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Reiner’s always held his suspicions about Ymir, her surly attitude, her insistence on becoming a scout despite seeming to care about nothing- except Christa, his mind fills in.
Christa is gorgeous. Sometimes, Reiner thinks he envies Ymir for the time she spends huddled up with Christa, exchanging whispers and secret smiles.
Reiner had always had one eye out for the perfect woman- silly as it might be, that one of these islanders could be her, that he would have time to marry and continue his family and give his mother the grandchildren she always wanted. Christa seemed like the best pick, and so Reiner had decided that he liked her.
Still. There’s something in the back of his mind telling him that Christa is off limits. Ymir would kill him. Call it a hunch (an excuse, says the unhelpful voice. Just like the unhelpful voice whispers, maybe there’s a positive to Annie’s capture, because she was never good enough for Bertholdt anyway. Reiner hates that voice).
“What are you doing, Ymir?” Reiner asks the girl hunched over digging through a crate frantically. None of them will sleep tonight- that much he understands. But there’s something about the look in her eyes.
“In a girl’s room so late?” Ymir smirks. “What would Bertholdt say?”
“Why should I care what he would say?”
Ymir’s smirk only grows. “Alright. Although I have to say, you don’t strike me as a guy very interested in women.”
“You don’t seem very interested in guys either.” Reiner says uneasily. Ymir is interested in nothing. She’d be a terrible wife, unless she married Christa- hah, funny. That is what they’re talking about, right? He’s reading into there being an undertone to her words that he can’t quite identify, right?
“Damn, you caught me.” She pulls a can from the crate and spins it around, examining it. “Stop bothering Christa, yeah? I’m gonna marry her once we get out of this godforsaken castle alive.”
Reiner laughs awkwardly. Ymir stares.
Her tone was dead serious. Wait, she didn’t actually mean- for real, actually? He means, maybe Annie had rolled her eyes and called him and Bertholdt a married couple once or twice. It’s a friend thing. Just like he and Bertholdt are friends, who spent every moment together and would do anything for each other and sit around the fire with their shoulders touching confessing all their secrets.
Ymir and Christa are incredibly close friends, probably been through some trauma or something, it would make sense Ymir would want to be around her forever. Yeah. Just like he wants to be with Bertholdt forever, to go home with him.
Ymir snorts. “Geez, way to make a girl feel accepted. Don’t tell me you hadn’t put it together, with how much you watch us? What did you think we were doing all those late nights in her tent? Braiding our hair and gossiping?”
He’s sure his eyes must be comically wide by this point. Ymir and Christa are. You know. They’re. Reiner’s heard whispers about this kind of thing, sure, but Ymir says it so blatantly.
“You can… do that? Just, be with a girl if you want to?”
She looks amused. “In this crazy world, Reiner? You can do whatever the hell you want. No one gives a crap who you do it with when we’re ten seconds away from dying. Where’s your neighborhood anyway? Some tiny family of rednecks?”
The lamps flicker. Reiner swallows. “You don’t want to marry a man?”
“I like women, Reiner.” Ymir states. “And this is absolutely the last conversation I ever expected to be having with you.”
Reiner’s face burns. He thinks back on all the things he’s seen- Ymir’s rare smiles around Christa, the tender way Christa had bandaged her injuries from training, the yearning in Ymir’s gaze as she stared at Christa when she thought no one else was around.
He feels sick.
“Are you fucking crying?” Ymir asks. “I’ll kill you if you start being all backwards about this to her, understand? What’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t know!” Reiner snaps. “I’m, uh. I hope everything works out, with Christa. You guys should take any chance to be happy together if you get it.” He doesn’t know why the words almost hurt as he speaks, the burning in his eyes and the tightness in his chest.
He knows it’s not that he’s heartbroken about Christa or anything. Ymir would be better for her anyway- god, Ymir was with her with her.
And Reiner had just sort of picked Christa because she seemed nice and it almost feels like relief that she’s taken, that there’s not even a chance Reiner could have to marry her. That weight is gone from his chest but it feels like a thousand others have been piled on at once.
“Thanks,” Ymir’s voice is uncharacteristically soft. “Hey, I don’t really like you, man. But if you ever really need to talk to someone about this kind of thing, you come to me, alright? Here, want some herring?” She holds out the can.
Reiner almost doesn’t catch the odd symbols, but his mind skips over the fact that Ymir clearly can read them. “Why would I…”
“You can…” Ymir looks like she’s picking her words carefully. “You can like men too, you know, if you want to. That’s just as okay as me and Christa.”
“Yeah, uh…” Bertholdt’s smile inexplicably flashes through Reiner's mind. He jumps back like he’s been burned. I like women, Reiner and the floodgates were flung wide open and every memory of Bertholdt smiling, crying, laughing poured in.
Ymir could like women, so why couldn’t Reiner… you know…? He could. In this stupid, dirty island he could do whatever the hell he wanted. That’s just as okay as me and Christa. Just as okay. Okay. Acceptable, fine, normal, okay.
She slaps his arm. “Alrighty then. I’m gonna go give this to my girlfriend. If you tell anyone about this conversation-”
“I know.” Reiner says, and she leaves, even though Reiner doesn’t really know anything. Not anymore. He’d never even considered it as an option but there she was just laying it out for him like that and suddenly he’s running after her, every day of his life aligning into a single moment of clarity.
“Ymir! ” She turns. “How did you know she wouldn’t hate you? When you told her?” He holds his breath as she considers.
“We’ve been through a lot together. He won’t hate you, Reiner. I promise.”
Reiner swallows and lets a smile slip over his face. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”
“Now will you please leave me alone?”
He’s already walking away. He understands. He doesn’t want to pick the most acceptable bride and have kids and have whatever he’d been looking for.
He was there the whole time. That’d been Reiner’s only real goal once he realized that these island people- Ymir, Christa, (Marco)- aren’t evil. Get home with him so he wouldn’t have to fight anymore. So he would be happy.
Reiner would be happy too. With him. And there he is, sitting leaning against a wall, awkwardly long limbs folded around himself. He stands when he sees Reiner, meeting his eyes with a look of confusion at Reiner’s frantic state.
“Bertholdt, I’m in love with you.”
“What? ”
And so Reiner explains, explains that it’s okay here and that he took too long to figure it out and this is probably a bad time but the titans might kill them and this might be their only time and why can’t they just have it, just be happy without worrying about anyone else, just for a little while, until Bertholdt is blushing and smiling ear to ear.
Ymir finds them sleeping against the wall, Reiner’s arms wrapped around Bertholdt, holding him to his chest. “That idiot,” she mumbles to Christa.
Definitely not what she thought would happen today. She imagines Reiner coming up to her afterwards and thanking her. Probably crying again. God, Ymir thinks, smiling at Christa, I hate my life .