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Laundry duty is a decent assignment. Linens and towels. Washing, drying, folding, putting away. Good smells and quiet company. Infinitely preferable to latrine or mess hall duty. Of course Reiner enjoys it less when he and Bertolt aren't assigned together, since he can't grab at him while they're hidden between sheets hanging on the lines to dry, but still.
The task fills up his late afternoon, and after dinner Reiner heads back to the laundry to pick up now-dry towels and sheets stacked neatly in a big, double-handled straw basket. He does the rounds.
Thin, greyed towels for the bathroom shelves in the scout barracks. Just cloth, really. Practically burlap.
Little hand towels cut from bigger ones too ruined to be used for showers. Some are for the kitchen, which is gross, now that he thinks about it. Some are for the crate by the doorway that leads to the gear storage, so people can grab them on their way out to missions and training. For sweat, mud, and wiping blood off of swords.
And of course the nice ones. Really nice. The regular ones feel like sandpaper compared to the towels reserved for the Officers' Washroom. Big surprise there. He climbs the stairs to the second floor and heads down the hallway towards his last stop.
There aren't any VIPs or top brass visiting, so he walks in without knocking. He's halfway across the room with a small stack of fancy towels before it dawns on him that something isn't quite as it should be, and he turns his eyes to the bathtub.
Commander Erwin Smith is sitting in the bath looking massive and out of place, surrounded by pillowy clouds of bubbles. Scents of wisteria and lavender waft through the steamy air.
The two of them stare blankly at each other. Two hundred years pass. Reiner salutes with the arm that isn't holding towels, backs out of the room, and pulls the door shut in his own face.
He stands paralyzed while his brain rebuilds itself from scratch.
"HUUUUUUUUUHRRRRRR"
"Shhhh. Shh, please. I'm sorry. Are you alright?"
Sounds of enraged sputtering.
"The fuck are you doing. You almost killed me."
"I'm so sorry… there wasn't time. Somebody walked in. Shhh. Here… let me-"
Armored Titan or not, Reiner is still a human being, and there's no human on earth who could walk away from what's happening right now. He tries to hear better.
"Ah. My fault. I forgot to lock the door. Lesson learned."
"It was one of those little shits. Which one? Who do I have to kill."
"Well, now I can't tell you. The Corps can't afford to lose good soldiers."
"Shit. Think he knew?"
"And what would he do about it if he did? Report me to me?"
"Spoken like a noble. Really sums it up."
"How cruel. I'd rather you'd called me a pig."
"I did."
The long, splashy silence that follows is too much for imagination to bear without breaking. Reiner flees down the hallway as silently as a person his size can.
Some things in life are critically urgent and can't be delayed. Reiner abandons the basket and races back to the barracks at a full sprint, barreling through anyone in his path like a linebacker. Bertolt is already in the bunk winding down with a book when Reiner scrambles up the ladder, throws the curtain shut, and breathlessly makes a full report. Amusement gives way to rapt, incredulous, awe as the details emerge.
"B. Swear to god. On my entire life."
"That's… no. Can't be. You misheard. There's no way."
"I didn't see. Didn't have to. It was Levi."
"So he was hidden in the water? Under the bubbles!?"
"I think Erwin pushed him under when I walked in and held him there."
"And he let him?"
"RIGHT?"
Bertolt gasps.
"The oils!"
The stash of lubricants and other lascivious items Reiner had discovered behind a wobbly drawer in the Officers' Washroom during their glorious two weeks of having the HQ to themselves over the holiday break.(*) They'd speculated endlessly about who'd hidden it all. They look at each other in wonder and revelation.
”B… which one d'you thin-"
"Levi. Has to be."
"Why? Just ‘cause he's smaller? You're bigger than me."
"I'm just taller, you're still bigger. Anyway shut up. This isn't about us."
"What if…” Reiner carefully considers the matter. "I'm trying to picture it. You're right. It has to be Levi. It doesn't make sense the other way. He'd need… a stepladder… to reach..."
The mental image destroys them both. They collapse in muffled hysteria, snickering helplessly into the blanket, trying and failing to be inaudible.
"Unggh. They could still do other stuff. And Levi’s strong… no. I can't. Reiner. Stop. Oh god. I don't wanna picture it either way."
“Really?” asks Reiner, regaining some composure. "Why? It's kinda hot."
"WHAT?"
"They're two powerful warriors, sneaking around to fuck in the bathtub."
"We're two powerful warriors who snuck around to fuck in the bathtub."
"No, we didn't fuck in the bathtub 'cause both of us wouldn't fit. But Levi's small so..."
"Do you know they were fucking? Maybe they were just—"
"Just what?"
"Just…” Bertolt starts to crack again. “Just taking a best friend bath."
Reiner chokes into his pillow.
"Just two buddies in a lavender bubble bath."
"Planning the mission..."
“With a little sailboat.” Reiner is crying.
"A rubber ducky."
"Sinking each other's battleships."
“Uhuhuhughhhhhh," says Bertolt, trying to breathe.
Once they've laughed themselves into gasping, pained exhaustion, they turn their minds to the practical concerns surrounding Reiner's groundbreaking but perilous discovery.
"Do you think they know you heard?"
"I dunno. Don't think so? Feel like Levi would've come flying through the door naked and strangled me with a washcloth."
Bertolt almost falls off a cliff again imagining this, but wrestles himself back from the edge.
"We'll be able to tell tomorrow. If he kills you during drills we'll know he knows. Or at least I'll know he knows. Because you'll be dead. Sorry."
"I mean it's bad enough just to see the Commander in a lavender bubble bath, but I dunno if it's a big deal. He's allowed. You can't talk anyway. You'd live in a lavender bubble bath if you could. Does it make you less deadly? No."
"True. If anything it enhances my power."
"See."
"I guess the only thing to do is pretend it never happened and hope Erwin does the same."
“Bertolt… how am I supposed to look at him?"
"How often do you look at him anyway? If he talks to you just stare over his shoulder at soldierly attention and think of other things. That's what I do when I have to talk to people."
Strategy settled, they get ready for bed and try to go to sleep. But sleep is elusive. Every once in a while one of them snorts into the silence and cry-giggles into his pillow, and the other knows that there’s been a new vision of something incredible.