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Screaming, so much screaming.
Screams of those dead, dying, going to die, all by his hands. Dismembered limbs falling from the sky, blood raining on his face, staining, defiling it, him, them—
Gasping. Throwing up a river of blood that streams down the piles and piles of bodies, never ending red, blood of those he's marred, those that he's tried to protect, his own blood. He cannot stand, overflowing. He tries to stop it, stop, stop, but his body does not wait for him, and he only coughs and hacks as more pools around his body where he kneels, staining his uniform with the deepest of reds. How is he going to wash it out?, he thinks, amidst the searing pain that rips him in half. (It's more like, how is he going to prove that he is good and pure?)
He cannot breathe. He doesn't know if he deserves to.
Wide, reddened eyes stare up at disappointed ones, from everyone who has ever trusted him. has counted on him, looking down on his pitiful state. Their scorn resonates with his body, setting his insides on fire. He feels, oh, he feels the scorn bit at his throat and slither down his body, burning everything in it's path. There's a wish he has that is ignored. He wishes he could find the words to stop this.
A blast knocks him back, splashing the pools of blood upwards. He throws up an arm, shields his face from getting hit by the splattering. He blinks, clearing his sight, before he looks up again.
He is a kid again. He is seven, and it is his mother looking down at him with disgust and shame. He hates that look. He wants to do better, but he can't. He is too nervous to do anything other than look back at her stare and freeze when the sensation soaks through his veins.
-
"R-Reiner...? ...Woah, woah, hey, Reiner!"
Jean wakes up with a kick to his back, groaning at the impact. When the aggressive movements continue, he turns to see Reiner thrashing wildly, before going rigid, defensive, before thrashing again. He yells at something Jean can't see, can't know, can't hope to know, trapped in a different realm of consciousness.
Slipping off, the kicked blanket slides down to the floor as Jean focuses on stopping Reiner's movements and waking him up. The younger holds onto Reiner's legs tightly, wrestling with the movement, but it only serves to make Reiner groan as he wrestles the unknown force. At this point, he'll choke on his screams.
"Reiner, c'mon, wake up!" Jean shouts, a little more distraught when Reiner starts to cry. "Reiner!"
He only does what he can. He grabs onto Reiner's shoulders and presses them down into the bed, hard.
The pressure causes Reiner's eyes to shoot open as he gasps loudly, before he begins to slow down his breathing. He looks up to see Jean, glassy-eyed and eyebrows pinched together with concern, mouth twisted into a hurt frown. There's a wetness down his cheeks, and he reaches a shaky hand up to touch it.
A frantic hug. Jean throws himself onto Reiner as soon as he sees the other awake, holding him as close as possible, gently cradling the elder's head in his arms. Reiner is still processing what has happened as he looks dazedly around the room, then up at Jean, who's lips are sealed shut with the effort not to cry. He only comes to his senses when he feels his own eyes water again and stain Jean's shirt as he buried himself impossibly closer to the other man. Reiner wraps his arms around the younger as a silent apology.
They lie there, listening to each other reset. Reiner reduces his own occasional sobs into small sniffles, and Jean’s breathing returns to normal.
-
"Do you want to talk about it?" Jean asks as he flurries to make the two of them breakfast after they've washed up. Reiner clutches his mug of tea like it's his lifeline.
Jean thinks that maybe Reiner doesn't want to speak, that maybe it's just not one of those days, but he isn't any more surprised when Reiner does speak.
"Blood. Too much, and...the weight. Of my sins. Was weighing on me. L-like, I really felt it. It was... graphic." Reiner cringes as he recalls some of his nightmare, vision of it flashing behind his eyelids when he blinks. "I couldn't breathe and y-you pushed it all out of me, when you did whatever you did. I still...can't. Forgive myself, I mean."
Patiently nodding, Jean brings over their toast, adding extra honey onto Reiner's fruits. "For what?"
"I-I don't know...everything? Sometimes I can't live with myself and everything I've done and it just...manifests into, y'know, whatever that was."
"Nightmares."
Reiner nods, distracted, eating a strawberry. "Yeah. That."
"You have enough nightmares to know what they are, Rei." Jean points an accusatory fork at the other, still chewing on the slice of his toast.
"Slipped from my thoughts, Jean." Reiner mocks back, sticking out his tongue teasingly. "They're not exactly the thing on my mind, right now."
"Right, right. Was there anything that triggered it this week? Anything you might've encountered?"
Reiner hums, thinking back. He shakes his head. "Nothing. This one feels more all of a sudden than the other times."
"Ain't that helpful," Jean mumbles to himself. He turns his focus back to Reiner, who's slowed down his eating. "Unlike the other ones, this one was plain random. You sure you didn't read anything odd before bed?"
“No, didn’t even pick up the files we still need to go through.”
Jean squints at Reiner, across the table, and catches him drumming his fingers on the table. “You’re lying.”
“What? No I’m not.”
”Liar~” Jean singsongs teasingly, finishing up his breakfast and getting up to put his plate in the sink. “I’m putting them away next time. No more reading before bed.”
”Jean—” Reiner almost tries to argue, but stops himself, sitting back down and finishing his food, frustrated. He can’t fight Jean because he knows the other probably isn’t wrong. Jean takes the silence as a win, silently fist pumping the air.
—
He has disappointed his mother and he is sorry.
It's been so long, since he's been home, and she looks at him with a frown. Her gentle smile is gone, her caring touch is gone, the look her eyes is pity and disappointment and he thinks that it makes sense, with who her son has become. A killer. For the sake of humanity? But he's a killer, nonetheless.
She does not look at him when walks into the house, lanky limbs awkward in their entrance. She does not look at him when he calls for her, does not look at him even when he's right in front of her. She does not want to look at him, and that is the part that hurts the most.
He misses his mother.
He hopes she is not mad at him, for killing. For lying and for leaving. He hopes she does not believe the rumors spread about him, about how he's betrayed her and them, because he has not. He is still her son.
He feels sick, with the way he had made her leave when he last saw her. He's sorry. He wants to go home. He has wanted to go home. He wants to be in her arms again. He wants to go home.
-
Confused, Reiner wakes up when he hears small whimpers coming from the other side of the bed. Stretching first, he turns over to find Jean curled up, holding a pillow, tears streaming down his cheeks. His fingers continuously roll through the pillow cover, clear unease, and he only makes himself smaller as Reiner continues to watch him, stunned.
"Jean," he murmurs, sitting up and squinting sleepily. He nudges Jean's arm, which normally does the trick. He's a little taken aback when it doesn't work, but then again, Jean is always an open book. He never sleeps in a way that makes him so...small. "Wake up, Jean, please."
Listening, Reiner is still, eyes growing impossibly wide as Jean starts to talk. "M'sorry, so sorry...sorry. Sorry." Jean murmurs, eyebrows contorting into something foul. "Sorry...didn't. Didn't mean. It. For...f'r you—ah!" He breaks out into coughing, too guttural to be okay, "Hurts, s’rry, I can’t—"
The older's eyes narrow. "Up, Jean. Let's get up, now." Reiner whispers more to himself than anyone, taking a deep breath and shoving Jean hard enough that the younger whines, eyes flashing open before squeezing shut. Reiner hoists Jean from under the arms so they're both sitting up, much to the other's disapproval, wraps an arm around Jean's body, which has started to shake, and holds him close, hoping his body warmth is ample enough. "You're okay, Jean. Wake up."
They sit, Reiner helping the man in his arms breathe again. Jean clutches onto the arm around his torso like Reiner would disappear at any moment. Reiner holds onto Jean's hand with his other one. He can cry for the other man later in the bathroom.
-
"Do you want to talk about it?" Reiner asks, throwing the softest blanket they have around Jean's shoulders. It would make sense if he wouldn’t, as Jean is still new to the department of letting-your-feelings-out-before-they-eat-you-from-the-inside, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.
The younger gives an absolute shake of the head, about what Reiner expected, so he doesn't pry. He knows better to do that, especially since this is Jean's first nightmare in a long time. He's probably still processing it himself. "Need anything?"
"Jus' you." Jean mumbles.
"Okay."
Reiner watches as Jean brightens up in the slightest when he takes the seat on the couch closest to the younger, who opens up the blanket so it encapsulates both of them.
"Sorry. D'you need anything?"
"For you to be quiet. We can sit here for as long as you need to."