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Connie's the one who teaches them the dance after dinner, insisting that it aids digestion: "Line up facing your partner," he urges, and when Samuel tries to dodge with, "There aren't enough girls," Connie just stares at him blankly and says, "No one's making babies here. It's a dance." And they're still squinting at that when Marco sweeps Jean to his feet, draws him face-to-face, and beams unselfconsciously. Jean flushes, but he doesn’t break away.
After that, it's easy.
Armin tugs Eren from his chair. Franz and Hannah latch onto each other, of course, and Ymir grudgingly takes the hand that Krista offers her. Bert is shyly stepping toward Annie when Reiner cuts in, seizing him around the waist and swirling him into line next to Sasha and Mikasa.
"Reiner," Bert whispers, face red. They're supposed to be keeping their relationship quiet.
"It's a dance," says Reiner, mimicking Connie's voice in a graciously low, masculine tone that makes Bert smile a little. He arranges himself in front of Reiner, feeling his gaze drop demurely. Reiner's hands are still on his hips. He leans into the touch subtly, basking in the full, rich sound of Reiner's laughter as he realizes what Bert is doing. Tease, Reiner mouths.
N-no, Bert mouths back, his hesitancy as obvious as a stutter.
You're beautiful.
Annie jostles Reiner hard with her shoulder on her way into line with Mina Carolina, who looks just as flushed and excited as Bertolt feels.
"Okay, okay," says Connie, clapping his hands. "Everyone got their partner? Yeah? Okay, it starts with a little, like—here, watch—"
All he does is take a few wide, sweeping steps, but everyone is immediately attentive. They know Connie's good with the 3DMG—he tells them as much, after all—but this movement is instantly something else. It's a language, a legacy. Something lovely beyond words. Connie holds hands with his imaginary dancing partner as he moseys on across the dining room floor, tables pushed aside for this occasion, adding easy little skips and swirls along the way.
"Like that, see."
"Whoa, whoa. Slow down," says Marco, laughing.
So Connie spends the next ten minutes teaching them how to glide sideways on their clumsy feet. It shouldn't be so hard, but there's such a certainty in it, a simplicity that is impossible to replicate. There are collisions and stepped-on toes. Eren actually tears a pant leg, and they all end up laughing and scoffing at each other as they bump each other back and forth down their haphazard rows.
"You guys are terrible," Connie groans. He's laughing too, one exasperated hand clasped to his forehead.
"Like this?" says Mikasa suddenly, her voice delicate in its insecurity, and everyone watches as she leads Sasha across the floor.
It's gorgeous: they move soft as spell, Sasha's feet light and confident, Mikasa's free hand tucked against the small of her back like Connie showed her. Bert feels himself smiling. Of course they'd be good at this. In a rare burst of emotion, he heads a round of applause, which Connie hijacks by whooping and whistling.
"Yes!" Connie yelps, clapping wildly. "Exactly! See, even Sasha can do it!"
"Hey!" Sasha cries.
They make Mikasa and Sasha demonstrate about twenty more times before they get it down themselves. Bert keeps tripping over his own feet. He feels ridiculous, huge and clumsy and stiff, but Reiner is smiling at him like he's something that emits its own light. They get through it. They even manage the silly little skips that Connie makes look effortless and light, and even if they're the worst ones at it, no one teases them. Bert feels the untapped grace in it, sees how it can be beautiful. He's focusing so hard that he almost forgets that he's holding Reiner's hands in public. Step, skip, step. Step, skip, step—
"Okay, now for the hard part," says Connie, and everyone groans.
It turns out to be twirling. Lots of twirling. One person steadies the other, and Bert fights for the more stationary function, but Reiner is stronger, and he's spinning Bert around in dizzying circles before Bert can get his footing. He stumbles into Reiner, gripping the front of the shirt for balance.
"Don't make him sick," Connie laughs. "Lead him. Make him want to turn for you."
"You wanna turn for me?" Reiner says once Connie has turned away, his voice deep and flirtatious.
"Not if my life depended on it," says Bert, out of breath.
And where Reiner could darken that, dull the mood with talk of missions and duty, he laughs heartily. "I'll win you over yet, Hoover."
He is gentler after that. He eases Bert into curves so light that Bert feels floated along, startled by the impossibly tender touch of Reiner's fingers, his ready, guiding embrace. Three, four, five—six soft turns, and then Reiner is drawing the thin stretch of Bertolt's arm outward across his own chest, their other hands still clasped.
From there, Connie teaches them a spacious turn and some light, precise steps that draw them side-to-side, palms touching. They lose Samuel and Mylius ("Screw it," says Sam, though the two of them linger to watch), and Annie and Mina end up in a tangle of arms that Connie has to extricate without meeting Annie's murderous gaze. Jean's floundering, but Marco's carrying him well, soothing him along with soft hands and smiles. Only Mikasa and Sasha seem to be getting it quickly, swept along in movements so pretty and second-nature that Bert feels a little stab of longing. He wants to be beautiful like that; wants to be beautiful for Reiner. He follows Reiner's arms into a half-moon turn, then back out, around and back in.
"Arms wide now," says Connie. He hums a thin musical accompaniment as he demonstrates on Armin, first spreading his arms and then settling his hands on Eren's waist. Eren yelps and laughs.
"Tickles," he says.
"Turn," Connie instructs, all business. "Twice, then release. Armin, send him off spinning."
Connie's worse than Shadis. He drills them over and over again until their feet finally begin finding the right places on the hardwood, and then, god help them all, he begins to sing in earnest. Bert winces. Connie himself winces. "I am a merciful slave driver," he says after a few rounds of hoarse caterwauling, coughing to clear his throat. "Who sings well?"
"Jean can," says Marco promptly.
Jean flushes to the tips of his ears, but he doesn't argue. "Yeah, I—when I was a kid, anyway."
"Could you pick out the tune from what I was singing?"
"Barely," Jean scoffs, and, after a long, uncertain moment, he begins humming the song again. This time it's music: even Eren quiets, and Marco's expression sharpens into something with a deep, longing clarity.
There's nothing to say to it. Nothing that wouldn't cheapen it. They listen. Mikasa and Sasha are the first to find the beat, and they begin dancing again. Sasha sings too, softer, her voice sweet and twangy as Mikasa leads her into neat spins and step-outs. Her dress billows as she twirls, revealing the dark, lovely slips of her legs.
Connie is thrilled to pieces. "Yes!" he shouts. "My vision! Do it like that, just like that!"
They try. They really do. Armin is too short to spin Eren without bumping his head with his elbow at every rotation, and Eren doesn’t have one fluid bone in his body. Ymir and Krista are clumsy and giggling. Annie and Mina give up, but they sit down together at the end of one of the tables, and damned if there isn't a small, affectionate smile tugging at Annie's lips.
It takes a good hour, but Marco and Jean are the only others to manage the dance in full. They fumble, they snicker; Jean sings like a songbird and lets Marco glide him around the dining hall one careful step at a time. There's a part where Jean has to reach over Marco's broad shoulder for his hand. With both of them facing the same way, Bert can see the softness in Jean's face, the anticipation and adoration in Marco's. Marco accepts the tips of Jean's fingers and pivots to meet him. The movement brings their faces close. They look directly into each other's eyes, like lovers do, and Jean forgets to keep humming.
Bert wonders how Reiner gazes at him, if the same intensity lights his face. Whenever Bert catches him staring, they both turn away. It'd be too telling if they didn't. They'd set the space between them on fire.
Now, though, with an excuse to look at each other, Bert studies the gray rings around Reiner's pupils, the faint freckles that the sun has brought out of the tip of his nose and his cheekbones. The whisper of stubble on his jaw. The thin, sensual bow of his lips; the way his tongue steals out to moisten them. They let their feet and Jean's voice carry them into the correct turns, the steps mirrored now, reciprocal. Bert swallows so loudly that Reiner hears it. Reiner snorts, smiles. His expression gentles as he places his palms against Bert's, his calluses firm and familiar and slick with Bert's sweat—
Reiner trips. Bert tries to steady him, but he staggers under his weight, and the two of them end up eye-to-eye in each other's arms. Bert throws back his head and laughs, bright and earnest—and freezes when he sees the radiant look on Reiner's face.
"What?" he says, flushing.
"You're exquisite," says Reiner at full volume.
Bert feels his stomach leap. "Reiner!" he hisses, casting his eyes around quickly to see if anyone overheard—
—oh. Everyone overheard. They're all staring at Bert with similar wonder, smiling, but they look absolutely unsurprised by Reiner's profession.
"What?" Bert croaks pathetically.
"I didn't know you laughed," says Eren.
"I didn't know you snort-laughed," Connie adds.
"You think that's weird, you oughta hear him in bed," says Reiner.
Bert smacks Reiner in the chest so hard that the breath whooshes out of him, and the sound makes everyone laugh again, even Bert. He buries his face in the crook of Reiner's neck and kisses there softly, so no one else can see it. And they dance. They dance and they dance and they dance.
Unsurprisingly, all of them sleep soundly that night—soundly enough that Bert feels safe allowing Reiner to roll on top of him in bed and kiss him, first lightly, then with an abrupt, avid hunger that leaves Bert panting. They make out there in the dark for several long minutes, stroking the forbidden hems of each other's clothes. Reiner's hardness strains his trousers. Bert accepts it between his clothed, parted thighs, squeezing gently.
"I love you," whispers Reiner. "I love you when you make those nervous sounds, and when you twitch at your own name, and when you press your lips to the nape of my neck when you think I'm sleeping. But I love you best when you laugh, Bert—and when you dance with me."