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“No luck?”
“Hmm nope, no signal.”
“My phone’s dead too. Let’s keep walking for now.”
There’s a light sheen of sweat dotting Reiner’s flushed nape like tiny translucent pinpricks, his damp golden locks paler than the harshest of sunrays but they tickle the softest against his palms.
Eren uncaps his water bottle and pours what’s left down Reiner’s back, soaking his tight dress shirt and exposing relaxed but abundant muscles. There’s an audible gasp followed by a tiny echo against the backdrop of flower fields, and the summer breeze chooses that very moment to sweep in and pinch his wet skin. Reiner shivers from head to toe.
Eren smiles wolfishly. “You liked that, didn’t you?”
Reiner does not look amused, but his flushed neck has cooled down considerably which makes the risk of being strangled by him all the more worth it. Either way, it’s a win-win situation.
“Just give me a warning, goodness,” he says, staring down his chest and assessing the damage. His nipples have peaked, of course, and the blush returns to his cheeks like rose petal dust. His eyes go heavenward, sending up a prayer, but Eren’s heart folds into four and he has just enough brain power to step out of way and dodge in time. Reiner’s beefy arms around him is nice, but breathing is nice, too.
“My mouth could do that, refresh you I mean-”
“No, your mouth will make it worse, thank you for the concern Eren.”
“Sure,” he shrugs and smiles at the flowers ruffling leaves over concrete. There’s not a single soul in sight, just wide stretches of vibrant fields intercepted by the path they’re walking on and the gentle crooning of sparrows and morning bugs, proof being the rash covering Eren’s forearm after getting bitten so early into their journey to the train station. Losing their way in the neighborhood on the countryside of the land has enough thrill to light up every sleep deprived nerve in his tense and tired body. Reiner, by the grace of generous witches, still possesses the energy to leap like a mountain lion and lay him a prey. Nothing in his stride betrays the track of hard rocks and steep hills they had to cross on yesterday’s hike. He stands tall and gorgeous in the morning sun.
“You’re falling behind Eren, move it up a bit.”
“Well,” Eren huffs and sidesteps a leaning branch. “Sorry for having brittle bones.” He checks Reiner with his hipbone to emphasize his point, but Reiner swallows the shock like nothing. The shirt on his back hugs him like something touch deprived, highlighting the sweet curve about his waist.
“I told you to stretch before bed,” Reiner says and looks into his phone a second time which remains, for obvious reasons, pointless. “Twice Mikasa and I offered to help but you didn’t listen.”
“How can I listen when I’m on the brink of death? I can’t perform the impossible, Reiner.”
“Armin had more reasons to complain but he heeded the warning anyway,” he says, steps halting.
“Armin is textbook definition of a good boy. I love him but that’s true.”
“How is that a bad thing?”
“I don’t know, anyone would’ve drop-kicked Jean by now,” Eren says and plucks a leave, shaking apart one poor lonely sprig. He tosses his empty bottle in a suspiciously clean trash bin. “Patience of a saint, good fucking lord.”
Eren catches Reiner’s smile by the meadow. He watches him with intent, instantly spotting dimples lining faintly his cheeks, springing up when they have a purpose, a good omen, delivering an oracle, maybe. The thrill coursing in his veins hikes up and he tackles Reiner with the little force he can muster sending them both toppling to the side right into prickling green and warm earth. Reiner shoulders the impact from the fall and groans into the sky and the tree raining occasional flower buds. Eren’s kneecaps whimper too but he ignores them.
“What are you–”
“Let’s rest a bit, we’ve been walking for too long, I’m so tired I could cry, see?” Eren says and shoves their foreheads together, hair tie loosening and releasing his pitch-black locks. They cascade in ribbons past his neck and smack Reiner in the face. He feels soft but firm beneath him, a little damp from sweat and the water he so selflessly sacrificed under the stifling heat in the middle of July. August sun is Hell– he suffers like a wet dog every fucking year– but July sun doesn’t hold back either, giving him the sensation of scorching thorns falling past his throat and getting stuck halfway down his esophagus. He makes sure the universe hears of it (or his loved ones, bless their hearts).
Reiner remains splayed out between tall grass and writhing poppy flowers, grimacing a little but the twitch near the corner of his lips doesn’t go unnoticed. Easy. “Well, I’m tearing up from pain. You broke my spine Eren, what the hell?”
“You’re a big boy, I’m sure you can handle it.”
Reiner sighs and Eren thinks his earlier descriptor could very well ascribe to him. “Get off, I can’t breathe.”
“Huh? What’s that? CPR I hear, right away sir.”
“Ere-”
He takes Reiner’s mouth in his own and swallows his next words, effortless and honey sweet from the candy they shared before their phones bailed on them in the middle of nowhere that manages to be fragrant and gorgeous nonetheless. His bruising knees dig into the malleable soil and a bumblebee buzzes past to drop onto blooming bright blue and something looking like fresh blood in search of nectar. Reiner slaps his shoulder, just one light tap, and Eren kisses him harder, holds Reiner’s face in his hands and delves for his tongue. It’s a little like the bee currently replenishing its reserves before its track home. Reiner releases a sound so incriminatingly soft it gets Eren’s lungs collapsing, setting ablaze the veins in his neck. He presses him deeper into the grass and gets rewarded with another breathy moan followed by Reiner breaking the kiss and panting hotly against his lips.
The tree releases another sprouting flower bud that lands stark against Reiner’s golden locks. His cheeks take after the poppies and Eren is gripped with a wild desire to hold him.
“We’re in public, out in the open, and you’re sucking my face off.”
Eren can’t help his smile. He nudges his entire being in the crook of Reiner’s neck and closes his eyes at the cool breeze that sweeps in and ruffles the surrounding green, a chorus of nature-made wind chimes. Reiner gives him further access to his throat, his skin holding onto notes of a sweet-smelling perfume, sugar plums or something.
“It’s okay there’s no one around, it’s just us and God.”
“Just– what part of that was CPR?”
“What? You didn’t like my first aid techniques?”
“No, you suck,” Reiner says, bringing his arms around Eren to hug him snug and tight.
Eren nuzzles him, bites his warmly tainted cheek and kisses the corner of his mouth. He prepares to charge again but never gets a chance at Reiner’s tighter-than-fisherman’s-knot hug that pins him in one spot and leaves him flailing helplessly like a ribbon eel. His exhausted bones settle the outcome by giving up the fight so he contents himself with resting his head against Reiner’s gently pulsing chest, his tired eyes watching one exotic butterfly unfurling its wings upon a dangerously slopping flower stem. Eren acts fast. It takes exactly ten seconds for the plant to land between fumbled grass and for the butterfly to carry its weight in flight and miraculously perch on his extended hand. Pure unadulterated childish excitement lights him on fire.
“What the fuck? Am I Jesus? Look at this, Reiner.” The butterfly sits unfazed in spite of Eren’s shaky maneuvering in heavy shackles made of muscle. Reiner lets him go and they both sit up in the shadow of their host tree.
“You can’t fool me, I saw you rub pollen on your finger,” Reiner says, dusting himself off.
“Shut up, this must have some spiritual meaning, I can’t remember what I read once on–” And Eren’s mind goes blank as an empty sheet when he looks up and finds that one tiny flower bud still hanging on for dear life in the sea of gold near the crown of Reiner’s head. It twitches in the cool wind, a mind of its own it seems, and winks at Eren who stares like the asshole that fixes overworked waitresses in the middle of the job and makes their lives harder than they need to be, except his staring is of the affectionate sort.
“Eren?”
And if there’s anyone to claim the title of a deity and get it branded as a tangible label for everyone to behold, it’s the man he’s spent five long years intensely yearning for and an additional four years working this contrived yearning into honest words and purposeful actions. He’s lucky Armin and Mikasa never held a glass shard to his sternum and cleaved his bleeding lungs to save themselves from constant brooding over a crush that might or might not have morphed into something totally unfathomable to his teenage self. The grown version is still grappling with the weight of it, but it’s sure an improvement.
“Did you bite your tongue? Are you okay?”
There’s a humor to what comes next; the butterfly takes off and lands precisely on Reiner’s brow near the scar that has scarped deep into his skin. It thieves him of spotlight, for just a fraction of a second, shaking up its wings with particles of green dust swirling through the air. Reiner stares at him in confusion, and it's very endearing.
Eren opens his mouth to say something, to accuse him of being a fairy in hiding, maybe, but everything violently falls apart when a booming voice shatters the illusion and chases the insect away. The flower tumbles down when Reiner turns his head to the source and Eren’s heart tumbles with it. Holy shit, he’s going to throttle someone.
“You fuckers were out here all along?”
Said someone approaches in knee-length shorts and a t-shirt so white it pierces his retinas and renders him temporarily blind. There’s a spot on his left shin that is not like the rest– bald, very much waxed– and Eren recognizes Sasha’s work. He should treat her to a nice meal sometime.
“I’ll murder your ass, Eren." then, "Hello Reiner.”
“Oh Jean, you’re tagging along?” Reiner asks, enthused and clearly relieved they’re no longer stranded on a colorful land.
“Yeah, Armin wouldn’t stop asking, and Mikasa extended the invitation herself I couldn’t turn them down. Give me your hand.”
Jean helps Reiner to his feet then turns to where Eren sits cross-legged in the grass and looks down at him, literally. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Mind your business,” Eren retorts in monotone voice, clipped, perfected. His insides turn slightly giddy when Reiner wraps an arm around his middle and lifts him up.
“You a farmer now, huh? Want me to get you a straw hat, farmer boy?”
“Take us to the station, Jean,” Reiner cuts in, still ruffling the back of his hair from hay and grass. “We might just make it in time.”
“Wait, you guys lost your way? I thought you were enjoying a picnic or some shit.”
“Our phones died on us,” Reiner says, shaking off his wrist, probably a mild cramp. “Figured we covered half the distance so we took a break.”
They walk the empty road together. Jean holds his chin in thought, pretentiousness leaking from his ears, and Eren turns his eyes to the rolling clouds. “Hm, the train takes off in an hour. It took me thirty minutes to find you, I think we’ll be fine.”
“No shit,” Eren says, gaze following that one cloud shaped like a strange mushroom.
Jean glares at him. Deciding he’s not worth the pain, he fixates on Reiner, sizing him up and slapping him across the shoulder. “Somehow you like, never stop inflating. You disappear for two days and come back with ten more packs.”
Reiner smiles and for a moment Eren forgets his mushroom cloud. “It must be your imagination, I weigh the same.”
“Yeah right, forgot you’re more on the humble side, unlike someone.” It’s Eren’s turn to glare, and he glares hard. “Your shirt’s about to burst, just flex like the Greek gods of old books and give us a spectacle.”
“Don’t be a dick Jean, he’s taken.”
“Shut your musty ass Eren,” Jean says then passes a rough hand through Eren’s ruined ponytail. He hardly blinks when his fingers catch on a knot but Eren feels the searing burn in his brain. “Let me cut your hair after this, you look like a deranged bat.”
Eren slaps Jean’s hand away and massages his scalp. “I’d rather have Reiner’s brat raze it for me.”
“Gabi? You two are the same people, only difference is she’s smarter and has more wits.”
“Jean, shut the fuck up.”
“I’ll let you cut my hair if you let me snip yours.”
He contemplates the offer for a second. Something tells him it’ll be a disaster. Only one way to know. “As long as you take Reine’s input into consideration.”
“Deal.”
Eren stifles the cackle that Jean described once as the dying cry of a hyena going into labor. Like he would know what a hyena going into labor sounds like (or would he? doesn’t seem outside the range of his proclivities) “Bid farewell to your stupid mullet, it’s definitely going.”
Jean gives him a sharp grin his teeth glimmer like morning dew. “What would you know about mullets, tasteless fuck.”
“Oh a lot, for instance your head's shaped like a melon, it’s not a good look for you.”
“I’ll wring your neck asshole.”
Reiner intervenes by putting himself in the middle, just like old times, minus the visible irritation. Also, currently, they’re all in the same height range, so double the effort. “Guys, don’t rope me into your affairs.”
“Babe, we’re locked in for life, you and I,” Eren says, just a hint of whining in his tone.
“Well yes, I don’t mind that, but Mikasa and Armin are waiting at the train station and we need to get a move before sundown.”
Their leisured unhurried steps turn into a light jog. Eren takes Reiner’s hand and holds it tight; partially to ruin Jean’s life and remind him of his standing as Third wheel Number Three (his childhood friends get the honor of first and second place. Bless their hearts, always). Partially, to conduct another attempt at irritating Reiner with his clammy, sweaty hands (it never works). Partially, to feel the weight of Reiner’s palm, to feel the warmth radiating from him, the tangibility of his being soothing his heart in its own weird way.
Reiner holds his hand just as tight.