right underneath. So I banged on it a lot.”

“So you sew, and draw, and cut hair, and now you play piano. You’re fancy as fuck. Do you ballroom dance too?”

Reiner tosses the shirt onto the sofa and sweeps Bertolt to his feet.

“What’s happening right now.”

“You’re behind the times, so we’ll do a foxtrot.”

The music on the radio is perfect for it. Bertolt lets himself get dragged around the room. He has no idea what a foxtrot is supposed to look like, so he has no idea whether or not Reiner is good at it.

“Why do you know how to do this?”

“It’s just walking in circles. And do you have any idea how many shitty events I’ve had to go to since I got back? Every diplomatic thing, they drag out the warriors and make it a whole production, and then shove us back into the closet with the rest of the Eldians when it’s over. But Zeke was pretty good at dancing and I wanted another way to make him miserable, so Gabi and I practiced.”

“Trust you and Gabi to turn dancing and piano playing into bloodsports.”

“Damn straight. That way they’re honorable and manly pursuits.”

Bertolt surprises himself by letting Reiner spin him out, and then back in. He surprises himself again when he doesn’t fall down.

“See, you’re good at it!”

“I feel like a baby deer.”

“A good-looking baby deer who's gonna be a really good dancer. We’ve gotta buy you some decent shoes.”

“No tailcoat?”

“Nobody wears those anymore. Now it’s the rage to wear your uniform and look really dashing while you throw people around.”

“On Paradis I always tried to remember what an orchestra sounded like. Can’t believe we lived without radios.”

“You wanna go see an orchestra?”

Bertolt thinks that he’s getting the hang of dancing. Maybe if you can fight, you can dance. Or maybe he’s just used to knowing where Reiner is about to go. He considers the question. It’d be interesting to see an orchestra. And nobody’s allowed to talk during concerts, right? So the risk of social ambush is minimal.

“Yeah, I’d like to see a concert. I’ve never been to a real one.”

“You haven’t been to a movie since you got back either. You won’t believe how incredible movies have gotten, since we left. You know some are in color? And no armbands, no special Eldian hours. We can go whenever we want. What’ve I been doing all this time, not taking you to the movies? Ridiculous. You should leave me.”

The song ends. Reiner and Bertolt break apart. They bow to each other in grand, dramatic fashion. Reiner checks his watch.

“Five thirty. Perfect. Let’s go see a movie. Right now. I know exactly which one.”

***

Reiner buys two tickets to a swashbuckler, and he spends most of the movie happily watching Bertolt’s mind-boggled reactions instead of the screen. Bertolt leans forward for almost two hours straight with his mouth hanging open, his eyes taking up half the real estate of his face, and the bottle of contraband lemonade from Reiner’s coat pocket forgotten in his hand.

An azure ocean stretches across the entire front wall of the theater. A pirate ship festooned with full sails and cannons, and nets hanging from the sides, surges boldly through the spray against a sky like the inside of a seashell, delicate blue with pillowy white and pink clouds. The names of the stars written in bright red letters fade in and out over the incredible scene and Bertolt’s ears fill with the swell of voices—a chorus of men singing a raucous pirate song, with a real honest-to-god orchestra pounding all around them, clearer than the radio or the phonograph. Clearer than real life, even, just like how the heroine’s long auburn hair, and her diaphanous white dress that floats around her like smoke, and the rose pinned to her breast, and her lips like voluptuous red velvet, are more vivid than anything Bertolt has ever seen in the drab real world.

How the hell do they do this??

The dashing pirate opens his hand, and a locket glittering with rubies and silver tumbles into the starlet’s white glove. He’s a real asshole, but dazzlingly attractive, with a thin beard just like Reiner’s and a gold hoop in his ear. When he deftly knocks the pistol from the lady’s hand with his rapier, Bertolt doesn’t know whether to boo or cheer. The rest of the audience, unconcerned with matters of ethics, does the latter. 

Even with all of these wonders playing out before his eyes, Bertolt retains enough presence of mind to note that Reiner would look pretty good with a gold hoop in his ear. He’d look pretty good in the whole getup, swinging on a jib sheet under the sails of a pirate ship. This appealing mental image doesn’t distract him for long though, because the ship runs aground on a tropical island right in the middle of a battle on the decks, while pirates tumble off it in every direction, and the heroine finally falls under the spell of a passionate kiss against the glow of an orange sunset.

Bertolt has swung on real ropes through giant forests. He’s fought with real swords and seen real blood. He could probably point out all manner of glaring issues in the actors’ combat techniques. The thought never enters his mind. It doesn’t matter. This is something else entirely. This is magic.

Ymir? Are you seeing this? Have you ever seen anything so amazing in your whole entire life?

Chapter Text

It is absolutely the most amazing thing she’s ever seen in her whole entire life. 

Ymir’s eyes stare through Bertolt’s eyes at the exhilarating spectacle before her. She knows what films are, she’s heard them being advertised on the radio, and seen reviews of them in the magazines that Reiner leaves lying around. She’s always pictured a film as something like a stage play, but flat. Shadow puppets, acting out what you’d hear in a radio serial drama. It never sounded all that appealing. 

How could she ever in a million years have imagined this? Nobody on Paradis would have believed it, nor anyone from her Marleyan childhood half a century ago. She’s not sure how she’d explain it in a way that could do it justice. It’s like trying to explain a dream. Like looking into another world, just as real as this one, through a magic mirror.

The woman on the screen looks about twenty feet tall, like the most breathtakingly beautiful titan to ever grace the ground with her giant footsteps.

Historia definitely wears those kinds of dresses, now that she’s queen. And Historia is very, very small, so she must look even more like a fairy tale, swimming in vast piles of silk and gauze that float around her when she runs down a manor staircase, like the starlet is doing right now. 

At the very periphery of Bertolt’s vision, Ymir can see Reiner mooning at him with a dreamy, embarrassingly un-major-ish smile on his face. 

She smirks affectionately, thinks “pathetic,” and turns her attention back to the screen. Awe and wonder, both hers and Bertolt’s, shimmer through the sand.

***

She’s getting the hang of apples. Sort of. They taste nothing like the Founder’s apples, which she’s run out of. Why doesn’t the Founder come back? Aren’t grandmothers supposed to bring good food, and then gently force you to eat it? Some Granny.

Ymir hasn’t had thousands of years of experience, so it’s no surprise that the apples she constructs taste like sand with a hint of honey. Still, the sweetness is a victory. She lets the crunchy slightly-sweet sand sit in her mouth then spits it out again, as a treat.

Anyway, there are more important things to focus on right now than getting better at building apples.

It’s a vitally important day.

Bertolt and Reiner are doing the unthinkable. Their discussions have been grim. After examining all the options, they’ve decided that their apartment is the only venue that makes sense for the meeting with Historia.

Ymir agrees with their interpretation of Dusko’s silence during that disquieting conversation a few weeks ago. There’s very little question about it. He disposed of the maitre d. 

They don’t want more blood on their hands. They have to meet somewhere private if they’re going to avoid putting anyone else in the perilous position of overhearing things about resurrection and foreign espionage. And anyway, Historia is a queen, with enemies. She can’t just show up in a hotel restaurant. 

Reiner trudges around, throwing nervous glances in their direction, like he’s afraid an axe is about to fall on Bertolt’s head. Bertolt putters and fidgets, staring at his own ludicrously long fingers while they arrange books, and clean the bathroom, and wash teacups in preparation for unwanted company.

They ask to borrow a bench from the tailor for extra seating. He’s enormously kind about it. He clears a path so they can get it out the door of his shop, and waits until it’s halfway up the apartment stairs to tell them how much he’s charging them for the rental. Ymir thinks it’s hilarious. Good for him, the old crook. 

***

Ymir wishes that time would slow down when Historia walks into the room, to let her savor the moment, but, if anything, it speeds up. 

Historia’s aura is different. She still glows, but if before she was a ray of sunshine, now she’s a glint of light off the surface of steel. There’s a rhythm to her footsteps that invites no arguments. Even obscured by layers of clothing and accessories, Ymir can see how much she’s changed. It’s both stunning and terrifying. But the curve of her mouth, the only part of her that’s plainly visible under her layers of camouflage, is the same, and, god, she’s smiling. She’s still Historia.

Connie opens the door, holds it until Historia is all the way through it, then shuts it behind her. This in itself is disorienting. Connie put a ball of grassy mud down the back of Historia’s shirt once, just to be an idiot, and if he hadn’t been such a speedy little freak, Ymir would have tied him to a chair and left him in the woods for the crows. But Historia, then Krista, had laughed ruefully, and later Connie good-naturedly brought the shirt to the laundry and made it all right. 

He’s finally showing Historia the respect she deserves, and just like everything else about Connie these days, it’s a little bit depressing.

Ymir would do both. She would treat her like a queen, but she would also put the occasional mud ball down her shirt, because part of true love is reminding the object of your affections not to take themselves too seriously.

Historia looks like she’s taking herself very seriously indeed. She has a long, pearl-gray silk scarf wrapped around her head and neck, smoked-glass spectacles that make her look like a bee, and a light trench coat, belted at the waist. All for disguise rather than function. She doesn’t look like a queen at all. She looks like one of those movie stars who tries to go incognito to avoid the press but ends up in a magazine anyway.

Bertolt stands beside Reiner and nods his head to Connie, and the small smile attached to the nod seems to startle the hell out of both of them. Interesting.

This is clearly going to be an intimate meeting, they don’t even need the rented bench. No Armin, which makes every kind of sense after the last disaster. Before the door shuts again, Bertolt catches a glimpse of Jean loitering casually by their car. Connie and Jean are a sort of crack security team, clearly. Good. They’re idiots, but they’re strong. Ymir wonders which one of them has learned how to drive an automobile.

Reiner doesn’t care about queens, any more than he cares about generals, and he’s especially careful to treat Historia like they’re knocking dust off their boots in the mess hall. He’s friendly but there’s not a trace of simper.

Ymir giggles when surprise flits across Historia’s face, visible only to her. Obviously Historia has never felt anything besides friendly affection for Reiner, but maybe she expected a little bit of the infatuation she’d always sweetly pretended not to notice. Hah. Prima donna. Adorable.

Good riddance to the simper anyway, for everyone’s sake, including Reiner’s. He casually puts his arm around Bertolt’s shoulders, and keeps it there for an unnecessarily long time. Bertolt’s insides purr with satisfaction. Ymir rolls her eyes.

“And here he is.” Reiner smiles proudly, as though he deserves partial credit for Bertolt’s resurrection. 

Historia blesses the room with her prettiest, most tinkling laugh, and trots closer to put her arms around the two of them. Ymir almost faints at the sight of the top of her head, about ten miles below.

“I can’t believe it. Look at you! Bertolt! It’s like you just walked into another room and came back again.”

“Oh. Well, I think last time I saw you I was…um.”

Last time Historia saw either of them, they were fighting titans on top of Reiner’s armored shoulders, while Ymir abandoned her in order to make the stupidest decision of her life. And in the end her great sacrifice had bought Bertolt about five minutes of extra life. And she can’t even credit herself with Reiner’s survival, since the Founder has apparently been stacking the deck for him since the very beginning.

Life and death are both absurd. 

Bertolt tries his hardest to be normal.

“Should we… sit down? We have tea. Or beer.”

“That sounds nice. Tea please. Or…actually, no. I’ll have a beer. Connie?”

“That’s okay, thank you,” says Connie, looking longingly at the cold bottles, but being conscientious about his job. 

They all sit down, and Reiner and Historia take on the work of tossing around casual topics on everyone’s behalf. 

Bertolt is being his conversationally constipated self, performing his usual distracted, fidgety manipulations of whatever happens to be on the table in front of him. Ymir can feel him almost speak sometimes, but he always waits a second too long, and by the time he has his words picked out, the time to deliver them is long past, and then he’s relieved about it. Sometimes Ymir feels him startle when somebody addresses him, not out nervousness, but because he seems to have abandoned the actual conversation in order to follow some train of thought to the other side of the world. But, when he isn’t staring out into space or down into his teacup, he watches Historia for signs of goodness knows what.

For the thousandth time, she thinks about how miserable and strange it must be, to be Bertolt. Ymir has never had trouble saying whatever she wants to to anyone.  

And she doesn’t think he even cares about their opinions any more than she does. It’s inexplicable. He’s had his fist wedged firmly in his own throat for his entire life for absolutely no reason. Habit? Ingrained infiltrator-ism?

He never shuts up with Reiner. And he talks to her. And those aggressive children. A small, exclusive club of people Bertolt can have an entire conversation with without needing a nap or one of his baths afterwards. An honor, really.

Ymir has spent far too much time in recent months sitting around contemplating the ins and outs of Bertolt, but now Historia is talking again, so she forgets that he exists.

“These aren’t decisions I can make purely out of self-interest. Of course it’s a tempting offer, it would be nice to feel safe, for once. I haven’t in forever. But that isn’t the point of me. Being a queen is just the worst.” She catches herself being unprofessional, queen-wise, and backtracks. “What I’m saying is that I have to think about this in the context of the overall welfare of the island. If I don’t have any way to ensure my autonomy, how can we trust that I won’t be held against my will? If I disappear, my function as a symbol of resistance fails, and the Yeagerists win without question. I’m not sure that I have enough leverage to accept your general’s offer. What guarantees can he offer me and my son?”

“Doubt we’re important enough to be let in on all the particulars of his plans,” says Reiner bluntly, “not all of us are royalty. Do you want us to relay questions and your proposed conditions?”

“I think that’s the best next step.”

“Letter?”

“No, I’d rather you liaise, if you’re willing to do that.”

The correct choice. No need to lock herself into any positions through writing, until she knows the shape of things. Clever peanut.

“‘Kay. Lay it out.”

“Obviously, I want protection for me and my son. I want both Connie and Jean with me at all times, and absolute authority to add others to my detail at my discretion. I’ll need agreements in ink, explicitly stating that this is asylum, not custody or political imprisonment under the guise of some sort of velvet cage protection. We may need to solicit another nation to act as an impartial witness and cosigner, and I’m sure Hizuru will be willing to help in that capacity.”

Remember when you used to cry about somebody missing dinner? I loved that edition of you, but I think I love the sequel even more.

“There’s so much more to discuss, like those utter bastards—I’m sorry, but that’s what they are—who’ve stolen our island out from under us. And opportunities for diplomacy.” She tactfully glides past any further mention of Armin’s schemes. “But I’d like to hear your general’s response before we go into all that. Oh, and I’d like an additional, separate protective agreement for my son—a legally notarized statement that if anything happens to me, he’s to live with Annie and Armin, to be raised how they see fit. The Marleyan government has no authority to make decisions for my child without their input and consent.” 

“What’s his name?” Bertolt surprises everyone by scraping together three words to contribute to the conversation.

“Erwin.”

What? Good god. Why? She’ll curse the child with eyebrows as thick as his wrists.

There’s a little moment of awkwardness. Reiner and Bertolt’s experiences with Commander Erwin were particularly dark and terrible ones. Bertolt is probably thinking about that gash to the chest that had cost him Eren. Or remembering that Erwin might easily have been the one to eat him alive, instead of Armin, if the wind had blown in a different direction.

“Why Erwin?” Reiner asks, putting his arm over Bertolt’s shoulders again.

“Because Erwin is still a legendary figure on Paradis, and it was a simple way to reinforce a little bit of historical continuity.”

Pretty mercenary. Goodness.

“But,” Historia says, with a sly, conspiratorial smile, “His middle name is Emir.”

…oh.

Bertolt blinks slowly. Ymir wonders if he’s trying to say something like, Hey, Ymir, hear that?

“Should I avoid asking where little Erwin Emir Reiss is now?” asks Reiner.

“No. I was going to tell you anyway. He’s already with Annie and Armin. They’re the perfect guardians for him. Nobody would look at them and question that they’re his parents.”

Blondes for days.

This meeting is pretty painless compared to the first. Historia is more disarming than Armin. Bertolt doesn’t crumble any cookies in his fist or throw any cutlery. Reiner doesn’t shove anyone back into their chair. Connie smiles a few times. At the end, nothing is settled, but everything is set up nicely for Dusko to bat the ball back to the Neo-Historians. 

A knock at the door. Reiner gestures for everyone to stay back while he answers it, but it’s just Jean, who strides in with his usual false bravado. Ymir notes the plainness of his shirt. Understandable. Why risk it. You never know where there might be a jammy, hostile butterknife.

“Historia? We’d better head out before it gets too late.” Historia nods and everyone rises.

“Well, politics are a pain, but it was so nice to see you both,” she says, wrapping her scarf around her neck, "I think we’ll be doing this for a while, this back and forth. I hope that someday things might start to feel a little bit, I don’t know, normal, again, between us.”

In the pause that follows, Historia is Krista, wistfully looking at her childhood friends, now grown, with all the terrible things between then and now momentarily forgotten.

How can a time filled with blood, and betrayal, and titans, where they’d all lived in an artificial antiquity, washing in freezing water and spending the days covered in foul horse-scented dust, pummeling each other for entertainment, feel like the good old days? But as they linger by the doorway, every single person in the room—even Bertolt, who’d hated Paradis with his whole soul, and even Ymir, deep inside Bertolt—knows that in some ways they were. The good old days.

Blue eyes glitter up at Reiner.

“I never thanked you for delivering Ymir’s letter. And I heard. I heard how you were in pieces. Both of you. And you still made sure it would get to me. I love you forever and ever for that. I wish Ymir could know. I know that she must have already been dead but I hoped that she knew I got the letter. Was she already dead?”

Historia still loves her. Historia’s heart is still broken. It’s plain as the beautiful new crease in the center of her forehead. The crease that Ymir can tell she’s trying to hide behind the strands of an expensive haircut. She would tell her never to hide it, this evidence of her life. Proof that she’s lived to see the passage of time.

Bertolt averts his eyes and shuffles backwards, and all of a sudden Ymir wants to strangle him. Guilty coward. Why isn’t he comforting Historia? He knows that she was already dead. Lie to her. Or tell her the truth, but tell her that Ymir is right here, trapped inside him, and that she loves her. She came back from the dead, just like he did. She’s right here. She’s right here and Historia doesn’t know it, and Bertolt isn’t telling her. Why isn’t he telling her?

“I’m sorry. I know it’s not fair for me to ask. I’m sure remembering that time is horrible. In the letter she said she was sorry she couldn’t marry me. She asked me to marry her all the time. I just never knew if she was serious. She was so funny and sometimes it was hard to tell, and I should have just asked her, but I didn’t.” Historia smiles shakily. “I read that it in her letter and then I knew that all that time, she really must have meant it. Reiner, you’re so lucky. I think you’re the luckiest person to ever be born. Because Bertolt came back to you. ” 

When she looks into Bertolt’s eyes, it’s as though she’s staring right through him, into Ymir’s.

“I’d have said yes.”

Ymir screams, and after all these weeks of silence Bertolt finally hears her. He gasps and takes another step backwards. He grabs his chest. Something is shifting and trembling. A seismic force under the sand.

“Bertolt?” 

Historia’s voice is a lance that annihilates the last vestige of Ymir’s self control. She explodes.

The chaos of her outburst rivals the Founder’s. It builds to a roar that turns her fragment of the Paths into a boiling, frenzied sandstorm that dissolves all her works, her sculptures, her home. Grains of sand crush themselves together to form clods, clods coalesce into shapes that become sinew and bone. She rises to the top of her bubble, borne by a swell of sandy flesh that folds around her body like a chrysalis. Like a suit of armor.

Like a titan.

She sees the dark hair and long limbs reflected off the bubble’s surface. Everything’s wrong—her hooked nose is off center, the eyes are dripping off of the sides of her face. She’s Bertolt, if Bertolt was a melting ice sculpture of himself. She’s a monster. But when she moves the monster, she moves Bertolt. 

She doesn’t waste time thinking about it, she steps forward with Bertolt’s feet.

Bertolt stares down at them in panic. He brings his shaking hands up to his head and grips his hair, clinging to his physical form and trying not to get sucked deeper into himself while his legs move without him. Reiner is saying his name. He can’t get his tongue to move, so he screams on the inside.

Stop! Ymir! Don’t! Please!

Faintly, somewhere a million miles away, she can hear him screeching at her while she slides into his hands like gloves, but she can’t understand the words, and nothing’s coming out of his mouth. Because it’s her mouth, right now. The feeling of a warm, wet tongue, with the taste of black tea lingering. She can smell wood and dust, and Historia’s scent mixed with something delicate and floral. There are Historia’s blue lagoons, looking at Bertolt with confusion and concern, maybe thinking that she’s hurt him by mentioning Shiganshina. He takes another step. The pink rosebud mouth opens to ask him what’s wrong, and Ymir’s soul falls into it.

“Bertolt?” Historia reaches up and stands on her tiptoes to put a hand on Bertolt’s shoulder. The touch sends a line of fire through the veins of their arm. Ymir’s heart is ringing like a bell. Has she even had a heartbeat, all this time in the Paths? She reaches out and cups Historia’s angelic face; it looks so small in her giant, stolen hands. She pulls the thread taut. The space between them disappears.

Everyone in the room gapes at the impossible thing that happens next, right before their eyes. 

Bertolt folds in half, threads his fingers into the back of Historia’s hair, and pulls her body tight against his. He presses his open mouth against Historia’s in a passionate, starving kiss.

Ymir’s own mouth feels strange and cavernous, but Historia’s feels and tastes just like it should. Like memories and dreams. Home.  

Historia doesn’t pull away. She floats up into the kiss, her lashes flutter closed, and her tongue chases inexplicable familiarity. The moment hovers.

Then she gasps into Bertolt’s mouth. She shoves him away and the queen surfaces in horrified outrage. She draws herself up to her full height of almost five feet and slaps him hard across the face. 

Ymir feels the hot sting of the slap, echoing in aghast silence. Reiner’s hand clamps around Bertolt’s forearm and he plants himself between him and Historia, looking back and forth with wide eyes. Bertolt jerks. He’s clawing his way up from wherever he’s been. He tries to take his body back. He struggles desperately to get words out, to apologize and explain. He manages to regain some agency over one of his hands and clutches at his hair again, making garbled, animalistic noises as he and Ymir grapple inside him for control of his tongue.

Ymir holds Bertolt off, but her construct is starting to lose its shape. She’s not strong or skilled enough to hold her titan together and fight off an increasingly frenzied Bertolt and control all the gangling pieces of him out there in the world at the same time. But it won’t end like this. Historia will never want to see Bertolt again after what she’s done, and that means Ymir will never see Historia again, because she’s trapped inside Bertolt. She’ll make Historia understand that she’s here, even if it means sinking Bertolt’s teeth into his arm and writing her name on the wall in his blood.

But before it comes to that, Ymir finds a memory that she knows with absolute certainty only lives in Historia’s mind and her own. She forfeits control over most of Bertolt’s body and throws every ounce of her power into taking his voice. Her hideous, twisted titan crumbles around her until all that remains at the top of a swaying spine is a single lung, a mouth, a throat connecting them, and Ymir tangled up inside. She forces words through this grotesque apparatus, and they drag themselves out of Bertolt into the world.

“In…the…snow.”

Historia’s hands fly to her throat. Her fingers grope for a large silver locket dangling from a delicate chain, and then, like a miracle, her lips move in the shape of Ymir’s name.

Ymir releases Bertolt completely. The sand crashes back into formless dunes and she freefalls hundreds of feet, laughing victoriously at the stars with her arms spread wide all the way down. When her back collides with the ground everything goes black.

Out in the world of the living, Bertolt’s head snaps back. He drops like a tree. He’s only saved from cracking the back of his skull on the floorboards because Reiner is right there to catch him.

***

When Bertolt floats back into consciousness with his head on Reiner’s stomach, the apartment is empty and quiet. There’s a warm, heavy palm pressed against his forehead. He’s exceptionally comfortable. He opens his eyes and smiles up blearily, a little confused.

“Hi?”

“Hi B.”

“I fell asleep?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” He nestles himself closer, feeling drowsy and safe between sturdy thighs. Thumbs draw gentle circles in his hair. He lets his eyes drift closed. He doesn’t remember going to bed, but whatever. He does remember he had another one of those weird dreams.

A tidal wave of horror crashes down around him.

“REINER!”

He tries to scramble up on his elbows, but Reiner holds on, with his arms around his shoulders.

“No. Ohhhh no no no.” 

“Hey. Don’t.”

“Please tell me that didn’t fucking happen!”

“Everything’s okay.”

“It’s not okay! What the fuck! Oh my God!”

“Stop. Breathe. I’ll let you go but you gotta calm down.” 

Bertolt grips Reiner’s forearms with both hands, squeezes his eyes shut, and dutifully tries to calm down. He wants to wash his mouth out with soap, to scrub Historia off his lips.

“She must think I’m insane. Is she alright? I can’t face her. She won’t want to talk to me. God. I’m going to be sick. Can you tell her it wasn’t me?”

“She knows. You had some kind of seizure. Everyone knows it wasn’t your fault. I promise.”

“Do you hate me? After all the shit I gave you about Historia. Why aren’t you mad?? I promise I didn’t mean to. You should be mad. Do you believe me? I need you to tell me right now that you believe me.” 

“Come on.” Reiner jabs softly at Bertolt’s temple with one finger. “Think it through. You’re supposed to be the smart one. Me. Of all people. Reiner Busted-Brain Braun. Of course I believe you, dumbass.”

“Okay. Thank you. I love you.” Bertolt moans, burying his face in Reiner’s forearms.

“B, you said something about snow. It meant something to Historia. Do you remember what you meant by that?” 

Rage instantly evicts panic. 

“SHE DID THIS. How did she do it?!” 

“Who??”

“You crazy fucking bitch,” Bertolt shouts into empty space, “How could you? How could you do that to me?”

“Bertolt! Who? Historia?”

“What? No! No, it’s…”

Fuck. Reiner doesn’t know about Ymir, lurking inside him in a scrap of Paths. Bertolt balls his fists in his hair, his scalp already sore from his earlier battle for control of his body. Reiner leans forward and puts his chin on top of Bertolt’s head to stop him.

“I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure. I didn’t mean to lie. I thought I was crazy. I thought maybe she wasn’t real.”

“Who is ‘she’?” Reiner’s eyes narrow as he readies himself to kill on Bertolt’s behalf. “Talk to me. Everything. Now.”

The annoying, bossy, squad leader tone helps, somehow. Bertolt spills everything about fishbowls full of stars and sand.

Chapter Text

Baths help with everything. They’re as dependable as liquor, or sex, or a good spar for soothing an agitated soul. Usually. 

Bertolt is submerged up to his neck, surrounded by clouds of fluffy bubbles and rose oil, with a few candles glittering off the tiles, and the radio tuned to a classical station loud enough for him to hear through the door. Despite having the correct accessories and ambiance, and despite having told the military that he’s too ill to come to work, he’s failing to relax. He’s fuming, grinding his teeth, and gripping a mug of wine in his fist.

It’s not the kiss. The kiss was mortifying, but it was a side effect. A minor fucking inconvenience. 

It was the helplessness. Trying to move and not being able to. Not having his arms and legs but still trying to use them. Screaming, and having a friend, someone he loves, not care. When he remembers it, it’s all mixed up with the feeling of the titan’s teeth closing around his head. 

He’s always thought that if Ymir had been one of the people on that roof across the street, she’d have been the one to say something.

Well, maybe not.

The other night he felt himself receding from the tips of his fingers, up to his elbows, then into his shoulders, like water sucked through a straw. And then all the way down to the black void, sinking into it like quicksand. And he was screaming, and Ymir ignored him.

Being tied up with suspenders is different. It’s the opposite. He chooses. He decides to trust Reiner with his arms, knowing that Reiner will always listen, and will always stop, no matter what. And at the end he takes his arms back, exactly when he wants to. And it’s the same the other way around. Even though Reiner could probably bust through a pair of suspenders just by flexing the right way, if he wanted.

If those are gifts freely given, then what Ymir did was robbery. Assault. There are other words sizzling on the tip of his tongue, but they’re too strong and too terrible, and his mouth squeezes them to ash before they can take form.

She’ll always be there, lurking inside him like a dormant disease, watching every private minute of his life and waiting for the opportunity to possess him. He lost the fight in every way that mattered. Like always. What if someday he loses for good? 

What if she takes over while he’s sleeping?

He leans his head back against the rim of the tub, feeling incredibly sorry for himself. 

Exactly how many times is he going to be forced to give up his flesh for other people's benefit? 

Hey, your dad’s dying, give yourself to Marley.
Hey, you’re a warrior, haul this titan around for thirteen years, then die.
Hey, give your heart. Never mind—just let Armin eat it.
Hey, thanks for coming back to save the world, now fuck off back to being dead.
Hey, thanks for sharing your body, get out of the way so I can use your mouth to tongue-kiss the woman you’ve been having paranoid nightmares about the love of your life running away with, since you were a teenager. 

It’s all the same thing.

He never invited her. She hitched a ride without asking. And still, he would have given her any part of him to use, if she’d asked. He tried so hard to give her his arm. He tried everything. He would have kept trying. Because that’s what friends do.

Well what would he know about friends anyway. Turns out the only real friend he’s ever had is Reiner, and Reiner’d give up his arm to stop Bertolt from giving up the tip of one finger.

So suck on that. 

Dead bitch.

The bath is getting lukewarm. He drains it a few inches and tops it off again, dumping in more bubble bath to build his frothy mountains higher.

Ymir is dead because she died for him. Fine. He knows that. 

But still, she got to choose.

He chugs his whole mug of wine in one go and puts it aside so he can enjoy sinking both of his hands into the hot water. He swishes them around meditatively.

Of course, Ymir couldn’t reach him either. She was probably trying this whole time, too. She was trapped and all alone for so long. She saw Historia and lost her damn mind. He could feel her desperation when they battled for his mouth.

He thinks about throwing himself out of his barrel, hundreds of feet above the rooftops of Shiganshina, howling Reiner’s name and betraying his country, and his father, and really all of humanity as far as he knew then, but not caring because Reiner was right there, and Reiner was hurt, and getting to Reiner was the only thing in the universe that mattered.

And at least now he’s pretty sure that he isn’t going crazy.

Still. How could she. How could she do that. He’ll never forget it. He’ll never speak to her again. He shuts his eyes and fills his mind with the muffled aria flowing out of the radio and humming through the water, sung by a baritone in a language that Bertolt doesn’t understand but thinks is beautiful.

***

Somewhere in the city a dog was howling a sad tune, wondering when the moon would come out of witness protection. The clouds were throwing wet fists at me with the kind of enthusiasm that made the attack feel personal. My wingtips were wet. My coat was soaked through. I had rivers running down the brim of my hat. But I wasn’t gonna let that stop me from achieving my objectives. I stood on the front steps and yelled at the peephole that I knew had an unfriendly eye behind it.

“Crybaby! Slim. Buddy. Don’t be like this! Just open up and we’ll talk!”

“ABSOLUTELY NOT. LEAVE! We’re DONE, Sands. Do you hear me? I never want to see your face again! Never contact me again! I’ll call the authorities on you for trespassing and have them scrape your miserable hide off the sidewalk!”

Now, I’m not going to sit here and spin you a sob story, I’m an honest citizen and a consummate professional. Crybaby had more than one good reason to be sore with me.

Our little queen bee had been right. All the biggest bugs were at the university banquet, wearing their finest and talking mergers and acquisitions. Crybaby kicked and screamed about going, but in the end he pulled out his least moth-eaten sweater vest and a shirt without ink on the cuffs, just for the occasion.

His job was to get me in through the back channels, and Crybaby always comes through. He made a couple of toasts with the upper crust, and when he was able to slip away he met me at a fire exit behind the library, his home turf. We split up and I went to solicit information using methods specific to my vocation.

I’d left Brawn in the car as a contingency, hoping he wouldn’t invent a new way to crash from a dead park. You can’t put that kind of innovation past the meat cake. That left me lacking a lookout. Suffice it to say, some bloodhound of a baroness caught my scent and came nosing around, and I didn’t notice ’til it was too late. I found myself in the undignified position of hiding under a table in an alcove by the coat check, where I’d been rifling through pockets for leads and bus fare. If she lifted the tablecloth, which she was clearly fixing to do, it’d be game over and I’d be hauled off to the penalty box the second she blew the whistle.

But good ol’ Slim came stumbling after her, with no plan and the kind of poker face that can’t help but fold before the buy in. 

My leg overstepped without checking in with the big boss upstairs. Before I could stay the order, it insinuated itself between Crybaby’s kickers.

An accident’s an accident. The problem is, a little trip can look a lot like an attempted circumnavigation, when you start from that high up and you fall hands-first. Slim came down hard on top of the dowager, and his king-sized appendages annexed two different continents in a single offensive.

At first it looked like things’d turn out alright. The duchess seemed surprisingly open to foreign diplomacy. She maybe had a craving for exotic cuisine. But it didn’t sit too sweet with the dame’s old man, who had the bad manners to crash the dinner party without an invitation, right at the moment when things were most likely to cause misunderstandings. And he didn’t mind letting the entire guest list know about the fly in his chowder.

The short of it was, the meat cake and I got away in the fracas, and Slim limped home with a high-class shiner and a mark on his reputation even blacker than his eye. And since then, it’d been pretty clear that his mood towards his old pal Sands was in keeping with the color scheme.

“Come on, I know you. You aren’t going to let me drown like a rat right here on your front steps. Let me in.”

Clicking and clacking told me that Crybaby was adding locks instead of subtracting. 

“RAT is RIGHT. Did you hear what he called me? In front of the entire university administration! In front of the donors! Did you see my eye? You made me a goddamned laughingstock! I’ll be lucky if I still have a department on Monday. I’ll be lucky if they don’t ban me from campus entirely. I said LEAVE, Sands. Drown for all I care. Send me a telegram from Hell, so I can refuse the delivery.”

I brought out the very last egg in my basket. If I didn’t break down this door I knew it’d stay shut 'til I turned in my final timesheet, and Crybaby’d be otherwise engaged on the day of my memorial.

“Slim. It’s coming down hard out here, and it’s cold. I just wanna talk and I’m not leaving ’til we do. Do you want us to stand here all night and catch the croup? Because if that’s what it’s gonna take, we will.”

“We?”

The peephole did a lunar eclipse, and I moved stage left to reveal the main attraction. The meat cake stepped into the spotlight. I’d made sure to keep him distracted with shiny objects so he’d forget his coat at the office.

You ever get your heartstrings tugged by a stray puppy? Picture two hundred and twenty pounds of sopping, sad-eyed sheepdog, soaked from muzzle to tail, shivering through a white shirt that was making itself scarce and clinging to his pedigrees. 

Thunder cracked down like a rolled up newspaper. Brawn whimpered. Crybaby took up the cause of animal welfare, and unlocked the door.

**

The meat cake went to mix us some warming medicinals while Crybaby stoked up the fire.

Slim’s housekeeping left something to be desired. A man can only own so many books before a place gets hard to navigate. This sitting room was in clear violation of fire code. I pushed aside a leaning tower of literature to make some bread for my bologna, and kicked my feet up. Crybaby kicked my feet back down and confiscated the pile of first editions I’d taken for a footstool.

“But look at it this way—aren’t we even now? I take a bullet for you, you take a hit for me? We’re square.”

“A bullet would be BETTER. A bullet doesn’t HUMILIATE you. Everyone feels SORRY for you when you take a bullet, instead of thinking you’re a rotten no-good pervert. Anyway it isn’t the same. You asked for my help, and you threw me to the dogs for giving it. And then you abandoned me there. How could you.”

He shelved himself in the library he was keeping on the sofa. He was right, of course. I felt lower than a dead man’s bunion, six feet under the asphalt.

I just… 

I feel like shit.

“Crybaby?”

“What.”

“I’m sorry.” 

“Sure you are.”

“I am. I lost my head. It was wrong. I’m so sorry. I don’t have any clever lines to tell you how sorry I am. Bertolt, you’re my best friend. I love you, and even if you never forgive me, even if you never talk to me, I swear on my entire worthless life that I’ll jump into the void before I ever hurt you like that again.”

Crybaby’s mouth opened, then snapped shut around whatever’d been about to fall out of it. He looked at me like I’d just walked in with a mango where my melon should be. 

“What? Who the hell is Beetrot? Sands, have you finally lost your damn mind?”

The meat cake minced over with a tray of hot toddies. Slim availed himself of his own hospitality.

“Thank you, Brawn.”

“Oh, it’s nothing! Least I can do. Thanks so much for the loan. I’ll return it in top shape, scout’s honor.”

Since his bedsheet of a shirt was steaming by the fire, the meat cake was stuffed into a standard-issue Slim-sized sweater vest, like too much sausage in a too-small skin. There’d be no returning it. The thing was stretched past all rehabilitation. The only use Slim would get out of it going forward was as a slipcover for his sofa.

“It’s fine. Just keep it.”

We were still shivering under the shadow of his lower lip, but the weather report was calling for a break in the cloud cover. I threw the meat cake a look that carried his yearly bonus in the balance. The message somehow made it through six solid inches of skull to the ball of bubblegum Brawn calls a brain. 

He topped off Slim’s toddy.

“It’s so unfair. I think it’s just awful. It must have been terrible for you, going through that, all alone. Isn’t there anything I can do to help, Mister Pickens? Anything at all?” 

He bought a ticket on the company account for little business trip 'round the back of the settee. Crybaby sat at the foot of the mountain and stared up at a whole range of fascinating peaks and valleys.

“Um. You can call me Slim.”

“Oh, alright. Slim, then.”

He hung his baseball mitts on Crybaby’s shoulders, and I watched him squeeze the sour right out of him.

I’m not going to say that Brawn is worthy of time, respect, or the air it takes to keep him operational, but like I said, I’m a professional. I acknowledge a well-flipped flapjack when I see one.

Tonight, the meat cake had earned himself a reprieve from the griddle.

***

“Hey, B? Uh. You okay in there?”

Bertolt wakes up in the bath, having somehow avoided drowning in his sleep. The bathwater is tepid and cloudy from bubbles that have long gone flat. Oops.

“Out in a second!"

He pulls the plug with his raisin fingers, and sits shivering until it drains enough for him to rinse himself off with the shower head without splashing. He takes advantage of the replenished hot water. When he finally emerges in a cloud of steam, Reiner is just about done putting fresh sheets on the bed.

“When’d you get home?”

“Forever ago. I thought you escaped down the drain or something.”

“Don’t kill me, but I fell asleep.”

“Bertolt.”

“I know, I know.”

He flings himself onto the bed and spreads out like a starfish. Ahhh.

Lying down on top of fresh linens when he’s just out of a bath and barely dry is peak hedonism. It’s the cleanest, laziest feeling, to slide directly from one kind of lassitude into another.

Reiner finally takes his turn in the shower, and when he comes back, rubbing at his ears with his towel instead of wearing it around his waist like a civilized human being, Bertolt is still busy being a starfish. Reiner joins him on the ocean floor. 

“You always look so squeaky and smooth when you come out of the bath. I missed out on a decade of watching you come out of baths.”

“We missed out on a decade of hot water,” Bertolt says with mild resentment, “But remember when we snuck into the Officers’ Washroom? That was the best.”

“How could I ever forget the Officers’ Washroom. Remember when we found the drawer full of scandalous oils?”

“You found it. Then you sprung it on me.”

“I sprung it in you.”

“Oh fuck off, you’re disgusting,” Bertolt laughs, too relaxed to care that the laugh is more of a giggle. Reiner rolls over to watch him giggle.

“You look way better.”

“I feel way better. 

“Good.”

“Hey. Reiner. Can you do me a favor?”

“Depends.”

“Don’t start planning ways to kill Ymir yet.”

Menace oozes into the edges of Reiner’s smile.

“Why? That evil cow deserves it. I’m not forgiving her. What’d she say to you?”

“I don’t know, exactly. It’s hard to explain. I know she’s sorry. Anyway, I haven’t forgiven her either, but we need to work it out between us.”

“She’s lucky that I don’t know how to rip up a ghost. Or how to get into the Paths. Or why there‘re Paths in you. Seriously, B, why the fuck are there Paths in you?”

“Hell if I know. I thought the Paths were gone for good. It’s so strange that I don’t feel anything. If I have pieces of Paths in me, shouldn’t I feel different? But I only notice it when something happens with Ymir.”

“Fuckin’ freeloader. Barnacle. Voyeur.”

“God, this is just like the old days. Don’t be a dick. I really don’t need you two scrapping with me in the middle.”

“Whatever. How do we get rid of—sorry, help—her.”

“Secrets always cause all our problems, so let’s not do secrets. I think I need to figure things out with Ymir, and then I think we need to tell Historia.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to Historia when you’re ready.”

“I’ll talk to her myself.”

“Hmph.”

“‘Hmph’? What’s ‘hmph’?”

Reiner has his own internal battle, trying to be the bigger man, but the struggle is brief. He fails. Miserably.

“Fine. I’m jealous.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. I’m jealous. I’m sorry. I know it wasn’t you, but when I saw you bend down to kiss her, and you put your hand in her majesty’s stupid hair, I almost had a heart attack. I keep worrying—what if the kiss was so good that you run off with Historia and Ymir, and you all go live in a castle without me?”

“Reiner, if I could order a replacement mouth by mail from a catalog, I’d do it. It was disgusting.”

“Swear?”

“Oh my god, you’re an idiot. Does she seem like my type? Yes, swear.”

“Hmph.”

“Are you mad about Ymir, or mad about the kiss?”

“What if she does it again? I’ll explode into a billion pieces. Then we’ll find out if ghosts can strangle ghosts.”

“I don’t think she’ll do it again.”

“If you say so. I’m a better kisser though, right?”

How the tables have turned.

Chapter Text

A precious handful of quiet days pass. Bertolt returns to work, and the report on the meeting with the Neo-Historians (minus the kiss) lands on General Dusko’s desk without fanfare or any immediate aftermath. The General has Reiner dispatch a telegram expressing his respectful salutations to the Queen. He indicates that the matter is of utmost priority to him, and that once it has been put under careful, confidential, consideration with leadership, he will be able to prepare a more appropriately fulsome response, so as to ensure the best outcome for all parties.

Bertolt and Reiner are in perfect agreement: Fine. Good. Whatever. Please, God, let this be the end of their involvement in the whole thing.

Of course it isn’t. Less than a week after they send the telegram, just as Bertolt and Reiner are putting away dishes—plural—and settling in for the night, a furious pounding thunders up from the alley door. Bertolt beats Reiner to it and when he comes back he’s supporting a disheveled, frantic Jean.

Jean doubles up over his knees, breathless and dripping with sweat. He drains the water Reiner brings him and rubs the cool condensation against his face. Bertolt gasps when he notices caked blood on the hand holding the glass.

“What the hell. Reiner, look at his hand. Jean, what happened. What’s wrong?”

“Historia. The car. We need you. We were attacked.”

“What?? Are you hurt? Attacked by who?”

“Don’t know. We were on our way back to the hotel. There was a car. They came out of nowhere. They shot the tires out from under us. No way to know if they were people from home or just some random fucking robbers. Their faces were wrapped up. We’ve gotta get Historia to safety right now. Will your General take her?”

“Absolutely.” Reiner is already putting on his coat and boots. “Where is she?”

“On her way. We split up. She wouldn’t come ’til they got Armin, and she sent me here. Can you come with us? We’ll need you to get us through.”

“Yeah. Sit. I’ll make the call.” Reiner slams the door behind him, running for the payphone on the corner.

Jean collapses into a chair.

Bertolt refills the glass. Jean is too frazzled for manners. He dumps the water over his head. Bertolt doesn’t make an issue of it.

“Jean. Is she hurt?”

“No. No, she’s okay. Everyone’s okay. Thank god. Connie got grazed but it’s nothing.” His breath and hands are still trembling. “Sorry. I don’t know why I’m—I’ve seen way worse. But we were trapped in the car. It’s an absolute fucking miracle that we aren’t dead.”

Bertolt hesitates, then reaches down to squeeze his shoulder.

“Hey. Go rinse off and calm down. Washroom’s there.”

Jean nods gratefully and wobbles away. Bertolt stares at the puddle he leaves behind on his chair.

Ymir doesn’t always hear his thoughts. He can’t risk it. He whispers out loud.

“Please. Ymir. Don’t do anything. You heard him, she’s okay. I trust you. Don’t, okay?”

Ymir doesn’t. Bertolt tries to send her something like a grateful hug.

“Thank you. I’m sorry. I know.”

Reiner returns. 

“They’re sending a car. Ten minutes.”

Bertolt nods. For lack of anything useful to do, he pulls out the whiskey. They each take a pull from the bottle, and so does Jean when he comes back, looking more like himself, with the worst of the blood and sweat gone and a hint of what Bertolt suspects is Reiner’s pomade. He posts himself by the window to watch for Historia, or assassins, or robbers, or god knows who else. Reiner pulls Bertolt to the far end of the room.

“B, is she…”

“It’s fine. She won’t.”

“They’re here.” Jean makes a break for the door.

Historia clings to Armin’s arm, pale but staunch.

Connie’s face is bloodied but the graze on his forehead is small. Small, sure, but does it matter? It’s one inch shy of a killshot or a lost eye. Bertolt runs for supplies and drags Connie to the sofa. 

Connie patiently waits for him to clean and wrap up the wound, wincing from the antiseptic’s sting. When it’s done, he gives Bertolt a wry, tired smile from under his bandage headband.

“Thanks, Bertato.”

Bertolt laughs at this long-forgotten and endearingly stupid nickname.

“Bertolt.”

The laugh evaporates. A tiny hand closes around his wrist like a manacle, and Bertolt flinches away from it like it’s hot metal. With him sitting, and her standing, Bertolt and Historia are for once at the same eye level. She searches his face. She’s way too close and it dredges up a sick, visceral memory of the unwanted kiss.

“Historia. I’m so sorry, it wasn’t—I didn’t want—” Bertolt stammers, flushing miserably and trying to pull himself free without hurting her. He can’t meet her eyes. “I swear. I would never-”

“Bertolt.” She whispers urgently, holding fast. “Don’t worry. It’s alright. Look at me. I know you wouldn’t. But we need t-“

“Black car,” barks Jean, still stationed by the window, saving Bertolt from the interaction.

Reiner runs out, and when he comes back up he looks like a storm cloud. He makes a beeline for Bertolt, and the reason quickly becomes clear. Because who else in all Marley should follow him into the room but Xavier goddamn Loughton.

Right. Paradis Project.

“Hullo. Everyone alright?” Xavier smiles reassuringly and makes exactly the kind of courteous, perfect, obnoxious bow that one would expect from him, in Historia’s direction. “Your Highness, General Dusko asked me to tell you that he’s honored by this opportunity to be of some service to you. He’s waiting at Command Central. Are you ready now?”

“Yes, thank you. How many of us can you take?”

“I have room for four; it’ll be tight. I assume you want your full detail?”

“Yes, I do. Connie, Jean, with me. Reiner, we’ll need you if we have to speak to the General.” 

Historia’s tone is uncompromising. Anyway, she’s right. Bertolt can’t talk to anyone and Armin can’t protect anyone. They’re useless, and they know it, and it hurts. Armin stands in the middle of the room looking lost, his eyes appealing silently to Historia’s sense of charity. She gives him a tight, sympathetic smile.

“Armin, we’ll send for you as soon as we can. I need you there for any important discussions. Mr. Loughton? Mr. Arlert is my lead advisor. I’ll need him picked up.”

“Of course, your Highness. No trouble at all.”

Historia sweeps out of the room, penned in by Connie and Jean. Reiner takes Bertolt’s elbow and presses their foreheads together so he can murmur.

“You gonna be alright?”

Bertolt nods dejectedly against his forehead. 

“Yeah. Of course. Be careful.”

Reiner drops his voice to an even lower register—an almost inaudible growl in Bertolt’s ear.

“Hey, Ymir—squatter. Don’t even think about it. I’ll protect yours. You respect mine.”

It’s a wildly possessive, over-the-top, and borderline deranged thing to say, and it sends an equally deranged, weak-kneed flutter through Bertolt. 

He can almost feel Ymir sneering back at Reiner and anxiously pacing the sands.

Xavier pointedly clears his throat. Reiner gives Bertolt a quick peck and Bertolt morosely watches him leave.

Xavier lingers. Bertolt is gratified to see that his smarmy smile is weaker than usual, as his eyes drift over the line of boots and coats hanging on pegs beside him, and the row of mugs on the kitchen table, and the wall where Bertolt has pinned some of Reiner’s best sketches, and the ever-growing library that’s already spread to a second shelf down the length of the living room. Still, he summons the wherewithal to be a little bit of a shithead, just to keep up appearances. 

“So long, Bertl! I’ll try to bring him back in one piece. Enjoy your evening in.”

The door shuts behind the escort party. The vacuum left by the chaos is like a silent arctic ice field, a million miles from anything.

Bertolt grabs the whiskey off the table, throws himself onto the sofa, takes a good swig and wedges the bottle between the sofa cushions to keep it close at hand. 

He hangs his head over the backrest and shuts his eyes, picturing potential configurations. 

Xavier will be driving. Fine, at least that means that Reiner probably won’t be thigh-to-thigh with him, though it depends on the model of the car. So he’ll be in the back seat with Historia? No. Historia will be in the middle, with Jean and Connie on either side. So Reiner in the passenger seat. Next to Xavier. Fuck.

“Bertolt. Are you alright?”

“Yes.”

“Can I get you anything?”

“It’s my house. There’s beer in the icebox. Take whatever you want.”

“…alright.”

Armin goes to the icebox and clinks around. Bertolt’s mind is consumed by all of the unendurable things that might be happening in the car, so he’s startled by a pop and a hiss near him and a cold nudge against his hand. He accepts the beer without moving any other part of his body, and hears a soft rustle as Armin lands in the armchair across from him.

The silence sits like mud.

“Bertolt-”

“No.”

More smothering silence. Slow minutes pass until it’s broken again by Armin’s tremulous, fluting voice.

“Bertolt, please? I don’t know what to do. I’m really falling apart. They almost killed her. And Connie.”

“Work on one of your plans.”

“Please. We’re going to be here for God knows how long. Can’t we talk?”

Maintaining a low word count is an art that Bertolt is particularly skilled in.

“No.”

“I know you’re angry. I know you hate me.”

“I’m not. I don’t.”

“But then why?”

“Because you’re dangerous, Armin.”

Armin’s hurt flows over Bertolt like waves, and he feels neither good nor bad about it. He tips a decent portion of his beer down his throat.

“That’s such an awful word. Dangerous? I’m dangerous? You think I’m a danger to you?”

Bertolt doesn’t answer this incomprehensibly stupid question.

“Bertolt, I never wanted to hurt you.”

And yet.

“You don’t have to talk, but I can’t just sit here like this. I have to try. If we don’t talk it’s always going to be awful. We’ve known each other for so long. What’s the point?” Armin is blathering aimlessly, trying to crowd out his anxiety with a stream of platitudes. “You don’t have to like me. I’m not asking that. Just for now. I just want us to…I don’t even know. Have peace. Something. I don’t know what I want from you. No, I do. I want us to talk.”

Doubt starts to nibble at Bertolt’s antipathy. Is he being shitty? Armin is older than him. Four years. That’s the difference between a twelve-year-old and a sixteen-year-old. A galling thought, that maybe quivery little Armin is the adult in the room, and Bertolt’s being a cruel, obstinate child.

Typical. This is fucking typical.

This is what Armin does. Armin sows doubt. Armin appeals to Bertolt’s misplaced empathy, his weakness, every time. If Bertolt hasn’t learnt this lesson by now, he might as well let Armin kill him again, right fucking now, right here on the fucking couch, and get it fucking over with. 

Bertolt drains the rest of his beer and shoves the empty bottle upright between the sofa cushions next to the whiskey. He composes a mantra to keep himself clear of Armin’s teeth.

Armin said Annie was tortured. I fell for it. I lost Eren. Ymir died.

    BUT Armin was saving his friend, who I abducted.

Armin tried to trick me again in Shiganshina.

    BUT I was going to kill them all, and he tried to negotiate first.

Armin chose to burn. I tried to end his suffering. I paid with my life.

    BUT he did it to stop me from destroying everything.

Armin crushed my head in his mouth while I screamed for Reiner.

    BUT he was a titan, and didn’t know, and couldn’t help it.

Armin blew up the harbor in Liberio with the Titan he stole from me.

    BUT  I destroyed his home with that same Titan first.

Armin has invaded my life with his politics without my consent, and invaded my armchair. He’s an ember in my house made of matchsticks, and now Reiner is sitting next to Xavier in a car.

    No “BUT”.
    Fuck him for that.

…but,

Armin gave his leg so I could come back.

“Bertolt? I know I can’t do anything at all about you hating me, but I also know that if we could only find some common ground, there’s so much that we-”

“You don’t listen, Armin. You just make speeches. I never once said I hated you. I said you’re dangerous. You are uniquely dangerous to me, personally. I almost forgot before, because you were kind enough to give me your leg, and you wrote a nice letter. But now I remember. Because of what you did, tying us all up in this again. Look around. Now my home is where you run to when someone gets shot, and there’s blood on my sofa, and Reiner’s gone. I thought all of it was over, but it never ends.”

He feels empty and sad. He hopes they come to take Armin away soon. 

“It’s all because we agreed to meet with you. If I give you an opening, you win and I lose. Always. Like now. I don’t want to talk, but you do, so here we are, talking. See. Oh well. But I don’t hate you. You always have your reasons. It’s not all your fault. It’s just how it is.”

“That’s just like what you said back then.”

“My belief structure hasn’t evolved into one that’s more convenient to you, in the few months since you ate me alive.”

Armin flinches. “I’m sorry, Connie and I talked about that. It’s so hard to remember. You’re living a completely different timeline than the rest of us.”

Bertolt hunts around for the whiskey with one hand and finds it. It burns a soothing path down his throat. He commits to getting drunk. It’s the only way he’s going to survive this encounter.

“Can I have some?”

“Of course.” Bertolt blindly extends the bottle. Armin’s uneven footsteps shuffle closer. There’s an impressively long “glug glug glug” before the bottle lands back in his hand. More pops and hisses, two more open beers. Guess Armin’s getting drunk too. 

Armin starts to say something, stops, seems to steel himself, and starts to speak again.

“Since we’re already talking, I want to admit something, because it’s one of the more awful things that I did, and you and Reiner deserve to hear you were right, and I just can’t stop thinking about it. The only reason I kept Annie out of it all was selfishness. She just isn’t ready to be out in the world, in that way.”

“But I’m ready?” 

“No. That’s why it was selfish. I knew you wouldn’t be. I suppose I hoped that you would want to help anyway. Maybe I thought you’d feel, I don’t know, guilty, indebted. So you’d help whether you really wanted to or not. Or you wouldn’t but Reiner would, and at least I’d have one Warrior.” 

Refreshingly honest. Armin sighs, unburdened but defeated.

“I’m so tired, Bertolt. But I have to do what I have to do. I know what I did to you with the papers and the publicity and going over your head to your general was wrong. But I can’t apologize for it because you’re only one person, and the island is filled with people, and the world is filled with people. And what’s happening is dangerous.” Armin empties one of his bottles. “If I’d thought of everyone else instead of just Eren, how many people would be alive today, instead of dead? What else could I have done?”

“Asked.”

In the midst of his resentment’s crumbling foundations, this is the one thing that Bertolt is absolutely confident he’s in the right about. The long, uncomfortable pause validates him.

“Would you have said yes?”

“We’ll never know.”

Armin sighs again and limps away. Another beer lands in Bertolt’s lax hand. He tracks sounds. Step shuffle step shuffle. Rustle rustle. Pop, hiss. Traffic through the window. Honk. Glug glug.

“I honestly didn’t think about you and Reiner being separated, or what that would mean for you. I thought everything through, but I didn’t think about that. It was a blind spot in all of it. I’m sorry to tell you that I probably would still have acted, but I might have gone about it differently.”

“Great. Doesn’t help now.”

“I can understand why you’re both so furious at me about it. ”

“Everyone’s dead. He’s all I have. Here and in Paradis.”

“Paradis was lonely for me too.”

“You had Eren and Mikasa, and all kinds of friends, and everyone treating you like either a little princess or a genius. Hard times.”

Bertolt isn’t sure what to call the sound that Armin makes—a convergence of frustration, affection, resignation, and alcohol. He’s, what, three beers deep now? And several glugs-worth of whiskey. 

“Imagine trying to talk to Eren or Mikasa about some book outlining the latest innovations in botanical science.” 

Fair.

“Neither of them are—were—cerebral. But you always had a book in your hand. Do you remember? I followed you around like a baby duck. You behind Reiner, me behind you. I was so excited when we finally started to talk.”

Bertolt absolutely does not remember this, and wonders if Armin is trying to manipulate him. They studied together a few times, maybe?

“I don’t remember that.”

“Oh.” Armin sounds hurt again. “Well, it’s true.” He lapses into deflated, merciful silence. Bertolt basks in it. He loses track of his own drinks, and loses count of Armin’s.

Armin holds out for as long as he can, but soon he starts melting again, like a dropped ice cream cone.

“I so badly wanted to be close to you. For years and years. I admired you. You were so good at everything. And then we almost were friends, for a little while. But then you didn’t want to be friends with me anymore. Why?” 

“Couldn’t get close.”

“Reiner could.”

“When he was sane he knew better.”

“Annie told me some of what happened with him. She doesn’t talk about it much, hardly at all, but she knew how alone you were. She barely had any time to process that you were dead, before you came back again.”

A rock, shaped like ten years of Annie intermittently batting their friendship down into the dirt, lodges itself in Bertolt’s throat. He swallows it.

“Annie doesn’t give a fuck about me.”

“That isn’t true at all!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No, I do. Really. When she talks, she says what matters. She’ll always care about you and Reiner.”

“I’ll believe it when I hear it from her. And I never will.”

“Reiner knows she doesn’t hate you.”

“Reiner knows a lot of things and half of them are based in this reality.” Bertolt wants to slap himself as soon as this disgusting, traitorous thing leaves his mouth. What the fuck. The alcohol is making him say things he doesn’t mean.

“He’s so much better now than he was before you came back. When I first saw him again, before the Rumbling…I’m glad you never saw what he was like. Like a hollowed out tree. He didn’t look like the same person we knew. It was really shocking. But now he looks like himself, I think he’s gotten awfully handsome.”

After all the time he’s spent trapped in this endless ordeal of a conversation, Bertolt finally opens his eyes. He blinks, blinded by the ceiling lamp, and lifts his head. Ow. His neck is fused in the shape of the backrest. Whatever. He’s said a loathsome thing and he has to make it up to Reiner.

“If he’s dragged away with you, and I’m not, and something happens to him while we aren’t together, I swear I will kill every single person you have ever loved. I don’t care what happens to me. It can’t be worse than what already happened to me. I’ll rip you and your island in half. I won’t be able to help it.”

“I promise,” says Armin. His voice is starting to slur, a little. “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure nothing happens to him. I’ll protect him with everything I have.”

His deluded earnestness makes Bertolt smirk. 

“Do that, Armin. Make a speech. Throw a book. Save the day.”

“Really? Really?” It’s the last straw, Armin’s patience is beginning to unspool under the influence of the alcohol. Bertolt is downright relieved to finally reap the fruits of all his strenuous efforts to be an unbearable drunken asshole. “Why are you being like this? I’m trying so hard. I’m doing absolutely everything I can think of to connect with you, treating you like some lost, hurt, little boy, and you just won’t give me anything back.”

“Guess you lose.”

“See! That! What’s that supposed to be? Why are you talking to me like I’m an enemy? I’m not! I’m the only one out of everybody who never for one single minute believed you were a monster. Would I have used Annie against you if I thought you didn’t care? Would I have used me? But that doesn’t matter to you, does it? And everyone feels sooo sorry for poor Bertolt, who’s been through so much more than everyone else, so you get to behave like a raving lunatic whenever you want. And you still have the audacity to sit there seething and being snide and feeling superior, and feasting on everyone’s guilt, as though you’re the only person in the world who has a right to be angry, in case you’ve forg-“

“Not angry.”

“Oh fuck off, Bertolt. Yes, you are. You’re just saying things and acting like a poisonous, coiled up little viper, and it’s transparent as anything. Do you think I can’t see through it? Maybe you’re used to being the cleverest person in the room, but that’s because you’re always in a room with REINER. You aren’t cleverer than me. All of this cool detachment, it’s ridiculous. It’s absolute, ridiculous, transparent, blustering, adolescent nonsense. Ohhhh you’ll kill everyone? Really? I’m shaking. Do you know who you’re acting exactly like, right now? Do you know who you remind me exactly of? Eren. Grow up.”

“Make me.”

“You’re a CHILD.”

“Well, yeah. I mean, not really. But compared to you. I was dead for a while. Haven’t caught up.”

“GOD!”

There’s a furious, glassy, clonk, and a bottle skitters across the floor. It bounces off the bottom of the sofa between Bertolt’s boots.

“Goallll.” Bertolt raises his arms above his head in the universal sign of victory.

“You’re a smug, self-righteous, ungrateful little bastard!” Armin drains his beer and sneers at Bertolt while he drags himself from his seat and limps away to get another from the icebox.

“Little? You’re calling me little.”

“Yes, I am. That’s right. That’s what I said. LITTLE. You SHRANK. You’re shorter than you were. You’re practically the same as Reiner now. And you’re skinny, so he looks twice your size. I noticed but I didn’t say anything about it, because I’m kind, and I’m generous, and I’m a good person.”

“And I’m modest,” says Bertolt in a hateful falsetto mockery of Armin’s voice, indifferent to all other insults but stung by the allusion to his missing two inches.

“You look like Major Reiner Braun’s teenaged mistress. And guess what, Bertolt. I GREW.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you ate me. I’m nutritious! You’re welcome.”

Both of their mouths fall open. The bottle almost slides out of Armin’s hand. Paralysis descends.

They both fall apart at exactly the same time.

“Hnggggggggggg.” Armin collapses onto the hardwood, hyperventilating but somehow not spilling a single drop of his new beer.

“Guuhhhhhhhhhhh.” Bertolt contracts into a helpless shuddering fetal ball on the sofa, and then rolls off, bringing the whiskey with him.

“Nutritious! NUTRITIOUS. You wish! Fuck you! I had indigestion for WEEKS.”

“I hope I gave you the fucking RUNS. I hope I burned your ass RAW on the way out! I hope you left a shit trail all the way back to Wall Sina!”

“You did! I did! I did have the runs!” Armin shrieks, stomping his good leg against the floor, tears rolling down his face. “It gave me an existential crisis! I felt GUILTY about having the runs! I did leave a trail!”

“GOOD!” roars Bertolt, raising his arms in another triumphant display of victory. “I left my MARK ON THE WORLD!”

Watching the scene outside her window pitch and reel, getting a little bit seasick, and unable to decipher whether she’s viewing hysterical laughter, hysterical crying, or just hysterical screaming-in-general, Ymir thinks that it’s very fortunate indeed that Bertolt and Reiner don’t have neighbors.

***

After sobering up enough to stop screaming, but nowhere near enough to stand up again, Bertolt and Armin lie on the floor, flat on their backs, watching the ceiling spin.

“I miss Annie,” Armin moans, “I haven’t seen her in five days. And now we’re stuck with Historia’s baby. We just moved in together. I don’t want to be stuck with some baby. It’s not even my baby.”

“I miss Reiner. Why isn’t he home yet?” Bertolt whimpers, “What if he’s with Xavier? I hate Xavier.”

“Bertolttttt,” blubbers Armin, “I’m so sorryyyy. I didn’t mean to take Reiner away.” 

“I know but you still might and then I’ll die. I’ll die again,” laments Bertolt, “I’ll die like an abandoned potted plant. Nobody’ll water me, and I’ll be all alone all by myself all lonely with nobody at all.”

The two snivel against the soundtrack of the city’s quiet hum.

“You were all alone. It makes me so sad, Bertolt. Nobody knew you were all alone. I only really know because I saw all those little flashes. And it was horrible. Everything was horrible. Your time on Paradis was horrible. Reiner was horrible. The books were horrible. Then I had to be the Colossal Titan, like you did, and being the Colossal Titan was horrible.”

“Correct. It was all extremely fuckin’ horrible.”

“You know, I finally got to the ocean? Do you remember I always talked about it? And it was wonderful, it was wider and deeper and bluer than I ever imagined. But when I put my feet in and looked out, I was all mixed up. I felt like I’d seen it all before, and I was homesick for somewhere I’d never been. I knew it was your feelings, you missing the ocean, and wanting to go home.”

Home. Another tear forces its way out of Bertolt’s eye and runs sideways into his hair. Fuck off, tear. You aren’t invited. Bertolt thinks about the ocean. It reminds him of something. 

He forgets that he’s crying.

“Armin? Hey, Armin? Have you read New Visions of the Depths?”

“I haven’t had time to read for fun in forever. The last time I read anything that wasn’t for work was just after the Rumbling.” Armin lifts his leg by the fabric of his pants and lets it drop, making a hollow wooden thunk against the floor. “I was so curious how the Founder did it. Aren’t you? Cells. And then cellular replication-”

“Well, I read Depths in the hospital. Listen. Armin. Listen to this. Shut up.” Bertolt works to pull the correct threads of thought from an impenetrable tangle, because this is very important. "They have cameras and listening devices and things called bathyspheres that they lower on poles or wires, deeper than they’ve ever done before, and they found out that some places down there are steaming hot. All kinds of things. But get this. This is the most incredible part. At least to me. There are fish down there that don’t have any eyes. There’s no light, so eyes are useless, and the pictures were fucking horrifying. They brought some up—which seems like a mean thing to do, they explode a little for some reason—but anyway, they still have the sockets, and they’re skinned over with no eyes inside them. They stopped needing them, so they stopped having them.”

“That’s… how?” Armin strains to turn his head far enough to stare at Bertolt, making sure he isn’t a liar. “I suppose evolution. I’ve read about evolution. That’s amazing. I know whales go deeper than anything. Do you know about whales?” 

“Yes, I know about whales.”

"I’m just dying to see a whale. I can’t even picture one properly. Photographs aren’t the same. They sound like titans of fish. Every time we’re on a boat voyage, I stay on the decks as much as I possibly can because I’m desperately hoping to see whales.” He raises his beer mournfully to the ceiling. “But I never do."

“I think they’re around here more when it’s cool. There used to be whales between Marley and Paradis. They travel through the passage on their way north. I’ve seen them before from ships. Sometimes they jump out of the water and slam down again, and it’s like a building falling on its side. You could swear they’re doing it to make fun of you. Like,” Bertolt makes what he imagines to be a whale voice. “‘Hello, I’m here, and I know you’re here, and I’m bigger and better than you.’ I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time thinking about them. Hoping they all got away. A million zillion people died and I’m worried about the fucking whales. But if you see them you’ll understand. Whales are too perfect to not worry about.”

Bertolt realizes that he’s just said a lot of words in a row. He’d feel pretty abashed, if he wasn’t so drunk. “I can give you the book. I don’t know whether the scientists who wrote it are still alive. I’ve been watching the booksellers for other things by them.”

“I’d like the book. I hope they’re still alive, the scientists and the whales. I wonder if it’s hard to get one of those deep sea devices.” Armin points his bottle to the sky again, this time to show his commitment to science. ”When Historia is queen again, I’ll convince her to finance excursions, and we’ll buy one. We’ll buy five.”

They lie quietly for a few minutes, thinking of whales, and devices, and feeling the room rock like a wooden ship. Then Bertolt remembers something else of vital importance.

“OH.”

He stumbles with determination and difficulty to a shelf across the room, and ruffles through stacks of phonograph records until he finds what he’s looking for.

Armin beams and points when he sees the record.

“Records! That’s something I do all the time. I never knew there could be so much music in the world. A lot of it sounded like nothing to me, at first. I didn’t have anything to compare it to. We hardly had any music at all on the island.”

“I know. It made me want to jump off a bridge. But listen to this.”

Bertolt fixes the needle to the phonograph, sets the record spinning, then gratefully dissolves back onto the floor, his labors complete.

The sound that comes through the horn isn’t quite music, but it isn’t not music. It’s an otherworldly keening, sometimes surrounded by whoops, or whistling sounds that rise and fall, phrases that ask questions and then answer them. Sometimes the sounds are low and sombre, but mostly, they sound ecstatic. Armin tries to be polite.

“Oh…interesting. Is this new music? Is this jazz?”

“Armin.” Bertolt is bright pink, but not from embarrassment. “It’s whales.”

Everything on Armin’s face falls open. “WHAT?”

“This is whales. They only sing like this deep, deep down in the ocean. No human has ever heard them, but they’ve been able to record them. And they put out an album of it, to fund the research. That’s this. You’re listening to a recording of the only time we’ve ever heard whales singing.”

Armin listens with his entire body, feeling the whale songs through the floor and staring into space with starry eyes, and when the record finishes and the only sound in the room is the quiet rasping of the needle, he bursts into drunken sobs. Bertolt nods in agreement and passes him the whiskey.

***

When Connie and Jean arrive to fetch Armin, the living room looks like it’s been ravaged by a small-scale explosive. The ground is littered with countless empty bottles and ten thousand books and phonograph records. Bertolt is flat on his back amongst the debris, and Armin is passed out face first on the sofa. A long-finished record buzzes quietly.

“Ah, shit,” groans Jean, grimacing at the general destruction, “do you think they had it out? He better not have hurt Armin.”

Connie nudges an empty bottle lying on its side and sends it tinkling across the floor. He grins.

“Nah. I think they just got wasted.”

“Whatever.” Jean hoists Armin onto his hip like a massive toddler, ignoring half-conscious sounds of protest. Before his body leaves the sofa, Armin manages to snatch the book he’s been drooling onto and holds it in a limp but steadfast hand, hanging down Jean’s back.

Connie lifts the needle from the phonograph and pulls a blanket off of the sofa. He drapes it over Bertolt, who doesn’t budge, and pauses to look down at a peaceful, flushed face.

“He really looks like a kid, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah. It’s kind of fucked up. I’d kill for his skin though.” Jean ruefully touches his own perfect, well-moisturized cheek with the hand that isn’t wrapped around Armin. “C’mon. Let’s go so Reiner can come back. They’ve been apart for like four hours. He’s probably dying of anxiety and a broken heart.”

“He’s stuck with that shiny asshole. What’s his name? Xavier. Scumbag. You see him in the car?”

“Eh?”

“He kept putting his arm around the back of the passenger seat, and touching Reiner’s knee like it was on accident, n’ Reiner kept shoving him off.”

“Ohohohohoooo!” Jean is suddenly terribly interested. “That’s fun. Wonder if there’s a story. He’s sort of a stunner, don’t you think?”

“I dunno.”

They both jump when Bertolt shifts, tugging the blanket up to his chin. He goes still again. Luckily for everyone involved, he’s been dead to the world through this entire disturbing exchange. 

But Ymir—on her twelfth fake cigarette of the evening, relieved that Historia is somewhere safe, still thrumming about whale songs, and slightly intoxicated since apparently alcohol transfers if she really wants it to—has heard it all. Her eyes glint dangerously.

Chapter Text

“B?”

Reiner trudges up the stairs into the peaceful, dark, stillness of the living room, already shrugging off his coat. When he goes to hang it he misses the peg. He almost doesn’t bother to pick it up, but soldierly discipline prevails. 

He squints in the low light to check his wristwatch and runs an exhausted hand through his hair as he pads towards the bedroom. Almost midnight. Well, Bertolt’s probab—

Reiner goes flying. He hits the ground knees-first, having hooked his foot under a fleshy, swaddled, dead-whale-esque obstruction, curled up on the floor.

“Angh,” says the dead whale.

“FUCK. Owwww,” moans Reiner, “Bertolt?”

There’s no answer. Reiner ignores his screaming knees, which will definitely be purple tomorrow, and crawls back over to Bertolt’s listless body like a warrior on the battlefield valiantly struggling towards a fallen comrade. 

“B? What the hell are you doing?”

Bertolt rolls onto his side and a long proboscis arm emerges from his blanket cocoon. It makes contact with Reiner’s face, feels around, then drops.

“Hi Reiner.”

Reiner forcibly peels back the layers of the blanket around the arm until he finds the rest of Bertolt. The smell of alcohol almost knocks him over. He runs his eyes around the room. As they adjust to the darkness he begins to get a full picture of things as they stand. Bottles. Books. Bertolt.

“Are you wasted?”

“No. Not anymore. Now I’m just dying.”

“How much did you drink?”

“I dunno how much did you drive in the car with Xavier. No, sorry. That’s dumb. I love you. G’night.”

“You’re not sleeping on the floor.”

“I don’t like it either, but it’s okay. It’s how it is.”

“Did you throw up?”

“No.”

“Do you need to throw up.”

“No. I’m ok. I’m just tired, lemme sleep.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. C’mon, idiot.”

Reiner unrolls an unhelpful Bertolt from the blanket and drags him to the bathroom. He helps him pull his clothes off while the tub fills. Bertolt summons the fortitude to swish the whiskey out of his mouth and spit into the sink. He turns back to Reiner with endearingly hopeful, patently manipulative eyes.

“Bubbles?”

Reiner snorts. 

“Are you in a position to demand things? You’re not gonna stay in there that long anyway, I don’t want you to pass out again.”

“I’m not demanding. But, it’d be so nice.”

Reiner groans and acquiesces. A spongecake of foam rises under the stream from the tap.

“Reiner.”

“Bertolt.”

“You’re coming with me, right?”

“Nah, I’ll shower after.”

“You gotta come with me. I’ll drown,” Bertolt says confidently.

“You won’t drown.”

“You don’t know.”

“B, I’m really tired.”

“Baths are good for tired. Plus the tub will be too full for me to drown if there’s two of us.”

The reasoning is sound, and a hot bath after the night’s trials sounds pretty good. Bertolt’s insistent, pouting face and exposed everything is also a convincing argument. Reiner adds his clothes to the pile outside the washroom door.

They manage to maneuver themselves in, one leaning against each end of the tub. Bertolt angles himself to avoid the faucet, and props a giraffe leg up on the rim by Reiner’s shoulder.

They both say “ahhh…” and let the evening’s chaos drain from their bodies into the water through osmosis.

“Reiner?”

“Mhm?”

“How are they?”

“Fine. They met Dusko but they didn’t talk long. He set them up at Command for the night with extra security. They’ll move ‘em to a safehouse tomorrow.”

“Okay. Glad they’re alright.”

“Yeah. Tell Ymir to keep her petticoat on. Historia’s probably snoring on a stack of mattresses surrounded by armed guards, while everyone else splits a cot in the broom closet.”

Reiner hopes that Ymir isn’t actually watching him take a bath. What’d be in it for her, anyway? Probably jealous of his build. He smirks to himself and stretches his arms over his head, flexing out his muscles, to release the last traces of tonight’s tension, to impress Bertolt, and to gross Ymir out, if she is spying. You like that?

Bertolt, watching lazily, nudges Reiner’s considerable chest with his foam-covered foot, interrupting this ridiculous train of thought.

“Reiner?”

“Mhm?”

“Isn’t this kind of like the first time?”

“I was thinking that. Got déjà vu pulling your shirt over your head.”

“I was drunk then too.”

“You sure were.”

“I was a pain in the ass. It was a good night, though.”

Reiner runs a hand down Bertolt’s calf, stripping off the bubbles. “Best thing that ever happened, up until that point.”

“That point? What’s the new best?”

“Every day since you came back. Even when you’re a pain in the ass.”

“Heh.” Bertolt takes his leg back and flings a handful of bubbles, but it falls short of Reiner’s head.

“Good effort.”

“Thanks.”

“Were you okay being stuck here with Armin?”

“Mostly. We talked.”

“About what?”

“He said I look like your teenaged mistress.”

“What?”

“I deserved it. I was mocking his voice. I said I hoped he had the runs.” Bertolt snickers, not sorry at all.

“God…so it was a disaster.”

“No. I don’t think? I blacked out a little. The whales helped.”

Reiner makes a strategic decision to not question Bertolt further about this discombobulating statement. Not tonight. He leans back, shuts his eyes, and sighs contentedly. Yeah. The bath was the right idea, Bertolt always knows what to-

There’s a sudden vacuum effect in the water, and a force like a sheared-off cliff face collapsing into the sea crashes on top of him. Water goes up his nose. Bubbles cling to the wall tiles. Bertolt has levered himself up and over his shins into a violent whale breach bellyflop.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DO-”

Reiner’s outraged yell cuts off mid-word.

The rest is history. Thank God it’s the weekend. Thank God they found an apartment with a big enough bathtub.

***

Ymir isn’t watching, and her weekend isn’t off to anywhere near as pleasant of a start.

Granny isn’t happy.

Ymir slouches miserably in her chair like a child being chastised. The Founder floats a few inches off the ground in the center of the room, glaring. Irritation and disapproval buzz all around her in spiky little bursts of sand.

The energy YOU expended has likely done untold damage to OUR longevity.

“I didn’t mean to,” wails Ymir, “I didn’t even know I could. I admit it, I completely lost my head when I saw Historia. But how could I have known it would happen?”

I didn’t know either. That makes it WORSE. It shouldn’t be possible. And WITHOUT my permission.

“Without Bertolt’s either! I know it was a terrible thing to do. But how could I ask permission for something nobody knew was possible? I’ll never do it again!”

You WILL do it again. When I TELL you to. It was disruptive, and insulting. I almost dissolved you. But I chose not to. Because it will certainly be useful. And because I tried, and couldn’t do it myself. Which is also insulting. Still, I’m old enough to contain my temper, when necessary. UNLIKE YOU.

Ymir prepares for a sandstorm, but there isn’t one. The Founder lands calmly on the carpet and dusts her hands on her skirt. The sand relaxes.

Well. You’re a child. An ant’s lifespan behind you. Neither of us knew you could do it. But IF you do it again without my permission, I will dissolve you without a second thought, or a single grain of regret.

“Yes, Granny,” quavers Ymir, “I won’t. Ever. I promise.”

Alright.

Ymir wants to cry, knowing what has to come next. But a promise is a promise, and being dissolved can’t be worse than jumping into the void.

“I’m so sorry. Founder. I’m really terrified to ask you this, but I have to.”

?

“Let me talk to Bertolt before we try it again. Please. I’m begging. It’ll be so much easier if he’s willing. So much energy went into fighting him. That’s why it all fell apart. It’s a waste. I know he would have worked together, if we’d known it was something that could be done. Please, Granny, Ymir, Founder? Don’t dissolve me. Please, though?”

The Founder thinks it over.

Fine. Try. Keep talking to him. Experiment. Within reason. When I’ve recovered from being sapped to my last reserves from WHAT YOU DID, I’ll come. Or if you overreach, I’ll come. Or if I get impatient. So try hard, Ymir.

A chill runs through Ymir when the Founder says her name. She really is terribly serious.

The Founder comes to sit in her favorite seat across the kitchen table. She whips up some apples and a strange tea that tastes like the scent of tree bark. They drink it quietly until the Founder speaks again.

It was disturbing for him.

“He still hates me a little,” says Ymir, slumping down onto her arms on the table, crushed under a thousand pounds of guilt, “But it’s Bertolt. If you give him enough time, he always overthinks himself into forgiving people.”

It’s a thing I understand.

“What is? Forgiving?”

No. Being deprived of ownership over one’s own flesh. The indignity of it.

“That was the worst part for him. I could just jump out the window over it.” Ymir lets herself cry. Or the Founder lets her cry. Who knows anymore. “I’m his friend and I stole his body out from under him, like some horrid succubus. And it was embarrassing. And Historia didn’t like the kiss anyway. Our very first kiss since I stopped being all-the-way dead. And it was that. It doesn’t count, does it? I hurt absolutely everybody I care about. And Reiner too. He almost had a heart attack.”

If Reiner really had a heart attack, I would have dissolved you.

“You wouldn’t need to. He’d have found a way to come here and dissolve me himself.”

I don’t think that’s possible.

“No, I know. I just—never mind. I just mean he didn’t like seeing that awful kiss.”

I would have enjoyed it all immensely if I wasn’t distracted by you almost destroying us with your selfishness. At least now Historia is eager to see us again. Mentioning the snow was inspired. An incentive to draw her back. I suppose I can credit you, even if this is an opportunity born of stupidity rather than intention.

“Thank…you?” says Ymir, unsure of where this lands on the insult-compliment scale.

You’re welcome.

“But it didn’t need to happen!” Ymir complains, drying her tears on her arm, “It wouldn’t have happened at all if I could just talk to him. Working it all out through dreams feels like such a ridiculous, roundabout way to reach him. It’s exhausting.”

You like making the dreams. And it suits you. You’re very good at it.

“Not when I need to tell him something important! A whole dream, trying to sneak messages in sideways, just to say ‘go to the damn meeting Bertolt’ or ‘I’m sorry for stealing your body, Bertolt’.”

A whole month just to build a titan that will be dissolved in five minutes. 

“Can’t I complain without comparing?”

Yes.

“Well, then that’s what I’m doing. I’m know you’ve been through all sorts of terrible things for ages and ages but I wasn’t there, I can only complain about my own troubles.”

Ymir has never seen the Founder roll her eyes before.

We would be that much closer to bringing him back INTO the Paths, if you hadn’t gone OUT into the world. If you can do THAT, you should be able to speak with him, or bring him yourself. But you can’t. Maybe you’re in your own way. Accept the mystery of it, and do what needs to be done. 

Ymir sulks, even though it’s hardly the Founder’s fault. She petulantly makes a little round sand cake and tries to turn it into a real one, like a toddler with a mud pie. The Founder watches, her characteristic blankness giving off a distinct air of pity.

Try something simple first.

“I’ve been trying apples. I’ve achieved sweet sand. I guess that’s progress. I should get a prize.”

The Founder turns the sand cake into a real one. Ymir, who hadn’t meant “prize” literally, doesn’t look a gift cake in the mouth. She eats it in one bite, and the sweet, crumbly treat improves her mood drastically.

“Thank you. Sorry. I’m being a whining bore.”

Keep working on apples.

Ymir nods, licking her fingers, already regretting not having made the cake last longer. “How do you know what cakes taste like? Did you have cakes like this? Back when you were…is alive the right word?”

No. We had grey bread. Milk. We sometimes had honey. I never tasted anything sweeter than apples until I was a slave in Fritz’s house.

“Ugh. Fritz. I’ve heard all about him. Sounds like a real bastard.” 

A good word.

“You know they say you stayed here in the Paths all this time because you loved him. It never sat right with me, personally.”

People eat your flesh and spit it back out as whatever story they want to tell. Bertolt knows about that too.

“So have you heard the whole thing? What they’re saying about how Mikasa freed you? I’m sure you’ve listened to Reiner regaling Bertolt.”

It’s stupid. It’s a stupid story. Offensively stupid. Outrageously stupid. Reiner should know better than to repeat it. Set free by the sight of a girl killing her lover? Do you really believe that in two thousand years of watching the woeful spectacle of my children’s lives, I never once saw anybody else free themselves from the tyranny of their own poisonous affections? I never saw a battered wife slit her husband’s throat with a broken bottle while he slept, and then weep over his corpse? It happens all the time.

“That, specifically?”

Sometimes it’s a kitchen knife.

“Oh. Well. Good. Except for the weeping.”

Yes. Good. Except for the weeping. I saw Zeke turn his parents in to the Marleyan authorities. He loved them.

“I don’t know a thing about that, but it does sound like something he’d do.”

It doesn’t matter. What matters is that stories told by men must always be examined for self-interest. Then, now, and always.

“That, Granny, is wisdom. They should write it on monuments.”

People who build monuments don’t want their stories examined.

Ymir laughs. “You always out-clever me.”

Try again in a thousand years.

“So, is it all nonsense? Love, and royal blood and you serving King Bastard Fritz for ages?”

You were called the Subjects of Ymir, not the Subjects of Fritz, but they say that by watching my own, I was serving HIM. Nobody thinks. Sometimes I despise the living. And even if I did serve his children, his children were MY children—if I served anyone, or loved anyone, then I served and loved MY children.

The myth of royal blood served only one purpose—to stop everyone else from trying to steal the Founding Titan from the royal family. If you are all my descendants, then you all have royal blood. Again, nobody thinks.

“But you still died for him, didn't you?”

No.

“Then…?”

The Founder exudes calm, grim, self-satisfaction.

Of course I didn’t die for Fritz. He wasn’t worth dying for. If I cared about what HE wanted then I wouldn’t have died at all. If I wanted to SERVE him I would have pulled the spear from my breast, gotten up off the flagstones, healed myself just because he said so, and helped him spread his empire to the ends of the earth.

I died for spite.

“Spite?”

I had so many reasons to be spiteful. It was all his fault, right from the very beginning.

“Can you tell me all about it? Please? I’m sure it’s a thrilling story.”

Alright.

Thirteen years before I died, I fell into the dark pool and felt the Worm weave itself into my spine, and I exploded into the world as the first Titan. I was entirely mad. Mindless. I destroyed everything I came across. I crushed villages and walked on all fours through blood. I consumed farmers and soldiers alike, even though I didn’t need to eat. I burned mountainsides clean of their trees. 

I was caught somewhere between the world and the Paths. The Worm and I hadn’t learned to live together yet. My body raged against it like an infection, and it raged back.

But in short order, we adjusted to each other, and when I regained consciousness I was curled up, naked and new, in the center of a ravaged town. Torn limbs littered the ground, and here and there a crying body in the rubble still twitched, clinging to life. Animals lay burnt in their barns. 

I knew I’d done it. I remembered everything. 

I’d never liked hurting things, especially animals. The whole reason I was running to begin with, was that I’d tried to free some animals that didn’t belong to me. So I broke into pieces, and hated myself, and knew that I deserved every terrible thing that would ever happen to me. I tried to die and couldn’t. No matter what I did, I woke up again, healed and new. I couldn’t control it. The Worm didn’t want me to die. So in desperation I went back home, to let the people there decide what to do with me.

Fritz saw the state I was in, and saw the unprecedented opportunity that had been presented to him, and he let me come back. 

At first I served him willingly. I was numb, fractured, and compliant. I accepted my place as a pet nightmare. I welcomed the chains. Who knew what I’d do, if I wasn’t chained? I wanted to be aimed at a purpose by someone who knew better. I welcomed my enslavement, knowing that I deserved the punishment.

And it felt good to destroy things, and destroy people, on Fritz’s behalf. If it was on Fritz’s behalf, I could destroy without guilt. I worked with the Worm to expand my powers. I learned to control my own healing. I learned to explode at will. I visited the Paths to perfect my own fearsome form. I embraced it all, and it could have continued that way for the rest of Fritz’s life.

But owning me as a monster to crush his enemies wasn’t enough. He wanted to be the monster’s master in every possible way. And he wanted more monsters. So he made the mistake of forcing me to bear his children. 

Much to his disappointment, the children weren’t monsters. They were innocent, beautiful beings. Over time, they brought me back to myself. I remembered who I had been. I thought of what he’d done to me when I was so young. The hatred I’d been keeping frozen away inside me thawed, and it flowed through me freely. I thought of every unforgivable act I’d committed under his orders. I thought about how my being the Titan was all his fault to begin with—chasing me into that hole where I was forced into communion with the Worm.

I was his fault. I was his creation. I would find a way to take his prize away from him. I couldn’t kill myself. In his mind, my flesh belonged to him. I was afraid he would destroy my daughters, to punish them for my theft of his property. So I would kill him, and if I couldn’t, I would leave him bare and unprotected, so the world could exact its revenge.

I made a plan. I would secret my children away, to spare them the sight of what was to come, and then I would come back and end it all for both of us. I would make him beg, and scream, and cry, and apologize for everything, and then I’d torture him to death before cheering crowds.

The day I died, I saw the assassin and his weapon, coming for Fritz, long before anyone else did. How dare he, I thought. Fritz was MINE to kill. After everything I’d been through, after all my planning, how DARE he try to take that pleasure from me.

I had no intention of dying when I leapt in front of the spear, and as soon as I did it I knew how stupid I was being, saving his life just so that I could be the one to take it. 

I was about to let myself heal. As tempting as death was, my daughters were right there watching, and even a miserable life has a pull to it. And not knowing what comes afterwards is frightening. And I still had business in the world of the living.

But then, as I lay bleeding, without an atom of care or concern, without a molecule of gratitude for my having saved his life, without even lifting his worthless carcass from the throne that I’d paid for, he said:

“What are you doing. Get up.”

And I thought:

“Fuck you.”

And I didn’t.

The Founder pauses to take an unconcerned sip of tea. Ymir almost breaks into applause, but it occurs to her just in time that applauding somebody’s death, right in the middle of their recounting it, might not be entirely appropriate. She assembles one of her fake cigarettes to keep her hands occupied. When the Founder speaks again, it’s with some regret.

I should have waited. I should have followed my plan. I threw it all away and my spite ruined everything. My childish impatience to die was the original sin of our entire race. 

Dying was easy, but when I got to the Black River’s edge, I looked back. The Paths were much smaller, then. I knew I had something to do with them being the way that they were. I could feel it under my feet. I could tell from the way the sand rustled when I asked it to move. I could see the column of light at the center, and I was curious about it.

And I thought, well, why should I go into the River forever, when I’d barely lived, and when all of it had been ruined, and eaten up by Fritz? If the Paths were mine, then I had a right to stay in them until I didn’t want to anymore. To see what it was all about. The River would always be there if I changed my mind.

Thinking back on it, I don’t know how much was me, and how much was the Worm. I know the Worm felt at home in the Paths, and it wanted to stay. It shied away from the River.

I didn’t know that HE would find a way to pass worms to my daughters. I didn’t know it was possible. I thought I was the only Titan and that I’d taken the power out of the world with me. I didn’t know he would feed them my spine. I felt the Worm tunnel through me, cutting paths into their bodies, and depositing its own children. I could suddenly see through my daughter’s eyes. I knew what he’d done.

Unforgivable. I added it to my ledger.

He tasted a little bit of me himself. The stories don’t mention that. It didn’t take. Or maybe he didn’t eat enough, out of cowardice. Or maybe the Worm didn’t want him any more than I did. 

I could build my daughters’ Titans right away. In fact, the Worm compelled me to. I couldn’t help but build their Titans. Like a rabid dog, biting without wanting to, purely for the benefit of the thing that infects it. They were artless, ugly things. I’m much better at it now. You know I like building titans. The nine titans are so beautiful. I tailor them for every shifter. 

I’m sorry. I know your design was inelegant. Well below my standards. You must have wondered.

Ymir has never wondered, actually. Was she really that ugly, as the Jaw Titan? Rude. Offensive. Nobody ever said anything. Well, Connie, that one time, but nobody listens to Connie. And what was so beautiful about Bertolt and Reiner anyway? Or that hideous Cart with its alligator face and its muscled ass sticking up in the air?

I was hoping to hide the Jaw in you, to keep Marley from finding it. So I deviated from my usual aesthetic principles. Of course you had to go and give it right back to them after no time at all. But you needed to save Reiner, so I understood.

“And Bertolt!”

The Founder moves past this without any particular acknowledgement.

It may surprise you, but at the beginning I was like you. Clumsy. Incompetent. I couldn’t speak to my daughters, to tell them to pay one of his whores to slip poison into his wine or put a hairpin through his head. I couldn’t order them to shift, all three together, and crush him into dust. I couldn’t move their Titans for them. I was helpless. I’d died and trapped them there with him.

And they loved their father. Children don’t know better. They had been forced to eat one parent already. It would have been wrong to burden them with the execution of the other.

Fritz lived a repulsively long life. If I’d had had any say in it he would have died much sooner and much worse. But his life and the circumstances of his death were outside of my control. I waited. I knew that I could make things difficult for him on his way to the River.

When he stepped onto the sand he was young again, in his prime, wearing his circlet and his sword, fully formed in his own vain self-image. I had made myself beautiful for the occasion of his arrival. He saw me and smiled, and held out his hand, thinking that I’d waited for him in the afterlife like a faithful dog. 

The smile was the first part of him I peeled away. Just like skinning an apple. The hand was the second—first his fingernails, then the fingers joint-by-joint. I split his sword into shaving blades and ran them through his veins. I flayed him, and blasted his skin to weeping blisters with sand. I left his eyes for last, so he could watch himself be taken apart. It was exciting.

He was in pieces, each piece in unimaginable agony, longing for the others, scattered around the Paths, for thousands and thousands of years, tucked into a private pocket of time I made just for him. 

But I got bored with his suffering, and of rearranging him into helpless, abominable shapes, and of listening to the shreds of him wailing. When I finally let him go to the River, he wept with joy and gratitude, clinging to my skirts, for the gift of true dissolution. 

I could have done worse. But after all he was the father of my children.

Ymir has been listening so raptly, consumed by both approval and horror, that she almost coughs up a lung when she takes a pull of the forgotten fake cigarette in her hand.

“Ack! What? When did you—” She stares incredulously at the suddenly very real tobacco smoke floating around her, and runs her tongue over the acrid taste of it coating her mouth.

I didn’t. You did. While I was talking. I noticed but you seemed absorbed in the story, so I didn’t mention it.

“What? I did? How? But, no, I’ll think about it later. Tell me more!”

Another time. The Founder stands. I’m tired now.

Ymir isn’t above begging when it might benefit her, but thinks better of it. It’s a feast already. All the more reason to get in touch with Bertolt. If she doesn’t get to tell someone all about it, she’ll burst. 

She dissolves the cigarette. She forgot that the things are pretty unpleasant, actually. The fake ones are better. She frantically waves both of her hands in the air to stop the Founder from leaving.

“Wait! Don’t go yet! Did you watch Bertolt and Armin?”

The Founder is canny enough to know she’s being waylaid and coaxed into gossip, but she’s also tempted by the opportunity to discuss her favorite entertainment. She gives in and sits back down.

Yes. I liked the screaming, but I liked the record more. I always like thinking about whales. I’ve seen them countless times from ships, and a few times while people drowned, and I’ve felt the hum of them through sand. But hearing them like that…

The Founder thinks, making sure to convey her feelings precisely.

It reminded me of Life and the River, at the same time. 

“I never knew they sang like that before I heard the record. I’m so glad Bertolt looks into these things. There are so many animals I never even knew existed.”

Yes. But too many animals died in the Rumbling. It’s my one regret.

Now the Founder does something really new and interesting. She spins up a little sand scene on the table, a moving diorama. Ribbons, attached to a circle of sand the size of a dinner plate, undulate in an invisible current, and a slow-moving creature the size of Ymir’s thumb weaves majestically between them, propelled by its large, flat tail. A tiny replica of the creature swims in happy circles around its parent. Whales.

Animals knew it was coming before humans did, they could feel the ground shaking from much farther away. As I said, I’ve always liked animals. I always had titans leave them be. You’ll be glad to know that I saved as many whales as I could, and other creatures, holding up a Wall Titan here and there to leave a path. 

“Really? I’m absolutely ecstatic to hear that! Bertolt would love to know that!”

Then succeed, so you can tell him. The Founder abruptly lets her diorama disperse.

“I’ll try my hardest,” Ymir promises, trying to project confidence where there isn’t any.

The Founder returns to important matters.

“Major Reiner Braun’s teenaged mistress.”

Ymir giggles maliciously. “I didn’t know that little titmouse had it in him. As a rule, I don’t like anyone making fun of Bertolt except for me, and sometimes Reiner. That’s alright since we always mean well. But Bertolt gave as good as he got, so I’ve decided to let myself enjoy it. And I need a distraction, otherwise I’ll wear a hole right through the bottom of this bubble, just pacing and pacing and worrying about Historia.”

I wonder what will happen next. They’re in the bath, right now.

“Yuck. That’s why the curtains are closed. But next time something interesting happens, you should come here. We could watch them through the window, together?” 

The Founder is terrifying, but she’s company, and Ymir been starved to death for company. Even company that might dissolve her is better than no company at all. And when the Founder visits she makes apples and cakes. Maybe she could be convinced to whip up something with buttercream. And maybe the Founder has been a little bit starved for company, too?

The Founder’s little girl mask of a face doesn’t shift, but…

Alright.