Eren lets his eyes close again, not as worried about flipping his shit as he was twenty minutes ago. He's never exactly safe or stable or any of that, and he's under no delusions about it. But he's so in his body and here that it doesn't seem to be as big a deal at the moment.
When he can manage to unclench his hand, his fingers find their way back to Reiner's nape, not as a threat but because his neck is just close. Eren's touch there is as gentle as he ever is, just fingers on skin, intimacy they don't deserve and can't possibly hold on to.
What could they have been in another life? What could they have been if they even tried to understand each other? All the branching time that Eren has ever seen, and he's never known any of the what-ifs. It doesn't quite work like that. He's only really ever known an unchanging ending.
He really, really does not want to go home to their world. He thinks that often, but sometimes he's just very sure.
Reiner kisses him, softly, and he doesn't understand. This is easier if they're rough, fighting, that first taste of blood. This softness is unfamiliar and strange and he wants to hold onto it. If he holds too tight, surely it will slip away like sand, like everything else.
There's a moment where he considers doing the opposite, swinging the pendulum back so far that it damages any opportunity he has of doing this again, causing a fight because he does not know how to handle softness. But even Eren's cruelty has limits; his edges are dulled at least a little, because he doesn't want to lose this, the closest he's felt to anyone in…ages.
This is fucked up, he thinks. The closest he's felt to anyone isn't Mikasa or Jean or even Levi. It's Reiner. Maybe that's typical, though, all things considered. Reiner has no idea that just how alike they are and Eren decides that now, today, here, isn't the time to clue him in. Someday, probably.
"We shouldn't stay here," he says, softer than he even means to.
cries about this
When he can manage to unclench his hand, his fingers find their way back to Reiner's nape, not as a threat but because his neck is just close. Eren's touch there is as gentle as he ever is, just fingers on skin, intimacy they don't deserve and can't possibly hold on to.
What could they have been in another life? What could they have been if they even tried to understand each other? All the branching time that Eren has ever seen, and he's never known any of the what-ifs. It doesn't quite work like that. He's only really ever known an unchanging ending.
He really, really does not want to go home to their world. He thinks that often, but sometimes he's just very sure.
Reiner kisses him, softly, and he doesn't understand. This is easier if they're rough, fighting, that first taste of blood. This softness is unfamiliar and strange and he wants to hold onto it. If he holds too tight, surely it will slip away like sand, like everything else.
There's a moment where he considers doing the opposite, swinging the pendulum back so far that it damages any opportunity he has of doing this again, causing a fight because he does not know how to handle softness. But even Eren's cruelty has limits; his edges are dulled at least a little, because he doesn't want to lose this, the closest he's felt to anyone in…ages.
This is fucked up, he thinks. The closest he's felt to anyone isn't Mikasa or Jean or even Levi. It's Reiner. Maybe that's typical, though, all things considered. Reiner has no idea that just how alike they are and Eren decides that now, today, here, isn't the time to clue him in. Someday, probably.
"We shouldn't stay here," he says, softer than he even means to.