Eren got the same photograph. Why he hasn't brought it up with Reiner is hard for him to pin down. Reiner was looking for wrinkles in the mirror half a year ago, for one. For two, it still seems so impossible. Even if the titan curse doesn't kill them, which he supposes they'll find out in a year if it really does not exist, then something else probably will.
Or one or both of them will disappear from this world, and then what? Then the world comes rumbling down and there is no happy ending. Then Eren's unforgivable, inevitable future will happen. Will they still love each other? Do they get to remember this? He tries not to think about it. But he has the framed picture sitting facedown on his dresser. Someday soon he'll stand it upright permanently.
He sits on the edge of the bed and watches Reiner's hand move over the rope. His face is passive but his gaze is focused, intense in a way it wasn't when they first crashed into each other in this world. He's not always totally present, and maybe never will be, but he manages more often now.
There's something distracted about Reiner's movements, his expression. Eren is about to make some dig about it when Reiner speaks.
Surprise bursts onto Eren's face. Keep what? Not the rope, literally, he's not so obtuse as to think that. Eren staring at him? This world? Some other thread of thought that Eren hasn't followed?
"…which part?" he asks, as close to careful as he ever bothers to be.
Simple as it is, that question ties Reiner's tongue into knots. Because there isn't just one part of it that he wants. He can't divide it into sections, parcel out what he can and cannot stand to lose.
Once, Reiner may have been able to do just that. He carved his heart into pieces back home; he was ready to do the same thing here, if push came to shove. How many months did he spend preparing for war? How much energy did he expend trying to prevent it?
Now, he looks into Eren's wide eyes—a torrent of green that thunders over him, envelops him, draws him in—and he imagines crows feet at their edges. He imagines lines and wrinkles. For the first time in years, Reiner imagines growing old.
"Everything," he answers, the word thick, packed with a thousand meanings.
The rope dangles from one hand as Reiner takes a half-step closer, moving into Eren's space. Drawn closer as he speaks, the words rising one after another.
"We've been stealing time. But I don't want to steal it anymore, Eren. I want it to be ours. Yours and mine."
His free hand rises, aiming to brush through Eren's hair. Imagining those dark strands specked with gray.
Eren watches Reiner, the way he doesn't immediately speak. Whatever he's saying must mean more than just a few words, though Eren already knows that the idea that either of them can keep anything is delusional. No one gets to keep anything, not really.
They can dream, though, can't they? Can Eren remember how to do that much?
He still doesn't imagine growing old. He doesn't know how. He was always going to die young, before he even existed, all of it stretched out to the end of the world. He doesn't like to — often cannot — give voice to that. But there has never been any thought in Eren's head of what it would be like to be old.
In some part of his mind he is lying in a bed with Reiner, Reiner asking him what he wants to be.
Alive, he had said then. It's still true.
He still doesn't picture growing old, despite how he has stared at the photograph of something that still feels impossible. Eren will always exist in too many times and places at once. It's too late to untwist all of that.
But he'd also said they could be something else, over and over, thought it like a mantra, spoken it like a promise. Isn't that what they are now? Something else?
Alive.
His hands come and rest on Reiner's waist. He leans into the hand in his hair just slightly, smooth strands slipping through Reiner's fingers.
"For how long?" he asks, though he doesn't care about the answer. He just wants to hear it anyway.
For how long, Eren asks, and the answer is so easy. So simple. So impossible. Reiner knows better than to give it voice. He can feel its fragility on his tongue, the dreams it encapsulates no more than smoke on the wind.
He wants them to be solid. He wants them to be real. But how can that possibly be?
How can it be, when Reiner is stumbling toward twenty years? How can it be, when Eren is two years older? Two years closer to their date of death?
How can it be, when Reiner is faced with the very real possibility of outliving his Eren?
Reiner holds Eren's gaze, his fingers gently combing through Eren's long hair. Savoring that silky smoothness, the too-warm hands at his waist, the eyes locked on his.
"Always," he speaks at last, voice so filled with longing that the word almost breaks. Almost, but not quite. Just as Reiner almost but not quite manages a convincing smile, his expression too fragile as he adds, "Years."
Years. Plural. Something that Eren may no longer have. Something Reiner needs him to have.
He exhales a breath, that smile growing a little steadier as he gives voice to dreams. "I wanna see what you look like when you're old," he says. "I wanna see if you get white streaks, or if you go gray all over."
Words that dance around what he truly means: I want to grow old with you.
Eren figures that Reiner will always outlive him. Eren has been fated to die since before any of them ever knew it — not from the curse of the titans, but from his own. There was never a future, never a chance.
He's not entirely sure if Reiner lives through the Rumbling. He'd been shocked to find that Hange didn't. Who else doesn't? He's never asked Levi, not wanting those answers. He'll have them one day, when this reprieve ends and they inevitably go back.
Though he wants to think that it's not inevitable now. He's lasted more than two years past his expiration date. He'd never have seen 20 before.
Somewhere in his ongoing memory, Reiner asked, "What happened?" and he answers, "I turned 20." That had been such an answer in and of itself, though at the time, Reiner hadn't been aware Eren would die at 19.
Here in the present, their stolen time, Reiner says always. That's a word Eren has never dared to think, not since he was too young to know the horrors of the world. Always is a pipe dream, something impossible. People like them could never have that.
Could they?
One side of his mouth turns up, but a smile and not a smirk. It isn't a full smile, but it's the closest he's managed since the day he left his friends behind in Marley. That was lifetimes ago.
"Okay," he says. "Let's do it. Let's see who gets grey hair first."
Reiner watches, awestruck, as Eren's lips curve up. As he sees not the smirk that drives him crazy, but a half-smile he hasn't witnessed in years. Not since he arrived in Ellipsa to find Eren so much older. Not since he betrayed Eren in their world, leaving all those friends behind.
It's beautiful. Precious. Like a rare flower blooming on an ocean cliff: hard-won and hard to protect.
But Reiner wants to protect it. Wants to see it again and again and again. Wants to grow old with it on Eren's lips.
His throat tightens, emotion overwhelming him as Eren says, Okay. That simple word, a simple acceptance. And it hits him—really hits him—that Eren wants this, too.
Maybe it's impossible. Maybe the curse will claim them whether they will it or not. But with both of them aimed at the same goal, Reiner thinks they have a chance.
"Okay," he repeats, the smile that blooms on his lips full and bright. He leans down then, aiming to press a kiss to Eren's lips. To feel that half-smile against his and swallow it whole.
Eren might not allow himself to dream of forever just yet. He has the photographs, though, the possibility of a future where they can just be what they choose. Is that, at last, his cherished freedom? Maybe. Eren's freedom is destructive and punishing, like so many things about him.
This doesn't have to be. It's a heady sort of realisation, that they can just choose.
Ellipsa is its own sort of cage, the darkness outside threatening. Eren will still go to any lengths to save what they have here. There is nothing he would not do to hold on to this. It's just that this now includes Reiner, as close as possible for as long as possible.
He's right there to catch Reiner's kiss in return, arms winding around him without thought. Will they really still have this a year from now?
He decides that they will. Against all odds, they will do this because they said they would. It's that easy for this moment in Eren's mind.
"I'll still love you with wrinkles," he says against Reiner's mouth — a throwback to last year, Reiner's anxiety about his face in the mirror.
Back in their world, Reiner and Eren never really had a chance to work together. Not beyond their time as cadets, helping each other through their training. They were always in opposition: the immovable object versus the unstoppable force, destined to clash again and again and again.
Here, they have worked together. It's because of their decision to not fight that a truce was reached. It's because they chose to steal time that peace has reigned between those from Paradis and those from Marley.
Now here they are, deciding on something again. Deciding they will have their forever.
United, who is to say they can't have exactly that?
Reiner laughs against Eren's lips, deep and joyful. "And I'll still love you," he promises. "No matter what."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dreamsofwings) wrote2021-07-13 03:17 am
no subject
Or one or both of them will disappear from this world, and then what? Then the world comes rumbling down and there is no happy ending. Then Eren's unforgivable, inevitable future will happen. Will they still love each other? Do they get to remember this? He tries not to think about it. But he has the framed picture sitting facedown on his dresser. Someday soon he'll stand it upright permanently.
He sits on the edge of the bed and watches Reiner's hand move over the rope. His face is passive but his gaze is focused, intense in a way it wasn't when they first crashed into each other in this world. He's not always totally present, and maybe never will be, but he manages more often now.
There's something distracted about Reiner's movements, his expression. Eren is about to make some dig about it when Reiner speaks.
Surprise bursts onto Eren's face. Keep what? Not the rope, literally, he's not so obtuse as to think that. Eren staring at him? This world? Some other thread of thought that Eren hasn't followed?
"…which part?" he asks, as close to careful as he ever bothers to be.
no subject
Once, Reiner may have been able to do just that. He carved his heart into pieces back home; he was ready to do the same thing here, if push came to shove. How many months did he spend preparing for war? How much energy did he expend trying to prevent it?
Now, he looks into Eren's wide eyes—a torrent of green that thunders over him, envelops him, draws him in—and he imagines crows feet at their edges. He imagines lines and wrinkles. For the first time in years, Reiner imagines growing old.
"Everything," he answers, the word thick, packed with a thousand meanings.
The rope dangles from one hand as Reiner takes a half-step closer, moving into Eren's space. Drawn closer as he speaks, the words rising one after another.
"We've been stealing time. But I don't want to steal it anymore, Eren. I want it to be ours. Yours and mine."
His free hand rises, aiming to brush through Eren's hair. Imagining those dark strands specked with gray.
no subject
They can dream, though, can't they? Can Eren remember how to do that much?
He still doesn't imagine growing old. He doesn't know how. He was always going to die young, before he even existed, all of it stretched out to the end of the world. He doesn't like to — often cannot — give voice to that. But there has never been any thought in Eren's head of what it would be like to be old.
In some part of his mind he is lying in a bed with Reiner, Reiner asking him what he wants to be.
Alive, he had said then. It's still true.
He still doesn't picture growing old, despite how he has stared at the photograph of something that still feels impossible. Eren will always exist in too many times and places at once. It's too late to untwist all of that.
But he'd also said they could be something else, over and over, thought it like a mantra, spoken it like a promise. Isn't that what they are now? Something else?
Alive.
His hands come and rest on Reiner's waist. He leans into the hand in his hair just slightly, smooth strands slipping through Reiner's fingers.
"For how long?" he asks, though he doesn't care about the answer. He just wants to hear it anyway.
no subject
He wants them to be solid. He wants them to be real. But how can that possibly be?
How can it be, when Reiner is stumbling toward twenty years? How can it be, when Eren is two years older? Two years closer to their date of death?
How can it be, when Reiner is faced with the very real possibility of outliving his Eren?
Reiner holds Eren's gaze, his fingers gently combing through Eren's long hair. Savoring that silky smoothness, the too-warm hands at his waist, the eyes locked on his.
"Always," he speaks at last, voice so filled with longing that the word almost breaks. Almost, but not quite. Just as Reiner almost but not quite manages a convincing smile, his expression too fragile as he adds, "Years."
Years. Plural. Something that Eren may no longer have. Something Reiner needs him to have.
He exhales a breath, that smile growing a little steadier as he gives voice to dreams. "I wanna see what you look like when you're old," he says. "I wanna see if you get white streaks, or if you go gray all over."
Words that dance around what he truly means: I want to grow old with you.
crying into my tea about them
He's not entirely sure if Reiner lives through the Rumbling. He'd been shocked to find that Hange didn't. Who else doesn't? He's never asked Levi, not wanting those answers. He'll have them one day, when this reprieve ends and they inevitably go back.
Though he wants to think that it's not inevitable now. He's lasted more than two years past his expiration date. He'd never have seen 20 before.
Somewhere in his ongoing memory, Reiner asked, "What happened?" and he answers, "I turned 20." That had been such an answer in and of itself, though at the time, Reiner hadn't been aware Eren would die at 19.
Here in the present, their stolen time, Reiner says always. That's a word Eren has never dared to think, not since he was too young to know the horrors of the world. Always is a pipe dream, something impossible. People like them could never have that.
Could they?
One side of his mouth turns up, but a smile and not a smirk. It isn't a full smile, but it's the closest he's managed since the day he left his friends behind in Marley. That was lifetimes ago.
"Okay," he says. "Let's do it. Let's see who gets grey hair first."
;w; !!!!
It's beautiful. Precious. Like a rare flower blooming on an ocean cliff: hard-won and hard to protect.
But Reiner wants to protect it. Wants to see it again and again and again. Wants to grow old with it on Eren's lips.
His throat tightens, emotion overwhelming him as Eren says, Okay. That simple word, a simple acceptance. And it hits him—really hits him—that Eren wants this, too.
Maybe it's impossible. Maybe the curse will claim them whether they will it or not. But with both of them aimed at the same goal, Reiner thinks they have a chance.
"Okay," he repeats, the smile that blooms on his lips full and bright. He leans down then, aiming to press a kiss to Eren's lips. To feel that half-smile against his and swallow it whole.
no subject
This doesn't have to be. It's a heady sort of realisation, that they can just choose.
Ellipsa is its own sort of cage, the darkness outside threatening. Eren will still go to any lengths to save what they have here. There is nothing he would not do to hold on to this. It's just that this now includes Reiner, as close as possible for as long as possible.
He's right there to catch Reiner's kiss in return, arms winding around him without thought. Will they really still have this a year from now?
He decides that they will. Against all odds, they will do this because they said they would. It's that easy for this moment in Eren's mind.
"I'll still love you with wrinkles," he says against Reiner's mouth — a throwback to last year, Reiner's anxiety about his face in the mirror.
no subject
Here, they have worked together. It's because of their decision to not fight that a truce was reached. It's because they chose to steal time that peace has reigned between those from Paradis and those from Marley.
Now here they are, deciding on something again. Deciding they will have their forever.
United, who is to say they can't have exactly that?
Reiner laughs against Eren's lips, deep and joyful. "And I'll still love you," he promises. "No matter what."