Eren makes himself look up enough to watch Reiner process it. He has to. He owes Reiner that much. Even if he doesn't know how to break the fall as he watches it come in real time, he has to be here.
He would have never told Reiner outright unless he had no choice. Why would you ever tell someone who loves you that you will die, and there is no other way? He will never tell Mikasa in their own time, either. He can't do it. He will lie, and hurt, and push everyone as far away as he knows how, but he will never say it out loud.
What do you want to be? Reiner asks.
Alive, Eren says. The weight of that has always been so heavy. It's one of the truest things he has ever said.
He can't stand the gulf between them so he crosses it, the scant distance between them here in the house, the proverbial infinite leagues between them that still exist. He loves Reiner so fiercely that he doesn't want to hurt him. He loves Reiner so fiercely that he hurts him more than anyone who isn't Mikasa.
If Reiner lets him, he will do as he always does, find Reiner's hands and lace their fingers together, an anchor point for both of them.
"I've been a dead man since the day we met," he says, still soft. "I didn't know it then."
But wasn't it always true? If he had done nothing, on the off chance that Marley didn't kill all of them, wouldn't he still be a dead man? The titan curse would have killed him, or someone would have eaten him.
"We both have," he says, "but I want you to live. If there are no more titans…"
He doesn't have to finish that thought. Without titans, Reiner doesn't have to die. Eren only knows that Reiner lives from context clues. No one has acted like Reiner is here and shouldn't be. Annie surely would have clued him in if Reiner was dead at the end.
Hange died, Levi had told him once. Eren hadn't been ready. He would never be ready to hear it was Reiner, even before they became always. He refused to kill Reiner in the basement in Liberio and he refuses to allow Reiner's death, not here and not there and not anywhere.
This, as ever, is the cost of Eren's love. The cost has always been everything. There is no in between.
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He would have never told Reiner outright unless he had no choice. Why would you ever tell someone who loves you that you will die, and there is no other way? He will never tell Mikasa in their own time, either. He can't do it. He will lie, and hurt, and push everyone as far away as he knows how, but he will never say it out loud.
What do you want to be? Reiner asks.
Alive, Eren says. The weight of that has always been so heavy. It's one of the truest things he has ever said.
He can't stand the gulf between them so he crosses it, the scant distance between them here in the house, the proverbial infinite leagues between them that still exist. He loves Reiner so fiercely that he doesn't want to hurt him. He loves Reiner so fiercely that he hurts him more than anyone who isn't Mikasa.
If Reiner lets him, he will do as he always does, find Reiner's hands and lace their fingers together, an anchor point for both of them.
"I've been a dead man since the day we met," he says, still soft. "I didn't know it then."
But wasn't it always true? If he had done nothing, on the off chance that Marley didn't kill all of them, wouldn't he still be a dead man? The titan curse would have killed him, or someone would have eaten him.
"We both have," he says, "but I want you to live. If there are no more titans…"
He doesn't have to finish that thought. Without titans, Reiner doesn't have to die. Eren only knows that Reiner lives from context clues. No one has acted like Reiner is here and shouldn't be. Annie surely would have clued him in if Reiner was dead at the end.
Hange died, Levi had told him once. Eren hadn't been ready. He would never be ready to hear it was Reiner, even before they became always. He refused to kill Reiner in the basement in Liberio and he refuses to allow Reiner's death, not here and not there and not anywhere.
This, as ever, is the cost of Eren's love. The cost has always been everything. There is no in between.
"But we're not dead yet."
We can be something else.