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Reiner had no idea . Which was saying something, because Reiner was the type to notice when someone changed shampoo or reorganised their bookshelves. And yet, when he walked into the cozy , softly-lit backyard of Hange and their wife’s house—expecting a casual dinner with Bertholdt—he was met with the deafening chorus of:
“SURPRISE!!”
Right next to him, Zeke blinked slowly behind his glasses, processing the sea of banners, balloons, fairy lights, and two cakes sitting proudly on the table. “What… in the hell,” he muttered. “You people remembered my birthday?”
“You share a birthday with Reiner, dude,” Jean grinned, slinging an arm around Marco, who immediately held up a glittery card with sheepish excitement. “No way we’d forget two-for-one cake day .”
Reiner stood frozen for a moment, then laughed—loud and honest. “You all really did this?”
Bertholdt was beside him in an instant, offering a quiet smile that warmed every anxious corner of Reiner’s chest. “Of course we did,” he said, voice soft. “You deserve to be celebrated.”
Zeke looked like he might say something sarcastic—but Eren had already wrapped him in a tight, borderline bone-crushing hug from the side.
“Happy birthday, nii-chan ,” Eren said with a rare softness. “You doing okay?”
Zeke nodded, letting out a long, exasperated sigh. “I suppose I’m out of excuses to be emotionally unavailable tonight.”
“Damn right you are,” Mikasa added, appearing beside them with an armful of mismatched party hats. “Now wear this hat.”
Levi snatched one from the pile. “Not that one. Give him the sparkly one. It’ll annoy him more.”
“Wow,” Zeke deadpanned. “Sibling energy radiating off both of you like radiation.”
“Is that a compliment?” Mikasa asked.
“No.”
Reiner was already being tugged into a hug by Sasha, who smelled like wine and vanilla cake. “You thought we’d let your birthday pass without getting you wasted?” she beamed. “Think again!”
Niccolo raised a glass from the barbecue, grinning. “She's right—we’ve got grilled sea bass, steak, that potato salad Jean’s mom made, and Sasha’s been taste-testing everything.”
“Everything,” Connie echoed, holding a hotdog in one hand and a paper plate of brownies in the other. “Speaking of which—any of you know any hot, single women? Like, emotionally stable, tax-paying types who’d think I’m cool?”
“Still on that, huh?” Jean smirked, walking up to his best friends.
“I’m expanding my search. I’ve accepted that Pieck is out of my league.”
“She’s dating Yelena and Porco,” Armin said gently, also joining the conversation, as if this was new information.
"I know , Armin,” Connie groaned, shoving half a brownie into his mouth as if that could fill the gaping void of his dating life.
Which, naturally, meant it was open season on Connie Springer.
“Bro,” Jean said, barely holding in a laugh, “even Hange got married before you.”
“I’m standing right here, ” Hange called from the grill, flipping veggie skewers while her wife added lemon slices to the drinks. “And I’m extremely flattered.”
“But he's right,” Niccolo chimed in. “No offense , Connie, but they works twelve-hour days building synthetic organs in a lab and somehow found time to fall in love.”
“I also found time to build a scale model of a sentient octopus that could drive a car,” Hange added proudly.
“AND got laid,” Sasha pointed out helpfully.
“Several times,” Hange’s wife added with a little smirk, raising her glass in silent solidarity with her proud, slightly unhinged spouse.
Connie sputtered. “Okay, first of all—what kind of comparison is that?! It’s not like I have access to car-driving octopi or an entire science budget!”
“Don’t need a budget to download a dating app,” Marco teased gently.
“I’ve been on them!” Connie cried. “But you try filtering through bios like ‘into vibes’ and ‘looking for my Genshin sugar daddy’ and tell me it’s easy!”
“I mean,” Levi muttered from his spot on the porch swing, “Vincent found me and I’m basically a raccoon with knives.”
“That’s… not inaccurate,” his husband murmured, sipping a drink behind him.
Zeke, who was now nursing a drink and starting to enjoy himself far too much, leaned over to whisper to Reiner, “You think we should set him up with someone?”
Reiner, hiding a laugh, said, “Only if we want to start another disaster.”
“Hey!” Connie pointed a half-eaten cupcake at them. “You two are laughing! You're literally the birthday boys! I shouldn’t be the butt of today’s jokes!”
“We contain multitudes,” Zeke said smoothly.
“You contain no game,” Jean muttered.
“I will pour soda into your gas tank.”
“You don’t know what a carburetor is.”
The roast continued for several more minutes, with even Armin—sweet, diplomatic Armin—casually remarking that Connie should maybe stop telling women that he believes aliens built the pyramids on first dates.
“It’s called authenticity, ” Connie defended, arms crossed.
“No,” Mikasa said calmly, “it’s called filtering yourself until the third date like the rest of us. ”
And despite the relentless mockery, Connie couldn’t help but laugh too. Because under all the jokes, under the glitter and lights and cake-stuffed chaos, was love. Brutal, weird, loud, and loyal—exactly the kind of love that meant you got absolutely destroyed by your friends one moment, and held up by them the next.
Zeke, oddly enough, was smiling. For most of his life, he’d been uncertain—about people, about belonging, about whether anything good ever really lasted. After his parents’ messy divorce, he’d carried that instability like a second skin, always waiting for things to fall apart, for connections to be temporary and trust to come with conditions. But tonight, with warm lights glowing overhead and laughter echoing off the trees, something felt solid. Eren had an arm draped around his shoulder, loud and ridiculous and painfully sincere. Mikasa, with her usual quiet strength, handed him a piece of chocolate brownie without a word—just knowing. He glanced across the yard and caught Levi raising a brow at him from behind a plastic cup, their weird, sharp-edged friendship somehow one of the most constant things in his life now. Zeke didn’t know how he’d ended up here—mocked affectionately by a gremlin-sized clean freak, loved without question by an unhinged younger brother—but maybe that was the point. He didn’t need to know. He just had to accept the strange, fiercely loyal universe that had chosen him.
Bertholdt led Reiner toward a quieter part of the patio, under strings of lights and swaying leaves. “Did you really not suspect anything?”
“I thought you were being shady all week,” Reiner admitted with a quiet chuckle. “But I just assumed you were hiding another cat in our apartment.”
Bertholdt smiled, fingers brushing against Reiner’s for a moment. “There’s no new cat. Just a whole lot of people who love you.”
Reiner’s gaze softened. “You included?”
Bertholdt leaned a little closer, eyes flickering. “Especially me.”
Reiner would’ve kissed him if Marco hadn’t loudly shouted from across the yard, “PHOTO TIME AND FINAL CAKE CALLOUT!! Couples together, please!! And Zeke, you stand next to Connie!”
“What? Why?” Zeke raised an eyebrow.
“Because everyone else is paired off and you two are chaos bachelors,” Marco grinned. “Lean in! Look like you almost tolerate each other.”
“I do not tolerate him,” Zeke said immediately.
“I resent the implication,” Connie added, wrapping an arm around Zeke’s shoulder anyway and flashing a peace sign.
“Hey,” Levi called out from the back. His husband—Vincent, the quiet doctor who’d somehow survived Levi’s grumpiness and still loved him—stood beside him holding a tray of drinks. “Can we skip the part where someone inevitably shoves like the last piece of cake into someone’s face?”
“No promises!” Sasha shouted back from somewhere.
Armin and Annie stood at the edge of the group, Annie holding a paper plate with alarming delicacy. “You think if we lock ourselves in the bathroom for long enough, they'll accept that we're having sex and leave us alone”, she muttered.
Armin turned red. “WH-WHAT?!”
“Me are already so 'couple coded', might as well make it literal in their eyes.”
Eren and Mikasa stood next to them, Mikasa rolling her eyes at the two, Eren snickering. “I give it two more birthday parties before Armin caves and proposes.”
“Shut up,” Armin grumbled just loud enough for his childhood friends to hear but not loud enough for his girlfriend, even though he looked like he wouldn’t mind that.
Erwin showed up a little later, tie half-loosened and hair wind-swept, his wife arriving beside him in work heels.
“ Sorry we’re late,” he called. “Her shift ran long and I got caught lecturing someone who parked like a war criminal.”
“You’re forgiven,” Hange shouted back, his voice carrying through the thick air. “As long as you eat at least one skewer and dance once.”
“Dance?” Erwin echoed.
“You promised,” his wife reminded him with a smirk. “You lost that bet, remember?”
“Ugh.”
"HELL YEAH!", this time Hange had manifested in front of him all of a sudden, with her narrowly catching him before he jumped straight into a table of food.
The night carried on like that—music swelling, fairy lights glowing, drinks flowing. Reiner was smiling more than he had in weeks. Zeke was finally, just maybe, feeling like part of something, after having a rough time recently.
Bertholdt stayed near Reiner’s side, and Eren kept popping up beside Zeke like a happy golden retriever.
Mikasa also shared quiet moments with Levi, the two of them cleaning up plates and bickering over who took longer to dry them, which in their language was bonding, as they also hadn't had the opportunity to hang out much recently, especially after Levi's promotion and Mikasa's education; therefore the 2 were taking advantage of this small moment as much as possible.
Sasha got frosting on Niccolo’s nose somehow. Marco and Jean danced poorly but with enthusiasm, which surprised absolutely no one. Connie had to leave early due to a job interview he had the next morning and the fact he lived over an hour away, but before he left the sneaky bastard stole a bunch of cupcakes ' for the road' and left a note on the fridge that said: Single ladies, inquire within. Must like aliens and horror movies ( idfc if she can even pay her taxes at this point. Yall all made me feel single af .)
By the time the night ended, Zeke and Reiner sat side by side on a porch step, each nursing a final beer.
“This was a good day,” Reiner said softly.
Zeke nodded. “Weird. But good.”
“Yeah.”
A long pause passed.
“…Hey,” Zeke added, nudging him. “Happy birthday.”
Reiner chuckled. “Happy birthday to you too .”