Work Text:
In the early hours of Saturday morning in mid-September, at the Braun-Leonhart household, tensions were already running pretty high.
Annie sighed frustratedly as she tried to cover her ears with her pillow. When that didn't seem to work, she pulled the covers over her head. That didn't seem to help very much either; the loud arguing between her father and stepbrother could still be heard downstairs in the kitchen.
It was the same shit on a different day. It usually involved her father demanding that Reiner show him some basic respect, which turned into Reiner shouting "Make me!" or "You're not my dad!" or just giving some hastily spoken reason not to do what her father asked of him.
This led to more fighting, along with Reiner's mother tearfully begging them to calm down and try to be reasonable. No matter what or when it was actually happening, or what the hurtful words by either party spoken would be. Their screaming matches usually ended the same way.
Right now, Annie waited until she heard the door to Reiner's bedroom slam across the hall. She then pulled herself out of bed and got herself ready to start her day.
...
After having finished up with yet another shouting match with his stepfather, Reiner was now sitting on his bed while replaying their latest fight over in his head. In his big arms was a well-loved stuffed toy of Winnie the Pooh missing an arm; said arm had been ripped off by Mr. Leonhart some time back when he'd tried yanking Pooh out of Reiner's arms.
Pooh had been a birthday gift from Reiner's father several years ago, from before he'd gone back to his real family. Mr. Leonhart had demanded at least several times that Reiner get rid of it; it was old and dirty, and probably infested with something, he'd told him.
Obviously, Reiner had refused. It always helped him to hug Pooh when he was having some kind of problem.
"Are you still keeping that thing?" Reiner looked over his shoulder to see Annie standing in the doorway. He must've been really zoned out if he hadn't noticed the door opening. When seeing that it was just her and not her father, he sighed and held Pooh tighter.
"Your dad is the world's biggest dickhead," he muttered as he looked away once more and buried his face into the top of Pooh's head.
"Tell me something I don't know," she told him. She was then alerted by the sound of Reiner's cell phone vibrating while laying on a nightstand next to his bed. Before he could react quickly enough, she scrambled over and grabbed it before he could reach it.
The way Annie intently scrolled through the message that was sent was honestly a little terrifying. Reiner sat and waited until she was finished, then silently prompted her to tell him what was sent to him.
"Just a spam message," she told him. Annie was then about to hand Reiner's phone back to him when another message came in. This time, Reiner snatched it away from her and looked through it himself. He only had to read it once to realize who it was, despite there being numerous spelling errors and autocorrect gaffes.
"Bert really needs to slow down when he's typing on his phone."
...
"I'm a little surprised Dad let you leave the house this morning, after that fight you two had before breakfast."
A few hours later, Reiner and Annie were parked out in front of the group home their best friend Bertholdt lived in. As they sat and waited for him in the designated family car, Annie let Reiner know that she'd known about what had transpired. When he realized this, Reiner just lay his forehead against the steering wheel.
"Shit...You heard all that?"
"Kind of hard not to, given how loud the both of you were."
As it turned out, Annie's father and Reiner had been fighting about how he was going to spend his summer after graduation. Reiner wanted to spend it hanging out with his friends, whereas Mr. Leonhart told him he needed to find a job and his own apartment.
"He may as well have just told me up front he wanted to kick me out," he said to her now. "I know that's what he's trying to do. He doesn't like that I'm still living there, even though I just! Fucking! Graduated!" To emphasize this, Reiner beat his head into the car horn, leaving it there after the third time.
The unpleasant and elongated honking that ensued wasn't all that nice on Annie's ears, and neither was Reiner's loud wordless howling that went alongside it. She covered her ears and waited until he stopped venting his anger upon the poor car, before she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
Upon catching a whiff of burning tobacco, Reiner turned his head (he'd been laying it on the steering wheel after he'd finished up his outburst) to watch Annie roll down the window and blow a large smoke cloud out of it.
"Mom's gonna tear you a new one if she smells that in the car later," he muttered.
Annie shrugged indifferently while she stared out the window. "I think I'll be fine. I'm sure it'll get covered up by the smell of your foot odor."
"Hey!" Reiner straightened himself up to snap at her. "It's not my fault my athlete's foot keeps coming back. You try dealing with something that annoys you on a regular basis." Annie didn't bother looking at him, preferring to continue being on watch for Bertholdt.
"I do," she said now in the most deadpan tone yet. "It's my stepbrother."
By this point, Reiner figured that Annie wasn't going to stop with the snarkiness right now. He gave up and leaned back on the car seat with his arms crossed, and waited for Bertholdt to hurry up and come out already.
Luckily, Bertholdt came stumbling out the door before too long.
...
"And this time make sure you're home by curfew!" A man's voice could be heard from inside the home. "I don't want to be driving around town again all night playing hide and seek."
"Okay, Mister Magath!" Bertholdt called back as he tried pulling his coat on. "I'll try to be home on time tonight for once!" He didn't wait for an answer after that. Instead he made his way to the parked car, trying not to trip over his own feet the entire way there, and struggled to open it.
He then had to stand there awkwardly and wait until Reiner actually unlocked the car door. The other two resisted the urge to roll their eyes as he got the door open and flopped into the backseat.
"You're not going to actually be on time tonight, are you?" Annie inquired as she watched Bertholdt struggle to get his seat belt on.
Bertholdt shrugged. "I said I'd try. Sometimes that doesn't mean I actually will."
"Do or do not," Reiner said then, while he turned the vehicle back on. "There is no try." To this Star Wars reference, Annie just rolled her eyes.
None of them said anything else to each other for a little while, at least until they were on the road. When she was certain that there weren't any policeman or uptight snitch people around in town, Annie stuck her arm out and held it up against the hood. She then waited a little bit longer, and then flicked her now extinguished cigarette butt away onto the road.
...
"What time did you say the movie was tonight, Bertholdt?"
All three were now watching intently for any traffic while stopped at an intersection stop light. To try and break the growing silence without having to resort to using the radio (they always forgot to change the station back to the one Annie's father most preferred), Annie made sure of their plans tonight.
"Uh..." Bertholdt evidently didn't realize he needed to remember times for things. "What did the schedule for the movie say again?" To this, Reiner let out what sounded like a groan and a snarl put together in his throat. He resisted the urge to bang his head against the steering wheel again.
"Aren't you supposed to know that, Bert?" He asked instead. "You're the one who wanted to go out tonight in the first place'. Why bother making plans with us if you can't even do the planning part right? Are you that fucking stupid?!"
Bertholdt looked off to the side after flinching, making a face that appeared to be sheepish and on the verge of humiliation. Right away, Reiner felt an immense wave of guilt when he saw Bertholdt do that.
"Bert, I-"
"It's okay," Bertholdt said while staring out the back door window. "I know you get like that usually because you and Annie's dad fight."
By this time, it had begun to rain. Bertholdt watched intently now as the cold and heavy drops pelted the van. He didn't bother to look back over at him. Reiner was about to continue on with his apology when he was cut off by the obnoxious ringing of Annie's phone.
"Yeah, Dad?" Both of the guys tried to listen in on the mostly one-sided conversation between the two. It was mostly Annie responding with short responses and a few 'uh-huhs' thrown in for good measure. It soon ended with her saying "I'll let Reiner know" and hanging up without saying goodbye.
"So...What bullshit does your old man want done this time?"
Annie shrugged, and pulled out another cigarette. "He says he wants us home by nine tonight. If we're so much as a second late, our asses are grass.
"So you know, the usual."
To some extent, Annie pitied her stepmother for having to deal with her stubborn father. Why she decided to marry Mr. Leonhart in the first place was anybody's guess. If nothing else, she ended up getting her stepbrother as a source of venting (whether Reiner actually wanted to be or not), which was mutual.
"Great," Reiner told her sarcastically as she took a drag of her current cigarette. "Your dickhead of a dad is finding even more ways to torture me." For whatever reason, Annie took offense to him saying this.
"Hey, I've had to deal with my dad's bullshit my whole life," she said to him after blowing smoke out of the still opened window. "You and your mom have only had to deal with him for five years. How do you think I felt having to put up with him for the time after my mom divorced him?"
"You think you're the only one who had a parent walk out on you?" Reiner said now as he turned to look at her, a look that was quickly returned. "Hell, my dad had a whole legitimate family he didn't say anything about. How do you think that made me feel when I found out?!"
Annie really didn't want to get into this with Reiner, especially with Bertholdt listening in the back seat. But unfortunately, that was indeed what was happening.
Trying not to get involved with a dispute meant for stepsiblings, Bertholdt continued looking out the window and staying quiet. It was when he saw that Reiner sped right past a stop sign without any sort of hesitation, that he really began getting nervous, however.
"Um, guys...?" He tried getting their attention as calmly and politely as he could, which was just drowned out by the slowly escalating bickering. "Guys-"
"Not now, Bert," Reiner said, briefly glancing back for a moment before turning back and continuing on with his argument with his stepsister.
By now, he could literally feel himself sweating a bit more than he wanted. Passing yet another stop sign, along with a stop light, and the feeling of impending doom that had come over him was now practically suffocating him. Something didn't feel right, and Reiner's piss poor attention span wasn't helping.
"Seriously guys, can the two of you calm down before-"
"Bert, tell us later." It was Annie that said this. Now that Bertholdt saw an intersection coming up, he was frantic as he tried breathing in deeply and shouted over the other two:
"Guys you gotta stop the car right now!!"
Now Annie and Reiner were stunned by their pal's outburst. They stared at him now, their eyes practically bulging out of their eyes. To Bertholdt's horror and dismay, Reiner kept his foot pressing down on the accelerator.
"Bert," Annie asked of him, in a slow voice tinged with annoyance. While she talked to him, Reiner slowly readjusted himself in the driver's seat. "What is so damn important that you had to shout at us like that?
"Seriously, I think even you know not to disrupt altercations Reiner and I have about our parents. Just because you're our best friend doesn't mean-"
Now Annie was cut off by Reiner shouting "Oh fuck!" and following that was a desperate attempt to slam on the brake. The squealing of tires was not at all pleasant to their ears.
Reiner wasn't able to stop the van, unfortunately.
What ensued as a result ended up being a collision with another vehicle. All three were subjected to the sound of crunching metal and shattering glass. The seat belts they were using ended up not helping them at all.
None of them were able to react in time before the van ended up getting smashed into glorified scrap metal, killing all three as a result.
Bertholdt at least died quickly, if not instantly, from getting impaled by some part of the van. Therefore, he wouldn't have to watch his friends suffer from their own demise.
When the wreckage settled, the rain became colder, and heavier. Other than that, and a passenger from the other car begging for someone to wake up, there wasn't any sound.
-a few hours later-
"I should've known those two weren't going to be home by curfew," Mr. Leonhart told his wife as they sat in the den, waiting for Annie and Reiner to get home. "The moment they come in that door, I'm grounding the both of them until they're forty."
"Dear-"
"Don't give me the 'something probably came up' spiel, Karina," he told her in order to cut her off. "Until the both of them move out of this house, they have to listen to me and follow the rules put in place. All right?" Karina simply looked down at the floor and nodded.
Both adults then continued to wait until a banging at the front door was heard.
"Who is it, dear?" Karina now asked her husband. Mr. Leonhart looked out the window to see a police car parked in their driveway, which did not improve his already sour mood. He growled to himself as he went over to greet their guests. His wife followed quickly behind him.
...
"Mr. and Mrs. Leonhart?" One of the policeman said, getting right to the point. "I'm Officer Dietrich, and this is Officer Jarnarch." Karina felt dread and concern practically flood through her whole body as she stared at the policemen at their front door.
"Has something happened with our children, officer?" She asked, despite not really wanting to do so.
Mr. Leonhart, on the other hand, crossed his arms and scowled. "Just tell me the price of bail and I'll deal with those two myself." Officer Jarnarch shook his head and raised a hand to stop them from saying or doing anything else. There wasn't any need to make the situation worse.
"That won't be necessary, Mr. Leonhart," he then told them. "See, I'm afraid your children were in a serious car accident-"
"Car accident? You gotta be kidding me. So help me, my stepson better start paying off the damages with whatever money he gets later on-"
"What my partner is trying to tell you, sir," Officer Dietrich said now. "Is that your children are unable to pay anything, and will not be able to at any time in the future. See, I regret to inform you both that the car crash your children were in ended up being a fatal one."
It took a few seconds for those words to sink in, and the reality that came with them. Once Karina did finally understand what Officers Dietrich and Jarnarch were telling her, though, she doubled over right then and there. She then proceeded to tightly grab her hair and scream loudly.
...
The next day, Mr. and Mrs. Leonhart ended up having to visit the morgue. The people involved stated that they had to go in and identify the bodies. There was also insistence that they were doing it out of necessity, and not to torment two recently bereaved parents.
Neither of them said much of anything as the mortician pulled out the first sheet covered body, feet first with the toe tag and everything. Even before she uncovered it, however, Mr. Leonhart already knew by the petite size of the cadaver's outline that it was going to be his daughter.
"That's her all right," he told the woman. Next, the mortician walked over to another door in the wall, and pulled that one out. The instant Karina caught a glance at her son, she collapsed to the floor and sobbed while trying to hug herself. Both the mortician and Mr. Leonhart waited for her to stand back up, which took far too uncomfortably long.
"Thank you, Miss Brzenska," she whispered, before her husband led her out of the morgue, and past another woman going in the opposite direction towards the morgue.
...
Having to arrange a funeral and cremation was difficult, and expensive. The day they were set to take place, Karina and her husband stood before all three bodies.
"Was Magath informed of Bertholdt's death?" Mr. Leonhart asked quietly, as though he believed the dead could listen.
Karina nodded. "He was here earlier for his own viewing. He left because he didn't want to attend the service himself. A few of the residents from the group home came, though."
"I see." Both of them went silent then, gazing upon what had once been their children. They approached the casket nearest to them, which belonged to Reiner. It was clear that Karina would prefer to be out of the room (out of the building, even), but she got closer anyway.
"Oh, my little boy," she choked out as she and Mr. Leonhart stared at her son's lifeless and unmoving body. As for her husband, he stepped over to Annie, looking her over for seemingly far too long.
Eventually, Mr. Leonhart shooed Karina out of the room for something private. He then turned back to face Annie's coffin, before pulling a pack of cigarettes out from inside his coat. Carefully, so that he didn't disturb her too much, he pressed the pack into a pocket of the jean jacket she had on.
"Bought these at a gas station on the way here," he said. "They're not the exact brand you always got, but they were all they had left in stock. Hope you don't mind.
"...What the hell am I saying? You're my flesh and blood, of course you wouldn't mind." Then he went on over to his stepson.
For him, he took out Reiner's Winnie the Pooh doll and tucked it underneath his crossed arms. For good measure (and perhaps a peace offering of sorts), he gotten Pooh's arm reattached to the rest of it before he and Karina had arrived. He'd even sewed it up himself, despite not being all that adept with such a skill.
"Maybe I should've done this a long time ago," he told him. "I know we had a lot more disagreements than we really should've, but you really were a good kid. If you ask me, I think your birth father was a complete dumbass to leave you and your mother high and dry."
Mr. Leonhart gazed upon the sight now. Pooh's bright yellow, grinning face offered a stark contrast from Reiner's pale, expressionless one. Finally, Mr. Leonhart made his way over to Bertholdt. He pulled one last thing out from his coat, sticking it into the crook of Bertholdt's arm.
"Thanks for being their friend," was what he said now. "I get the feeling that they might've been hard to get along with sometimes. Still, It's good to know they had a pal there for them.
"Hopefully that's not a DVD of a movie you had already," he continued on, as he closed up his coat now. "I forgot which series it's a part of, and the one you wanted to go see won't have its own released for a few months. So if that ain't the one you wanted, then my bad."
He stepped away from the caskets now, before walking to the door. He'd gotten about halfway before he took one last glance behind him. For a while, he stared intently, like he were expecting one of them to sit up in their casket and reveal it was all just an elaborate prank.
Nothing. There wasn't so much as a facial twitch.
Now Mr. Leonhart reached up and took off the hat he'd been wearing as part of his funeral attire. He placed it over his heart for a few moments, another way of him saying goodbye to the kids. Mr. Leonhart then put it back onto his head, heading out of the viewing room to rejoin his wife.
Having a parent say one last farewell before their child's funeral and cremation had to have been one of, if not the worst thing anyone would have to do.
The next few hours were going to be the longest of their lives.