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A few years after officially giving up his ambassador duties, Reiner feels lost.
He thought he had it all figured out: therapy sessions getting less frequent, shorter, more sincere; genuine compliments from the professional who’d started following him after the war, the so-called ‘giant leaps’ he’d done, the self-confidence he’d try to bathe in right after, how quick and easy all his interactions with others came to be. At some point down the road, he’d truly believed he was getting better, and there would be no coming back to the pitch dark waters he’d used to swim in.
Instead, he wakes up every single morning and asks himself what is happening with him, or rather what isn’t. Why does his heart refuse to slow down, and what is this feeling— anxiety?, that weighs him down, clawing at muscle and bone, tugs him further down with each passing day.
It all turns into self-doubt in a heartbeat. Going back to therapy is not an option, not with his current salary and after moving in with Gabi, Falco and Levi: so he endures. It will get better, he tells himself, revisiting the old mental exercises he still knows like the back of his hand.
So, Reiner waits, stumbling and struggling to keep himself upright, and wonders where he should go next.
*
Something’s wrong.
Gabi trips up on her own words lately, restless in this new, mostly peaceful world she’ll never get used to. It’s not the first time she calls Reiner dad, and they always laugh it off, except it digs further and further into his heart, and he asks himself why he hasn’t started his own family yet.
There’s no real need for it, isn’t there? He smiles in kind, ruffles Gabi’s hair, tells her he might as well be her father, why not? And her grin is too wide, too pleased, her cheeks red. She loves him so much, it makes Reiner want to stop thinking of himself as unworthy.
Whatever complicated feeling Falco felt towards him back then vanished over the years, during their joint cooking sessions, weekends spent cleaning the house, looking after Levi, remembering, wondering about missing memories, what could have been. He’s the only one who helps Reiner revisit the memories from Liberio’s last days, talk about the other warriors unscathed, all thanks to Falco’s silent, solid presence by his side. He’s grateful beyond words.
The meetings with the other former ambassadors are brief, scattered around like dried leaves. They drifted apart, and Reiner doesn’t care as much as he once would’ve: it does hurt, but it’s manageable, it can be pushed to the deepest recesses of his mind with little trouble. He’s a master of compartmentalisation, anyway.
What he truly misses, he realises, is conflict— the kind he’d used to feed on and spit back at others, in his own way. That’s where Levi comes in, the fixed point that occupies most of his waking hours, embodying a kind of conflict he’d never handled before.
He’s the one who pushes the truth right under your nose, and he’s merciless, vulgar, straight to the point. Having an argument with him is never easy, Reiner’s experienced this several times since he moved in: but he’s also capable of leaping in the opposite direction, smothering him with the strength of intimacy, desire, a raw need to touch and feel and breathe that Reiner wouldn’t hesitate to call unprecedented.
It does feel like getting to know himself all over again, maneuvering his words and gestures around the many jagged ends of Levi’s personality, attuned to his needs, what he wants, how he wants it. From a simple need to blow steam off, in the heat of the moment, it’s all grown into a much more intricate ritual— nails that dig into Reiner’s back, clawing off old skin that he refuses to shed, inhaling poisoned breath right out of his parted lips, kisses that show more teeth than needed, spit and sweat and bruises, they cling to each other and Reiner looks right back into himself, wonders, is there anything else to it? Another deep, forgotten corner of his mind he’d given up on recovering at some point?
Levi will find it no matter what— he’s going to grasp it with all eight fingers, stare down at it with one eye, showing his scarred half-smile, wave it right in front of Reiner’s face and translate it in the language that works best for him. Something he could’ve never anticipated when all he knew were half-truths, challenging arguments, complicated feelings that he could never fully understand, no matter how well the other person meant, whoever it was.
On a particularly rainy afternoon, lying in bed side by side, Reiner turns his head and sees himself, furrowed brows and all, a crystal clear reflection in the deep black of Levi’s sleepy, lone eye.
The light cast in the room by the grey, dark sky is ugly and does no favours to what just transpired, making it all look like some messy, depraved animal instinct that wrecked the bed like a sudden natural disaster: it fills Reiner’s chest with bright, bright heat and he inhales deeply, welcoming the feeling. Then, he kisses Levi’s lips, finding them soft as always, somewhat chapped around the scar.
“Let’s get out of here for a few days,” he suggests, before he’s kissed back.
“What are you talking about?”
Dry, yet curious, somewhat affectionate— in his own way. Reiner smiles into the next kiss. “Don’t tell me you’re fine with two or three hours a week. We could do this all day instead of settling for crumbs.”
Levi’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh? And you call me an insatiable little bitch?”
“I never said you were a little bitch.”
“I wish you would. Your dirty talk is shit.”
“Then give me more time to practice,” Reiner insists, dead set on not letting go of Levi’s mouth: he snorts against his lips, but there’s no smart comeback to his words.
“You know,” he tries again, after a rather long kiss that leaves both of them breathless, “It’s like this only when I’m with you. I never did anything of the sort with… well. Anyone.”
Again, no answer, because Levi is always at least five steps ahead in their conversations: surely he’s given a name to this feeling, to it all by now, and he’s waiting for Reiner to catch up in his own time.
It’s a respect no one’s ever granted him before, which is why Reiner kisses Levi that much harder, and harder, with no intention of stopping.
*
One day, in public, Levi takes Reiner by the hand.
It’s whiplash: in the span of half a second he breathes in the same air he remembers from the top of the walls in Shiganshina, in the streets of Liberio, lost in the middle of an endless desert under the night sky— but he’s home, barely out of the front door, Levi’s three fingers slotted awkwardly between his own.
He looks up at Reiner and lifts his chin with that cat-like elegance that he’s never lost over the years. “What’s wrong?”
His heart won’t slow down, and swallowing proves to be harder by the minute. He’s tearing up as well. “I don’t know. It’s probably nothing.”
Levi’s scoff is quiet, yet a lot warmer than usual, and he doesn’t let go of Reiner’s hand even when he complains about not being able to push his wheelchair properly.