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Despite common belief, Reiner is a very light sleeper. He always wakes up with the slightest of sounds, which can be annoying, but Reiner has mastered the hability to just sleep on command, so he never takes long to fall back asleep.
The thing is, Reiner isn’t so sure he wants to this time.
He knows it’s absolutely none of his business, he knows he should just forget about it and go back to pass out next to Bertholdt on Eren and Armin’s living room - just how smashed were they that none of them left last night? Probably too much - but when he hears sobs coming from Eren’s room, where the owner of said bedroom and his boyfriend are residing at the moment, Reiner can’t help but be worried. After all, what kind of friend would he be if he doesn’t check up on Eren? A shitty one, that’s right.
So ignoring the wave of booze induced nausea that overcomes him once he sits up, Reiner slowly makes his way to Eren’s room, trying to make as little sound as possible as to not wake any of the other occupants of the living room. It’s takes a few tries, since it’s kind of hard not to step on anyone when there’s no light, but Reiner makes it to the other side of the room. The door has been left ajar, probably also because of the booze, like most of their poorer desitions earlier that night, and he can hear the quick, shallow breaths, and the sobs. Reiner also hears another voice - most definitely Levi, since everyone else is accounted for and Armin’s bedroom door is closed - murmuring soft assurances.
Now, there’s nothing bad in what he’s done so far, but even Reiner has to admit that he should just mind his own business once he realises Eren’s alright and being taken care of, but the walls are thin, the door has been left ajar, and the conversation he finds himself evesdropping is both too weird and disturbing, so Reiner finds himself taking a step closer to the door, where he can actually see Eren and Levi facing each other on the bed.
“... But is was so real, Levi! It’s always so real! Y-You were laying there and I-I…” Eren breaks into more sobs, his shaking frame illuminated by the soft halo of moonlight that slips in through the uncovered window, and Reiner sees Levi pulling him down in a hug as he calms him down. Even in the overall darkness of the room, Reiner notices how his friend immediately melts into the hug. He had seen their connection earlier, before the alcohol completely clouded his system, but it still amazes him that anyone could have such trust in someone else. It warms his heart to know that Eren has found someone that complements him so well.
Unaware of Reiner’s presence, Levi keeps trying to calm down his boyfriend, stroking his hair soothingly as he talks. “We’re not there anymore, Eren. It’s over. I wasn’t eaten by any titans, least of all you. You’d never hurt me,” Reiner frowns, trying to comprehend the general context of the conversation he’s hearing. “We got rid of them all, remember? We got a second chance, love,” Levi sounds a little choked up himself as he whispers, and Eren’s form untenses some more.
Titans? Being eaten? Why does it ring so true in his mind, when it doesn’t make an ounce of sense? The only thing akin to human-eating titans Reiner has seen in his life are in Eren’s paintings, always beautiful as they are gruesome. Reiner always gets chills when he looks at them, and the feeling that they hit a little bit too close to home never escapes him, ridiculous as it is.
(But it’s not ridiculous, is it? Deep down, he knows that there’s something else to Eren’s paintings than a morbid imagination.)
“I know, but it was so real, it was like we were back there,” Eren murmurs into Levi’s shoulder, voice raspy from all the sobbing.
“Yeah, I know. Believe me, I know, Eren. Sometimes, the dreams are just a little bit too vivid, they are a little bit too familiar,” Levi’s eyes are glassy, like he’s trying to contain the tears. Reiner wonders just what could push such a man to the verge of crying. “But I promise you we’re not there anymore, even if at times it feels like we’re still there, like—”
“Like we’ll never move on,” there’s a stretch of silence. “Why can’t we move on, Levi? Why are we stuck remembering all the death and the suffering? Why are we the only ones?”
“... Because if we don’t remember, then no one will, and all the sacrifices everyone did back then will disappear, like they were never made at all.”
Looking at the two broken men trying to fix each other up in the wee hours of the night, Reiner is hit by a sudden feeling of guilt and loss. He doesn’t know where it comes from, doesn’t know why he suddenly has the urge to get on his knees and ask for forgiveness - what is he apologizing for? What is it so awful that he feels so absolutely heartbroken as he hears a conversation he doesn’t even fully understand? - and it lets him reeling, feeling a little bit empty inside.
“It still hurts. To look at all of them and know they don’t remember. None of them feel anything when they look at the titans, and Mikasa doesn’t even recognize the painting I did of the meadow we used to play at,” Eren looks downright miserable, and Reiner doesn’t even know what they’re talking about. Remembering? Remembering what? “And when I first met the others… do you know that I couldn’t look Reiner in the eye for a week straight? Annie and Bertholdt too. I thought maybe they remembered too, that maybe it was a titan thing, you know? But then they all went and greeted me like they’ve never seen me before, when they— it feels like we’ve been left behind, you know?”
What does that mean? A titan thing? Reiner remembers Eren being a bit skittish around him at the beginning, like he was suspicious of him for some reason, but he had warmed up to him soon enough, and he never really questioned it. Was it somehow related to this strange conversation he’s hearing now? Is there something he should know about, that he’s missing?
(There is, there’s so much he should know, so much he has lived and does not recall. The Armoured protects him even if it no longer exists within him, shielding him from multiple lifetimes worth of pain and sacrifice.)
“I felt that way when I met Erwin for the first time. Bastard still acts all righteous and Captain American-y, but I was sure that if someone else would remember, besides you I guess, it would be him. That stubborn motherfucker only wanted humanity to win, so of course he would find a way to remember and see for himself, right?” Levi huffs out a laugh, but even to Reiner, who has known him for a grand total of six hours, four of which were spent being thoroughly smashed, can tell it’s humorless. “Turns our he didn’t remember shit, just like the rest of them. Honestly, before you called my name on that train station, I was sure I was the only one. I thought I was going crazy for a while, that maybe I had imagined all that shit. If no one else remembered, then surely it didn’t happen right?”
“But there were too many people you hadn’t met when you dreamt about them for the first time, that you met afterwards and turned out to be exactly like you had envisioned before,” Eren sighs, and he sounds tired, too tired for a man on his twenties who’s only worries should be passing his classes at uni. “Yeah, me too.”
Neither of them say anything else for a while, and Reiner starts to suspect maybe they fell back asleep, but there’s small rustle of sheets as Eren shifts around, and then Levi speaks again.
“You feeling better now?” Levi’s gentle tone is a sharp contrast to how he spoke earlier with more people in the room, and Reiner gets the feeling that he’s interrupting a private moment, even more so than he was before.
“Not really. The feeling that I’m going to lose you never really faves away, you know? Even if I’m sure I died first back then, it terrifies me that one day I’ll wake up and you won’t be here anymore,” there are so many wrong things in that single comment, and Reiner decides to shove all of it in a box to unpack and process later, because when Eren speaks of actually dying once before, he finds himself hitting his limit on how many weird and disturbing things he can hear in a conversation.
“I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you, you hear me? This time, we’ll live peacefully, and we’ll grow old together. There are no wars to fight, no titans to kill, no walls to keep us trapped, no corrupt governments on our asses. This time around, we’re free, Eren,” and he says it with such emotion, such conviction, that even Reiner, who doesn’t know what they are talking about, believes him fully.
“Oh,” Eren sounds breathless. “We’re… free.”
“Yeah, we are,” Levi’s stoic face melts into a small smile, once Reiner instinctively knows are reserved just for Eren. “Ready to sleep now?”
“Yeah, I think so. I… Thank you, Levi. For being here.”
“Always.”
As the both of them settle down again, Reiner slowly makes his way back to were he was sleeping next to Bertholdt a few minutes ago, narrowly missing stepping on Annie’s hand as he repositions himself. His mind is full of activity as he tries to make sense to the conversation he just listened in to, trying to figure out just what could make sense with all the pieces of a puzzle like this one.
There’s a little voice at the back of his head that tells him all the answers are right there, that he just has to reach for them, but Reiner cannot for the love of all that is holly, figure out just what is it. It’s not the first time he has felt like this. Like he has information he shouldn’t have, answering a question without knowing where he got the answer from. But this time, while he knows he should know this, Reiner just can’t… find it.
(The Armoured protects him, even if it no longer exists within him. The Armoured protects him, even if he wishes he could remember.
The Armoured protects him, keeping him whole because it knows that if it were to let go, it’s last host would rip apart, just like he did back then, torn between his duty and what felt right, until only a shade of what he used to be remained.)
(The Armoured won’t let that happen.)
When Reiner wakes up the next morning, terribly hungover and covered in limbs that do not belong to him, he thinks about what woke him up the night before.
He cannot remember.