Chapter Text
"Hey, Reiner. Come take a look at this.”
Reiner’s brow furrows in low-burning annoyance. Ignore him.
Easier said than done with the ever-increasing pitch of Jean’s voice as if he’s discovered a way to smuggle a phone into prison that doesn’t involve human orifices.
If Jean’s intent is for Reiner to actually listen and obey, then it’s clear he has learned nothing about his cellmate of two years, eight months, ten days.
Reiner doesn’t look up from the book in his hand, skimming a line several times to absorb what he missed while Jean was talking. After all, The Power of Now commands a person’s entire attention. Or at least that much is true for people who read more than just Playboy like Jean. Reiner has read the articles Jean claims are so riveting, full of words no longer than five letters and simple enough for a preschooler to interpret. At this point, he has legitimate doubts that his cellmate is even literate. Maybe Jean just prefers porn magazines to stimulating his mind like any sane person would with the seemingly never-ending punishment of a prison sentence before them. Small wonder Jean prefers picture books to reality. If Reiner has to pass time in here, he’s going to do it prudently and work on himself. Hell, maybe he can deter someone else from making the same mistakes once he gets out, shove them back onto the right path of sound choices and common sense. That alone might make it worthwhile.
“What?” Reiner bites out when Jean continues to whine his name plaintively in a bid to get his attention.
“Heads up. Fresh blood,” Jean announces like a child about to descend upon a hoard of Christmas presents. “You know what that means.”
"Like the last six times you've said that today," Reiner turns a page with nary a glance at Jean,"I don't give a shit.”
“But--”
“It's intakes day,” Reiner interjects. “There’s gonna be another twenty of ‘em before dinner. Old news.”
“Not like much else happens around here,” Jean mutters, slouching on the bottom bunk. “Not one of them has looked even a little interesting. What’s with that, anyway? Just last month,” he squints in recollection, “we had the guy missing a foot and that horny guy who called you a pretty princess. Oh, and the dude who claimed to be D.B. Cooper.” He scratches his chin. “Where’d he say he stashed the money again?”
Reiner’s eyebrow twitches. That, of course, Jean notices with glee.
How could Reiner forget? In the end, the horny guy had been frogmarched down the hall by three guards, howling his appreciation for Reiner’s pectorals while other inmates hollered and cat-called. And Reiner, red-faced, had endured it, ribbed by Jean all the while. It was impossible to forget that kind of humiliation. Outside prison, he wouldn’t draw so much as a glance for his build, but in prison he’s just another piece of meat up for grabs like everybody else with an ass in here. Except Jean, who Reiner suspects is such an insufferable braggart that there’s not a single inmate who could be bribed -- with cash, smokes, or commissary -- to hit it.
“Did I touch a nerve?” Jean asks, grinning up at him.
“It wasn’t pretty princess,” Reiner grinds out, because that’s the important fact to establish.
Jean hums in agreement. “Oh, yeah,” he says with a snap of his fingers. "Wasn’t it something about your ti--”
Exasperated, Reiner slams the book shut to cut him off. “You aren’t gonna shut up at all, are you?”
Jean examines his nails. “Hadn’t planned to, nope.”
“That’s a shame.” Reiner flings the book in Jean’s general direction, rewarded by a satisfying thump and a yelp of agony that will lull him to sleep for weeks to come. He smirks to himself in satisfaction and flops back on the bed.
Sullenly, Jean rubs at his purpling cheek. “You don’t have to resort to violence to get your point across, y’know.”
“With you?” Reiner scoffs. “Yes, I sure as hell do.”
“I’m starting to see how you ended up in jail in the first place,” Jean says under his breath.
“Like you’re any better,” Reiner says levelly. “Embezzlement is financial violence.”
“I was just borrowing it! You have no idea how expensive a girlfriend is, Reiner. How fast they rack up bills. I was gonna give it back. Eventually.”
Reiner chuckles. “Yeah, well, that’s not how the judicial system sees it.”
“This is all very beside the point,” Jean retorts, bending to pick up the book Reiner so flippantly discarded, “which is that you’re a brute.” He pauses to inspect the cover. “What the hell kind of book are you reading? The Power of Now. What is this?” He laughs like a hyena, flipping to the back cover to read the blurb. “Is this a self-help book? Oh, man. You trying to improve yourself. Now I’ve seen everything. What’s next, lizards employed as surgeons? Fish with opposable thumbs?”
Reiner counts to five, stifling the urge to throttle Jean in broad daylight. Maybe when Jean is asleep and unsuspecting and there’s nobody around to identify him as the perpetrator. Really, it’s a miracle they’ve gotten to the two-year mark of sharing a cell without bloodshed or limb loss. Reiner attributes it to the fact that murder would only add to his sentence at this point.
He ignores the continued laughter bubbling up from the bunk below his. “Just making the most of my time in here. If you had half a brain, you’d do the same.”
“What, so you can integrate back into society, pretend to be a civilized human with a moral centre instead of a complete knuckle-dragging lowlife?”
Reiner grunts an affirmative. “Something like that.”
“Maybe you can start your own podcast? Re-Imagining Your Life with your host, Reiner Braun.”
Reiner rolls to face the wall. “Shut up, Jean.”
“Too vague?” Jean wonders aloud. “How about a day-in-the-life documentary? The Ten Habits of Wildly Successful Extortionists? Netflix would pay to get their hands on that one.”
Reiner is about to make good on the accusations of violence when a raucous commotion from down the corridor catches his attention. Book forgotten, Jean jumps out of bed and presses his face against the bars of the cell, craning his neck to get a better look at the source of the disturbance. Even Reiner has to admit to being curious. He climbs down from the bunk and retrieves the discarded book from the floor, brushing it off. He steps beside Jean, peering out. The ruckus has captured the audience of other inmates too. Such a clamor is unusual on days that new inmates are processed; it’s noise more typical of everyday life here. Something about it makes Reiner’s blood curdle like milk left on the counter too long.
Swearing. Loud, cantankerous cursing that carries down the hallway, disrupted by the occasional grunt or indignant shout. A voice that thunders.
It can’t be.
Reiner’s heartbeat thrums at the all-too-recognisable voice. It’s etched in his memory, a vestige of a time long since past. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t forget it. No more than he can forget who it belongs to, considering that its owner is largely to blame for him being arrested in the first place.
Jean jabs Reiner in the ribs questioningly. “Why are you so pale all of a sudden?”
Reiner’s mouth opens, then closes. His thoughts collide and tangle into one never ending knot.
Jean shrugs and squints at the approaching trio, consisting of one new inmate -- a man with long, unkempt hair, eyes narrowed to slits, and his mouth pinched in a snarl -- flanked by two guards, each gripping an arm firmly despite the shackles around the man’s feet, the hands cuffed securely in front of him. The man has an unhinged, feral look about him like an animal that’s been in a cage for too long, a thread wound too tightly on the verge of snapping. It’s more than a little familiar. He’s wearing the same clothes as Reiner, Jean, and everyone else on the floor, but he looks like he should be wrapped in a straight jacket instead.
It's Eren fucking Jaeger: the very tangible relic of Reiner's previous life come back to bite him in the proverbial ass.
He can’t stop himself from uttering, “Eren?”
Then Eren’s head turns sharply, and his eyes lock onto Reiner. Recognition and fury blaze there, hotly enough to make Reiner stare back blankly.
He has a blood-chilling, creeping feeling that Eren remembers everything that happened between them on the outside.
And Reiner is more than certain that if Eren could bite him at this very moment, he would, and with the intention to do much more than just draw blood. Knowing Eren, he wouldn’t settle for less than Reiner’s organs. Maybe evisceration if he were feeling particularly merciful.
Jean throws Reiner a quizzical look. “You know this guy?”
Reiner makes an attempt to answer but Eren’s voice pitches up several octaves as he starts shrieking Reiner’s name in a tone that should only be reserved for grieving mothers and fighting cats, and the only sound that Reiner can make is a sharp intake of breath.
All he manages to say is shit under his breath.
Cussing and grunting, the guards double down on their grip, forcibly dragging Eren along now. He’s too lean to act as any sort of counterweight. He still looks exactly the way he did back when Reiner was still a free man, just with none of the carefree attitude he’d possessed then, and certainly not as clean and well-groomed.
Eren spits in Reiner’s general direction as he passes their cell, drawing jeers from other inmates. “Reiner, you goddamn son of a bitch.”
Reiner just barely dodges the glob of saliva, glaring at Eren. He’d forgotten about Eren’s penchant for spitting when he wasn’t getting his way, but he remembers the self-righteous attitude like it was yesterday.
“Nice to see you too,” he mutters as the commotion continues despite Eren’s best efforts to balk and struggle against his handlers.
Reiner squashes the urge to uppercut Jean for laughing hysterically beside him. The last thing he needs is to be put in solitary, which is where he predicts Eren will be headed in the not too distant future. Probably a matter of hours.
“Man, does he hate you,” Jean remarks when Eren is down the hall and out of sight. He wipes away the tears of mirth, wearing that shit-eating grin Reiner can’t stand.
Reiner thinks that’s the understatement of the decade. If there’s an emotion stronger than hate, Eren invented it just now with that decimating look he’d given Reiner.
He grimaces. “You have no idea.”
“So you knew him on the outside?” Jean asks with a sidelong glance. “Really?”
Reiner climbs back up to his bunk, brows creased in deep thought. He slowly opens his book again in a futile attempt to return to the page he had been on before, refusing to entertain Jean’s version of the Spanish Inquisition that will inevitably follow. He has enough questions to ask of himself right now, most of them concerning Eren, and--
"Oh, you’re not getting out of it that easily. What's the story there?" Jean demands, hauling himself up the ladder to the top bunk to get a gauge on Reiner’s expression. He snatches the book off Reiner, pre-empting being ignored yet again. "I'm sensing some sordid history there, buddy. That was a lot of testosterone and bodily fluid."
"How many times have I told you not to refer to me as your--"
"Just answer the question," Jean says, tugging insistently at the hem of Reiner's ghoulishly orange jumpsuit. "You obviously know the guy and he definitely knows you."
The story told in its entirety would rival the word count of Atlas Shrugged if put to paper. Reiner may be serving an eight year sentence but he has better things to do than dredge up ancient history. Besides, there's not enough time left to tell it. He has just five years left before he's out, and two more before he's eligible for parole. Even a lifer would find it impossible to pen the tale of Eren and Reiner's past.
“Trust me,” Reiner says at last, “you’re better off not knowing.”
“Like hell. You’re gonna have to tell me sooner or later. You’ll be seeing him in rec tomorrow if he doesn’t give the guards rabies.”
Reiner scrubs his face with a long-suffering sigh. For once in his life, Jean has a point.
"And how long since you fucked him?" Jean asks conversationally, apropos of nothing.
Reiner fights his mouth's natural response to drop open in disbelief. Instead, he scowls.
How could Jean infer that much from just the eyefucking Eren had given him? Jean is about as observant as a toddler and just as prone to a tantrum if denied getting his own way, much like Eren himself. He has to stop that train of thought in its tracks because it’s getting too disturbing to conflate his cellmate with his ex-- his ex what?
“Jesus, Reiner, how do you walk around with that thing?”
Reiner casts him a puzzled glance. “Huh?”
"Here," Jean says with a measure of disgust, lips curling. He offers the book to Reiner again, covering his eyes. "You need this more than me. Hide that shit."
Reiner glances down to find even if his brain remembers Eren a certain way, his lower half certainly disagrees and finds Eren entirely agreeable for its purposes.