A light rain is falling over Amberfall when Reiner returns home in the evening. It's been a long, emotionally charged day. He didn't expect to see Annie again. He certainly didn't expect even a fraction of what she revealed to him. Now, with a bit of distance between him and all that she told him, it's starting to sink in.
Falco and the Jaw. Porco's death. His mother's survival. Getting people out of Liberio. A final fight. The end of Titans. Building a better future.
'Stopping' Eren. Eren lying.
He finds Eren in the house they share. Stands there for a long moment, just watching him: a beautiful storm in the form of a boy. How much of what Eren didn't tell him was intentional? How much was because of how Eren experiences reality?
He remembers how betrayed he felt after Armin told him about Bertholdt. Betrayed by Armin, yes, but also by Eren for not telling him. He remembers how he wondered if Eren had done so to hurt him. If it had all been part of some elaborate revenge.
Reiner doesn't feel betrayed this time. He knows better. Knows that Eren wants what they have, always. Knows that Eren only kept Bertholdt's death from him because he didn't want to hurt Reiner even worse.
Did he do the same thing this time…? How much hasn't Eren shared?
Maybe Reiner is watching Eren unobserved. Maybe Eren is staring back. Either way, Reiner folds his arms. Speaks into the silence.
Eren wasn't really expecting to have any more of an emotional time in Solarpeak than he ever does. But it's hard to tell with Eren's mercurial moods what that even means. He has long since stopped (being able to keep) burying his emotions. That doesn't mean he's got them regulated. He never has in his life.
He's home before Reiner is. He's aware that Annie talked to him, but he has no way of knowing what all she told him. Naively, he doesn't really think about it.
He's in the kitchen when Reiner comes in, putting dishes away. It often takes him forever to do it. Without Levi literally kicking him in the ass about it, sometimes it's too easy to get lost doing mundane chores. He's like this in the shower, too, time stretching out endlessly and suddenly the water is cold. He's about half checked in when he notices Reiner there. He can feel Reiner's gaze boring into him. He wonders for a moment about that feeling, but Reiner speaks, and he almost gets it.
"Did she?" he asks, turning away from the last few dishes left in the sink (what even is a dishwasher? he doesn't know) and drying his hands on a towel. He tilts his head a little, trying to discern whatever it is he sees on Reiner's face.
Crap, what did she tell him? Eren speed runs through things he knows he told Reiner, but there were always holes. There are holes in Eren's own memory — something he is only aware of because he will tell Armin at the end of the world. As to what those things are, he can't know what he doesn't know. Hange's death, sure, but what else is there now?
"She told me to do right by you," he says, which is not exactly what she said, but it's close enough to true.
He leans on his hands back against the counter, the almost casual posture as much a lie as anything about him.
It's unfair how gorgeous Eren is even when he's doing nothing but standing in the kitchen doing dishes. Unfair how Reiner's heart clenches when Eren turns to face him. Unfair how he immediately wants to get closer, put his hands on the counter as well, lean in with Eren between his arms. But Reiner knows that if he doesn't keep a physical distance, there's no way he's going to be able to keep himself calm emotionally.
(As if that were possible.)
He raises his eyebrows at Eren's words. Annie told Eren to do right by him? That's … unexpected. Touching. He didn't expect Annie to care that much. As far as he knows, she's the only person to say such a thing to Eren.
It's distracting, is what it is.
Reiner's brows lower again, a furrow forming between them. Forcing himself to concentrate on the issue at hand, not on the way he immediately wants to ask more about Eren's conversation with Annie. (Even though he's desperately curious. How did it go? Are they getting along all right? Have they at least agreed not to be hostile?)
"She told me a lot of stuff," Reiner says. "She wanted to tell me more. But I told her I wanted to hear about the future from you."
Eren is eternally unaware of the fact that he's pretty, but he knows Reiner thinks so. It started mattering to him at some point, but he still doesn't really try. He uses conditioner, isn't that enough? He kept his nails painted after the last stint on the airship. 5/10 for effort.
Reiner doesn't come over to him, reach for him. That puts him on edge a little. He's used to the easy intimacy they have after all this time, the way they gravitate into each other. A year ago, he would have imagined Reiner would hear more about the future and be done with him, at last, like he really should be after everything.
Not now, though. Now, even if Reiner is upset, they have always. Neither of them is the type to break a promise so easily.
He lets himself drift a little, trying to pin it down. What hasn't he told Reiner? Plenty, probably. He's not even entirely sure what he has told him, when, in what order.
"What do you want me to say?" he asks, still half-distracted by the layers of time and memory that exist within him. "There are probably things I haven't said. It's not like I told anyone every tiny thing."
He's being obtuse on purpose, at least a little. If it was some tiny thing, Reiner wouldn't be upset.
"Is this about Liberio?"
It's the easiest thing to think of. Reiner knows what happens to Liberio the first time. There's a lot of damage, but the town still stands.
At the end of the world, there is nothing left of Liberio. There's nothing left of most places; even the island doesn't escape the damage of Eren's apocalypse, though of course it fares the best. He didn't want to have to crush a bunch of their own city. He just knows it happens quickly, even if the exact circumstances lie forever beyond his memory without Zeke.
"What good would telling you do? You knew what I meant to do when I showed you the Rumbling," he says. Eren is so rarely sorry for anything. There are selfish reasons he didn't show Reiner, sure. But he really hadn't been trying to hurt more than it had to. That's why he kept Bertholdt's death from Reiner, after all. That's why he kept Liberio specifically away.
It doesn't even occur to him to talk about Porco. That had been carelessness more than anything else. He might not even realise that Reiner doesn't already know.
Eren drifts, and Reiner waits, his folded arms helping to hold him back. Because not letting himself be pulled forward, not letting himself fall into Eren's embrace, Eren's eyes, Eren's lips, is more difficult than he can say. When is the last time he held himself back after returning home? He can't recall. Even when Eren is busy with something when Reiner arrives home, he always goes to Eren's side, always gives a kiss at the very least.
But he has to stay focused. He can't let himself tumble into Eren, even if he wants to. Even if the fact that Porco is dead makes him want to hang on and never, ever let go.
What do you want me to say?
Those very first words dig under Reiner's skin. He squeezes his folded arms. Makes himself remain silent, not interrupting as Eren speaks. That becomes exponentially harder when Eren says, Is this about Liberio?
Reiner swallows, visions swimming before his eyes. That basement. Begging for death. Destruction unleashed.
"The good it would do," he starts slowly, "is keep me from getting blindsided when people show up and tell me things. What is it about Liberio, Eren? Is it the evacuation? Is it a 'final fight'? Is it that Falco has the Jaw? Is it Porco—"
His voice breaks. He pulls in air. Pushes forward.
"Annie doesn't have her Titan here, Eren. Why is she saying that's something you wanted? Why is she saying you lie? Why," his voice trembles, "is she talking about stopping you?"
For a second, there is no air in the room. It's a lot, even for Eren. The end of the world was always going to come. He was always going to cause it. There has never been another ending. There will never be another chance. He knows this now as surely as he has known it for years, since he was fifteen, all his life.
It's harder to face the inevitable now, when he has sidestepped it. This always might be temporary, and they both know it. That will never stop them from holding it as long as they can.
"I don't know how titans end," Eren says, slowly, zeroing in on that. "I didn't know if that would ever happen."
There's no point in lying about it. Eren may not ever be capable of telling the entire truth, but he doesn't want to lie to Reiner of all people. He has always envisioned a world without titans, but he could never see beyond the last gate. Even if he had every single insane memory restored, that would forever be closed to him. Since there is no other Attack Titan after him, he could never see beyond his own death.
"How do you think the Rumbling ends?" he asks, softly, dropping his gaze to the floor without seeing it. Instead, he sees the water meters and meters below, churning and hot and full of blood. He sees bones — the bones of the Final Titan, the bones of the dead, the blood on his hands that will never wash away. He doesn't want it to. He doesn't want to forget or claim that he is better than he is.
We can be something else, he said once. Every day they are here, he longs for that to be the truth. But he's still Eren.
For the first time, he considers that Reiner — or Hijikata, or anyone who knows only some of the future — thought they could all make it out. There was never a future for Eren, whether because of the titan curse or death at the hands of his enemies or his own machinations. That truth was one of the hardest to swallow when he first learned it. How could the world exist without him? How could he fail to see what he wrought in the end?
He couldn't live if he wanted them to. How he hates that.
"I don't remember what happens to Porco," he says, which is almost an apology. "I knew Falco had the Jaw eventually, but what happens to Porco, it's…" His eyebrows knit together. "There are things I don't know, too."
He has never told anyone other than Armin the true power of the Attack Titan. Or…if he has, if he does, it is only in those other conversations that he doesn't yet remember having. Some things, he wants to die with. Some things are just too much for anyone else to have to bear.
Eren looks down, looks away, breaks the eye contact that is so crucial to Reiner holding his ground. He speaks softly, words unfolding one after the next from those lips that have brought Reiner so much pleasure, so much pain.
Right now, it's entirely pain.
How do you think the Rumbling ends?
Eren talks about not knowing how Titans end. Talks about not knowing what happened to Porco. Talks without actually saying what he does know. What that question burns into Reiner's mind, chewing up everything Reiner thought he knew and spitting it out. One assumption, one wish, one dream after another.
He thought they all made it out. He thought only the masses would die, and only until Eren was…
Stopped.
How else would Eren be stopped?
How do you think the Rumbling ends?
His body is cold with shock, the blood having drained from his face, leaving him pale and dizzy. Instinctively, he grabs onto the countertop as he starts to sway. Feels his hand smack against it awkwardly, leaving what would be a bruise on the back if Reiner let it form.
Maybe he will. Maybe he should. Maybe then, he could look at it and know that something about this is real.
How do you think the Rumbling ends?
He thought they would be forever. In whatever world they ended up, he thought they would be together until the bitter end. He thought it would be his own end, not…
How do you think the Rumbling ends?
"Wait," he whispers as he stares at Eren, too far away. Too far. "Wait, that's… No. No, you can't…"
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.
Rejecting this reality is all Reiner wants to do. Reject it, shove it away, force it down somewhere that he doesn't have to see it, feel it, know it. He's done that before. Cracked himself in two so he could avoid the truth of what he'd done. Twisted Marco's murder into a tragedy, then took vengeance on the Titan who killed him instead of himself for causing it.
He's perilously close to breaking again. Close to coming apart at the seams. Close to hurling his mind into the fire and burning away all the pain, the grief, the unbearable knowledge of what faces him now.
Eren dies.
He can't do this. He can't. He—
Eren takes his hand, lacing their fingers together. Catching Reiner right before he steps off that ledge and hurls his mind into the abyss. Because rejecting Eren is one thing Reiner can never, ever do. Not on a sunlit field; not in the rain; not on the beach; not in a darkened bedroom. Eren will always hold Reiner's heart in his palm.
Always.
That's how it's supposed to be. Always. He can't imagine the feeling of the hands he holds going cold. Can't imagine what it would be like to gaze into those whirlwind eyes and find them still, dull, lifeless.
He can't. He can't…
Does Eren see the panic in Reiner's eyes as his mind starts to crack, then pulls together? A crack, a hasty mend, another crack, another mend. Eren's grip holds Reiner in a reality he can't bear. And he listens, the unbearable words slicing deeper, carving still more wounds.
If there are no more titans…
… Then Reiner will live. Armin will live. Annie, Pieck, Falco—they will all live. Eldians will no longer be at risk of transformation. The world will be different. They'll build toward a brighter future, as Annie said.
But Eren won't be there. Because Eren will be dead.
But we're not dead yet.
Hot tears spill down Reiner's cheeks. He pulls one hand from Eren's, but only to wrap his love in a crushing hug. As if by holding on tightly enough, he might keep Eren here. Breathing. Alive.
Eren knows how Reiner works, the ways he fractures himself into pieces to avoid the truth of the world. Eren doesn't do that, but he did keep his own memories from himself. Technically he's still doing that, or has done it, hasn't unlocked that door and probably never will. It wouldn't matter now either way.
He watches because he knows he must. He never wanted to do this. It's selfish, the way he refuses to talk about this. He does not want to watch people he loves mourn him. He can't stand it. All he wants is to be with them, where he does not deserve to be. Could he live with the weight of all of it, the end of the world? He has, in a way, lived with it for years.
In another way, he will never face what comes after. It's selfishness but it's also the only way. After what he has done, the world would demand his death. Eren takes it on his own terms, forcing everyone into positions they shouldn't have to be in. There are only losers in this game, Eren included.
Reiner panics and Eren hangs on and time stretches endlessly around them. He doesn't want to see Reiner cry. He never wants anyone to cry for him.
He does, though. He wants them to remember him, with fury or despair or hatred. He forgets, too often, that they will remember him with love, too. He doesn't dare to hope for that.
Stealing time, he had once said. Now Reiner knows the truth of that, too. There will never be an always, or a future, or a them. If they go home, then there is only heartbreak and tragedy, Eren's anguish radiating out into the world that he leaves behind. Even as a dead man, the shadow he leaves behind is as big as the Final Titan.
He doesn't want that future, or lack of it, but he can't stop or reject it. All he can do is this, choose to be here as long as it is his choice to make.
The two of them, alive, together. Always.
He lets Reiner pull him closer and his free arm finds its way around Reiner in return, hand clenching in fabric as tight as he can. He will do anything imaginable to keep this. He's sure Reiner knows. He's said that enough, to Reiner, to Hijikata, to Jean, Annie, Levi. He will say it again and he will mean it. There is no price he will not extract if it means they get to have lives in this world.
This, still, is the price of Eren's love.
But we're not dead yet.
If they were, nothing could hurt this badly.
"I love you," he says. "How could I ever tell you?"
The way that Eren experiences time is something that Reiner can never understand. Not truly. He saw glimpses of it in the Paths, saw the disjointed series of events that passed for linear time. Everything, all at once. That Eren can hold himself in the present at all is a testament to Eren's unbelievably stubborn will, his strength of mind, his determination to keep moving forward.
Right now, Reiner gets the barest taste of that reality. He holds Eren tight against him, and he remembers every time he has done so before. The chaste moments when they were Cadets. The violent moments when they were enemies. The passionate moments when they became lovers. He remembers every night they have lain side-by-side, wrapped around each other like two halves of a whole, their jagged edges aligning. He remembers it all.
And he remembers all the times Eren has gazed into space with a haunted look in his eyes, seeing a world beyond this one. He remembers every time those eyes have turned to him instead, and something within them has settled. A modicum of peace. Of happiness.
He remembers every time Eren has looked at him with love.
Eren says the words that Reiner once thought he would never hear. And Reiner understands. Of course he understands. How could he not? They're the same, after all. If their positions were reversed, Reiner would do all he could to keep Eren from learning the truth. Would do everything in his power to protect Eren from the knowledge that their time was limited.
But he never expected Eren to do the same. Never expected Eren to guard him from something like this.
Reiner clings tighter, a shuddering sob wracking his body, his mind straining to hang on. What keeps him here is Eren pressed against him, one hand still holding Eren's, their fingers still entwined. What keeps him here is the fact that they are here, not there.
But fuck, what will happen if they wind up there again…?
Reiner has considered it before. He imagined he would retain his memories somehow. Imagined that he and Eren would reestablish what they've built here, love somehow finding a way. Romantic, foolish notions, but a comfort to Reiner when anxieties would creep in.
Now, he knows better. Now he knows that there will never be a them in their world. There will only be Reiner. Reiner, alone, with all the men he's ever loved dead and gone.
"No," he finds himself muttering, unsure when he started. "No, no, no, no, no."
Rejecting it. Unable to reject it. Unable to do anything but cling.
Eren dies.
Eren cannot die.
"We have to stay here," he gets out, his voice choked with tears. "You can't go back. We have to stay here."
Even though technically these Ellipsa memories never existed, isn't this still the Attack Titan's future? A future that will never come, maybe, but there are others that seem like that sometimes, branching timelines that he can never explain. Everything ends. Everything ends the same way.
But he can see those memories, too. Freezing from the inside out, trying to be subtle in the apartment kitchen and completely failing. The nightmares. The second time on the airship. The first. Watching Reiner play video games in the mall. A realisation that he should tell Reiner he loves him before it is too late. Reiner beating him to it. Smile lines in a photograph that shouldn't exist.
Eren has always held — will always hold — a weapon that can wound more deeply than any other. Reiner has given him that time and time again, knowing better, perhaps not always knowing what Eren would choose to do with it. But this final, terrible knowledge, he would have kept secret forever. Maybe it would have been better if he hadn't, just so no one else blindsided Reiner with it. But Eren really hoped they wouldn't ever have to do this.
Who can hold the weight of the end of the world?
Who can hold the weight of loving the one that ended it?
Who can ever hold death, even when they're used to causing it?
"I know," he says. He presses his face into Reiner's shirt and breathes him in, a scent as familiar to him as his own, something dark and crisp like autumn leaves, the ozone tang of titans, some other unnameable thing that is just Reiner. He never wants to give this up.
"I'll do anything," he says, again, like he always does. "I will do anything to let us stay here."
Eren's wrath, his anguish, his love, is almost infinite. His capacity to care about a few people could bring the whole world crashing down. His capacity to hate could do the same.
"I knew what it meant when we said we would get older," he says.
Once, a million years ago when Reiner first arrived here, when Reiner asked him what happened, he said I turned twenty like it should mean something. It had, but only in Eren's oblique way of saying things. He shouldn't have made it that far and always knew that. Now he counts down the days to the end of his titan clock and hopes that Ellipsa really will spare him, as it has just by bringing him here.
"You said always, like it's something people like us get to have," he says. "I thought…I never wanted anything more."
It's not the first time Eren has said such a thing. But it's the first time Reiner truly understands it. Eren will do anything to let them stay there because there is no other option. If they leave, it's to return to a world of inevitable destruction, a future where Eren dies and Reiner is left alone.
And that can't happen. It can't.
Another shuddering sob rips through him, his ribcage feeling like it's going to break in two from the pain in his heart. He tries to breathe. He feels like he's drowning, like he's suffocating, like the weight of everything is crushing him into nothing. Eren's arms around him are all that hold him together. Eren's face presses against his shirt, breathing him in. Reiner does the same, burying his face in the crook of Eren's neck.
His neck. His perfect, vulnerable, achingly beautiful neck.
Reiner doesn't ask how it happens. Doesn't want to know. But he knows anyway. There's only one surefire way to kill a Titan shifter.
A hand slides up Eren's back, pressing protectively over Eren's nape. As if Reiner's hand might make the difference between life and death.
I never wanted anything more.
Right now, Eren could ask for Reiner's still-beating heart, and Reiner would carve it from his chest. He could ask for the world, and Reiner would find a way to deliver it.
That's what Reiner's love is. Eren's destroys the world; Reiner's destroys himself.
"Eren," Reiner says, the name packed with all the love he feels, all the anguish, all the desperation. "We'll say here. Okay? We'll stay. We'll…" A shuddering breath. "… We'll grow old and gray. We'll always have each other. Always."
Eren can feel his own clawing panic, something almost foreign to him now, working its way through him and settling under his ribcage. It's irrational. They're as safe as they can be here, in their house, in each other's arms, in another world. Will there be another after this? There was Folkmore before. Eren doesn't know, but he would never bank on that.
Even if there was, what if another world didn't stop the titan curse? Then he'd be dead in a year and they're in the same situation.
This stolen time is all they will ever have, and it means everything to Eren. So he will do anything to keep it. Like most things, this is very black and white in his head.
Reiner's hand slides over his nape, the only real weak point he has anymore. There's always something intimate about it. There's always a threat of danger (they both know the threat is just Eren).
He nods against Reiner's shoulder, trying not to choke on his words. Alive. Always. Here. Stay.
"Stay," he manages. "That's what we said. Always, Reiner. We can fight for that."
Fighting is what they're good at, after all. And part of Eren truly believes that together, nothing and no one could really stand against them. If Reiner had been on his side back home…
But that way lies madness, and Eren has enough of that already.
When he pulls his face away from Reiner's shirt to look up at him, his cheeks are wet. He hardly realises it himself. When was the last time he cried? He no longer knows. He used to cry at loss, at pain, at fury. The end of their world, though it is his doing, brings out all three of those things in him.
He is not sorry for the world.
But he might be sorry for Reiner, for the things he has taken and will take from him, his home, and Bertholdt, and himself. This is a consequence he has never considered or had to face.
He lifts a hand and uses a thumb to wipe away some of Reiner's tears. It's a fruitless effort at the moment, but it's the thought that counts.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dreamsofwings) wrote2021-07-13 03:17 am
action; after annie's arrival
Falco and the Jaw. Porco's death. His mother's survival. Getting people out of Liberio. A final fight. The end of Titans. Building a better future.
'Stopping' Eren. Eren lying.
He finds Eren in the house they share. Stands there for a long moment, just watching him: a beautiful storm in the form of a boy. How much of what Eren didn't tell him was intentional? How much was because of how Eren experiences reality?
He remembers how betrayed he felt after Armin told him about Bertholdt. Betrayed by Armin, yes, but also by Eren for not telling him. He remembers how he wondered if Eren had done so to hurt him. If it had all been part of some elaborate revenge.
Reiner doesn't feel betrayed this time. He knows better. Knows that Eren wants what they have, always. Knows that Eren only kept Bertholdt's death from him because he didn't want to hurt Reiner even worse.
Did he do the same thing this time…? How much hasn't Eren shared?
Maybe Reiner is watching Eren unobserved. Maybe Eren is staring back. Either way, Reiner folds his arms. Speaks into the silence.
"I ran into Annie. She had a lot to say."
popcorn.gif
He's home before Reiner is. He's aware that Annie talked to him, but he has no way of knowing what all she told him. Naively, he doesn't really think about it.
He's in the kitchen when Reiner comes in, putting dishes away. It often takes him forever to do it. Without Levi literally kicking him in the ass about it, sometimes it's too easy to get lost doing mundane chores. He's like this in the shower, too, time stretching out endlessly and suddenly the water is cold. He's about half checked in when he notices Reiner there. He can feel Reiner's gaze boring into him. He wonders for a moment about that feeling, but Reiner speaks, and he almost gets it.
"Did she?" he asks, turning away from the last few dishes left in the sink (what even is a dishwasher? he doesn't know) and drying his hands on a towel. He tilts his head a little, trying to discern whatever it is he sees on Reiner's face.
Crap, what did she tell him? Eren speed runs through things he knows he told Reiner, but there were always holes. There are holes in Eren's own memory — something he is only aware of because he will tell Armin at the end of the world. As to what those things are, he can't know what he doesn't know. Hange's death, sure, but what else is there now?
"She told me to do right by you," he says, which is not exactly what she said, but it's close enough to true.
He leans on his hands back against the counter, the almost casual posture as much a lie as anything about him.
no subject
(As if that were possible.)
He raises his eyebrows at Eren's words. Annie told Eren to do right by him? That's … unexpected. Touching. He didn't expect Annie to care that much. As far as he knows, she's the only person to say such a thing to Eren.
It's distracting, is what it is.
Reiner's brows lower again, a furrow forming between them. Forcing himself to concentrate on the issue at hand, not on the way he immediately wants to ask more about Eren's conversation with Annie. (Even though he's desperately curious. How did it go? Are they getting along all right? Have they at least agreed not to be hostile?)
"She told me a lot of stuff," Reiner says. "She wanted to tell me more. But I told her I wanted to hear about the future from you."
He lowers his chin. Looks his Eren in the eyes.
"What haven't you told me, Eren?"
no subject
Reiner doesn't come over to him, reach for him. That puts him on edge a little. He's used to the easy intimacy they have after all this time, the way they gravitate into each other. A year ago, he would have imagined Reiner would hear more about the future and be done with him, at last, like he really should be after everything.
Not now, though. Now, even if Reiner is upset, they have always. Neither of them is the type to break a promise so easily.
He lets himself drift a little, trying to pin it down. What hasn't he told Reiner? Plenty, probably. He's not even entirely sure what he has told him, when, in what order.
"What do you want me to say?" he asks, still half-distracted by the layers of time and memory that exist within him. "There are probably things I haven't said. It's not like I told anyone every tiny thing."
He's being obtuse on purpose, at least a little. If it was some tiny thing, Reiner wouldn't be upset.
"Is this about Liberio?"
It's the easiest thing to think of. Reiner knows what happens to Liberio the first time. There's a lot of damage, but the town still stands.
At the end of the world, there is nothing left of Liberio. There's nothing left of most places; even the island doesn't escape the damage of Eren's apocalypse, though of course it fares the best. He didn't want to have to crush a bunch of their own city. He just knows it happens quickly, even if the exact circumstances lie forever beyond his memory without Zeke.
"What good would telling you do? You knew what I meant to do when I showed you the Rumbling," he says. Eren is so rarely sorry for anything. There are selfish reasons he didn't show Reiner, sure. But he really hadn't been trying to hurt more than it had to. That's why he kept Bertholdt's death from Reiner, after all. That's why he kept Liberio specifically away.
It doesn't even occur to him to talk about Porco. That had been carelessness more than anything else. He might not even realise that Reiner doesn't already know.
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But he has to stay focused. He can't let himself tumble into Eren, even if he wants to. Even if the fact that Porco is dead makes him want to hang on and never, ever let go.
What do you want me to say?
Those very first words dig under Reiner's skin. He squeezes his folded arms. Makes himself remain silent, not interrupting as Eren speaks. That becomes exponentially harder when Eren says, Is this about Liberio?
Reiner swallows, visions swimming before his eyes. That basement. Begging for death. Destruction unleashed.
"The good it would do," he starts slowly, "is keep me from getting blindsided when people show up and tell me things. What is it about Liberio, Eren? Is it the evacuation? Is it a 'final fight'? Is it that Falco has the Jaw? Is it Porco—"
His voice breaks. He pulls in air. Pushes forward.
"Annie doesn't have her Titan here, Eren. Why is she saying that's something you wanted? Why is she saying you lie? Why," his voice trembles, "is she talking about stopping you?"
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It's harder to face the inevitable now, when he has sidestepped it. This always might be temporary, and they both know it. That will never stop them from holding it as long as they can.
"I don't know how titans end," Eren says, slowly, zeroing in on that. "I didn't know if that would ever happen."
There's no point in lying about it. Eren may not ever be capable of telling the entire truth, but he doesn't want to lie to Reiner of all people. He has always envisioned a world without titans, but he could never see beyond the last gate. Even if he had every single insane memory restored, that would forever be closed to him. Since there is no other Attack Titan after him, he could never see beyond his own death.
"How do you think the Rumbling ends?" he asks, softly, dropping his gaze to the floor without seeing it. Instead, he sees the water meters and meters below, churning and hot and full of blood. He sees bones — the bones of the Final Titan, the bones of the dead, the blood on his hands that will never wash away. He doesn't want it to. He doesn't want to forget or claim that he is better than he is.
We can be something else, he said once. Every day they are here, he longs for that to be the truth. But he's still Eren.
For the first time, he considers that Reiner — or Hijikata, or anyone who knows only some of the future — thought they could all make it out. There was never a future for Eren, whether because of the titan curse or death at the hands of his enemies or his own machinations. That truth was one of the hardest to swallow when he first learned it. How could the world exist without him? How could he fail to see what he wrought in the end?
He couldn't live if he wanted them to. How he hates that.
"I don't remember what happens to Porco," he says, which is almost an apology. "I knew Falco had the Jaw eventually, but what happens to Porco, it's…" His eyebrows knit together. "There are things I don't know, too."
He has never told anyone other than Armin the true power of the Attack Titan. Or…if he has, if he does, it is only in those other conversations that he doesn't yet remember having. Some things, he wants to die with. Some things are just too much for anyone else to have to bear.
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Eren looks down, looks away, breaks the eye contact that is so crucial to Reiner holding his ground. He speaks softly, words unfolding one after the next from those lips that have brought Reiner so much pleasure, so much pain.
Right now, it's entirely pain.
How do you think the Rumbling ends?
Eren talks about not knowing how Titans end. Talks about not knowing what happened to Porco. Talks without actually saying what he does know. What that question burns into Reiner's mind, chewing up everything Reiner thought he knew and spitting it out. One assumption, one wish, one dream after another.
He thought they all made it out. He thought only the masses would die, and only until Eren was…
Stopped.
How else would Eren be stopped?
How do you think the Rumbling ends?
His body is cold with shock, the blood having drained from his face, leaving him pale and dizzy. Instinctively, he grabs onto the countertop as he starts to sway. Feels his hand smack against it awkwardly, leaving what would be a bruise on the back if Reiner let it form.
Maybe he will. Maybe he should. Maybe then, he could look at it and know that something about this is real.
How do you think the Rumbling ends?
He thought they would be forever. In whatever world they ended up, he thought they would be together until the bitter end. He thought it would be his own end, not…
How do you think the Rumbling ends?
"Wait," he whispers as he stares at Eren, too far away. Too far. "Wait, that's… No. No, you can't…"
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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.
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He's perilously close to breaking again. Close to coming apart at the seams. Close to hurling his mind into the fire and burning away all the pain, the grief, the unbearable knowledge of what faces him now.
Eren dies.
He can't do this. He can't. He—
Eren takes his hand, lacing their fingers together. Catching Reiner right before he steps off that ledge and hurls his mind into the abyss. Because rejecting Eren is one thing Reiner can never, ever do. Not on a sunlit field; not in the rain; not on the beach; not in a darkened bedroom. Eren will always hold Reiner's heart in his palm.
Always.
That's how it's supposed to be. Always. He can't imagine the feeling of the hands he holds going cold. Can't imagine what it would be like to gaze into those whirlwind eyes and find them still, dull, lifeless.
He can't. He can't…
Does Eren see the panic in Reiner's eyes as his mind starts to crack, then pulls together? A crack, a hasty mend, another crack, another mend. Eren's grip holds Reiner in a reality he can't bear. And he listens, the unbearable words slicing deeper, carving still more wounds.
If there are no more titans…
… Then Reiner will live. Armin will live. Annie, Pieck, Falco—they will all live. Eldians will no longer be at risk of transformation. The world will be different. They'll build toward a brighter future, as Annie said.
But Eren won't be there. Because Eren will be dead.
But we're not dead yet.
Hot tears spill down Reiner's cheeks. He pulls one hand from Eren's, but only to wrap his love in a crushing hug. As if by holding on tightly enough, he might keep Eren here. Breathing. Alive.
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He watches because he knows he must. He never wanted to do this. It's selfish, the way he refuses to talk about this. He does not want to watch people he loves mourn him. He can't stand it. All he wants is to be with them, where he does not deserve to be. Could he live with the weight of all of it, the end of the world? He has, in a way, lived with it for years.
In another way, he will never face what comes after. It's selfishness but it's also the only way. After what he has done, the world would demand his death. Eren takes it on his own terms, forcing everyone into positions they shouldn't have to be in. There are only losers in this game, Eren included.
Reiner panics and Eren hangs on and time stretches endlessly around them. He doesn't want to see Reiner cry. He never wants anyone to cry for him.
He does, though. He wants them to remember him, with fury or despair or hatred. He forgets, too often, that they will remember him with love, too. He doesn't dare to hope for that.
Stealing time, he had once said. Now Reiner knows the truth of that, too. There will never be an always, or a future, or a them. If they go home, then there is only heartbreak and tragedy, Eren's anguish radiating out into the world that he leaves behind. Even as a dead man, the shadow he leaves behind is as big as the Final Titan.
He doesn't want that future, or lack of it, but he can't stop or reject it. All he can do is this, choose to be here as long as it is his choice to make.
The two of them, alive, together. Always.
He lets Reiner pull him closer and his free arm finds its way around Reiner in return, hand clenching in fabric as tight as he can. He will do anything imaginable to keep this. He's sure Reiner knows. He's said that enough, to Reiner, to Hijikata, to Jean, Annie, Levi. He will say it again and he will mean it. There is no price he will not extract if it means they get to have lives in this world.
This, still, is the price of Eren's love.
But we're not dead yet.
If they were, nothing could hurt this badly.
"I love you," he says. "How could I ever tell you?"
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Right now, Reiner gets the barest taste of that reality. He holds Eren tight against him, and he remembers every time he has done so before. The chaste moments when they were Cadets. The violent moments when they were enemies. The passionate moments when they became lovers. He remembers every night they have lain side-by-side, wrapped around each other like two halves of a whole, their jagged edges aligning. He remembers it all.
And he remembers all the times Eren has gazed into space with a haunted look in his eyes, seeing a world beyond this one. He remembers every time those eyes have turned to him instead, and something within them has settled. A modicum of peace. Of happiness.
He remembers every time Eren has looked at him with love.
Eren says the words that Reiner once thought he would never hear. And Reiner understands. Of course he understands. How could he not? They're the same, after all. If their positions were reversed, Reiner would do all he could to keep Eren from learning the truth. Would do everything in his power to protect Eren from the knowledge that their time was limited.
But he never expected Eren to do the same. Never expected Eren to guard him from something like this.
Reiner clings tighter, a shuddering sob wracking his body, his mind straining to hang on. What keeps him here is Eren pressed against him, one hand still holding Eren's, their fingers still entwined. What keeps him here is the fact that they are here, not there.
But fuck, what will happen if they wind up there again…?
Reiner has considered it before. He imagined he would retain his memories somehow. Imagined that he and Eren would reestablish what they've built here, love somehow finding a way. Romantic, foolish notions, but a comfort to Reiner when anxieties would creep in.
Now, he knows better. Now he knows that there will never be a them in their world. There will only be Reiner. Reiner, alone, with all the men he's ever loved dead and gone.
"No," he finds himself muttering, unsure when he started. "No, no, no, no, no."
Rejecting it. Unable to reject it. Unable to do anything but cling.
Eren dies.
Eren cannot die.
"We have to stay here," he gets out, his voice choked with tears. "You can't go back. We have to stay here."
We.
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But he can see those memories, too. Freezing from the inside out, trying to be subtle in the apartment kitchen and completely failing. The nightmares. The second time on the airship. The first. Watching Reiner play video games in the mall. A realisation that he should tell Reiner he loves him before it is too late. Reiner beating him to it. Smile lines in a photograph that shouldn't exist.
Eren has always held — will always hold — a weapon that can wound more deeply than any other. Reiner has given him that time and time again, knowing better, perhaps not always knowing what Eren would choose to do with it. But this final, terrible knowledge, he would have kept secret forever. Maybe it would have been better if he hadn't, just so no one else blindsided Reiner with it. But Eren really hoped they wouldn't ever have to do this.
Who can hold the weight of the end of the world?
Who can hold the weight of loving the one that ended it?
Who can ever hold death, even when they're used to causing it?
"I know," he says. He presses his face into Reiner's shirt and breathes him in, a scent as familiar to him as his own, something dark and crisp like autumn leaves, the ozone tang of titans, some other unnameable thing that is just Reiner. He never wants to give this up.
"I'll do anything," he says, again, like he always does. "I will do anything to let us stay here."
Eren's wrath, his anguish, his love, is almost infinite. His capacity to care about a few people could bring the whole world crashing down. His capacity to hate could do the same.
"I knew what it meant when we said we would get older," he says.
Once, a million years ago when Reiner first arrived here, when Reiner asked him what happened, he said I turned twenty like it should mean something. It had, but only in Eren's oblique way of saying things. He shouldn't have made it that far and always knew that. Now he counts down the days to the end of his titan clock and hopes that Ellipsa really will spare him, as it has just by bringing him here.
"You said always, like it's something people like us get to have," he says. "I thought…I never wanted anything more."
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It's not the first time Eren has said such a thing. But it's the first time Reiner truly understands it. Eren will do anything to let them stay there because there is no other option. If they leave, it's to return to a world of inevitable destruction, a future where Eren dies and Reiner is left alone.
And that can't happen. It can't.
Another shuddering sob rips through him, his ribcage feeling like it's going to break in two from the pain in his heart. He tries to breathe. He feels like he's drowning, like he's suffocating, like the weight of everything is crushing him into nothing. Eren's arms around him are all that hold him together. Eren's face presses against his shirt, breathing him in. Reiner does the same, burying his face in the crook of Eren's neck.
His neck. His perfect, vulnerable, achingly beautiful neck.
Reiner doesn't ask how it happens. Doesn't want to know. But he knows anyway. There's only one surefire way to kill a Titan shifter.
A hand slides up Eren's back, pressing protectively over Eren's nape. As if Reiner's hand might make the difference between life and death.
I never wanted anything more.
Right now, Eren could ask for Reiner's still-beating heart, and Reiner would carve it from his chest. He could ask for the world, and Reiner would find a way to deliver it.
That's what Reiner's love is. Eren's destroys the world; Reiner's destroys himself.
"Eren," Reiner says, the name packed with all the love he feels, all the anguish, all the desperation. "We'll say here. Okay? We'll stay. We'll…" A shuddering breath. "… We'll grow old and gray. We'll always have each other. Always."
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Even if there was, what if another world didn't stop the titan curse? Then he'd be dead in a year and they're in the same situation.
This stolen time is all they will ever have, and it means everything to Eren. So he will do anything to keep it. Like most things, this is very black and white in his head.
Reiner's hand slides over his nape, the only real weak point he has anymore. There's always something intimate about it. There's always a threat of danger (they both know the threat is just Eren).
He nods against Reiner's shoulder, trying not to choke on his words. Alive. Always. Here. Stay.
"Stay," he manages. "That's what we said. Always, Reiner. We can fight for that."
Fighting is what they're good at, after all. And part of Eren truly believes that together, nothing and no one could really stand against them. If Reiner had been on his side back home…
But that way lies madness, and Eren has enough of that already.
When he pulls his face away from Reiner's shirt to look up at him, his cheeks are wet. He hardly realises it himself. When was the last time he cried? He no longer knows. He used to cry at loss, at pain, at fury. The end of their world, though it is his doing, brings out all three of those things in him.
He is not sorry for the world.
But he might be sorry for Reiner, for the things he has taken and will take from him, his home, and Bertholdt, and himself. This is a consequence he has never considered or had to face.
He lifts a hand and uses a thumb to wipe away some of Reiner's tears. It's a fruitless effort at the moment, but it's the thought that counts.