A/N: Some context, because it's important here considering nothing much is explained. This is pretty much a werewolf AU. And the point of this was playing with a fictional society, and a relationship between Bert, and Reiner. It's set in modern day America in the Blue Ridge mountains in Georgia where a village of werewolves have set up a small, isolationist society. This explores some of the societal norms, and the way that they make life hard on Reiner as he comes to terms with the fact that he's in love with Bertholdt. Most of the notions here are based on the idea that this is an endangered species that is holding on at the edge of extinction due to being hunted, making it very important to settle down, and have a family. Also an important thing, Love, and Romance are seen as animalistic, as there is some deep set resentment for humans engrained in the way they live, meaning they put a higher value on "baser" things. Of course that does not mean that they are without tenderness.


He noticed that it was more than friendship when he turned thirteen, and playing doctor was suddenly awkward. It was all the same stuff they'd always done as kids, but then things were off.

Bert prescribed him a kiss, and he'd liked it a little too much. It wasn't really odd for two guys to kiss, so he hadn't thought about it. Their whole life they'd seen their fathers kiss in greeting. Kissing was a friendship thing.

Or it had been until Bert's mouth was on his, and Reiner didn't want to let him go because something about the way their lips brushed up against each other had gone straight to his head, making it fuzzy. Kissing was a friendship thing.

How often did they see their mother's kiss their fathers? Rarely if ever, and only when they were being friendly.

Biting was romantic. Nipping hard at ear lobes, and leaving bruises on shoulders. That was romance. That was the romance they had been raised to crave their whole lives. But suddenly friendship was making him want to bite, and hold down, and make bleed.

Suddenly friendship felt like a precursor to romance.

"Are you okay?" Bert asked when he looked at the shocked expression on his face. "Reiner?"

That night, when he'd touched himself he'd thought of Bert, and then wondered if it was alright to fuck guys the same way it was alright to kiss them. Maybe, he thought, just so long as it was gentle, like friends, it wouldn't be too bad.

Not that it would ever happen. They'd probably both have girlfriends before it came to that.

The village was a sprawl up in the mountains. Hardly any of them were anything that could be call close enough to be neighbors. Bert and Annie lived within a mile of Reiner's house though. They'd been raised together all their lives. They were best friends, and confidants. A pack of the next generation.

Bert, and Annie were the only other kids Reiner saw most of the time. Unless it was a special occasion. Something like town meeting, or a holiday.

He'd listened, for years, to overheard plans his parents discussed for him to marry Annie. He'd been of the belief all his life that it would be Annie. She was the perfect wife. The perfect political move for their family. Her parents were old traditionalists that had only just stopped sneering that the fact that the Hoovers had an old pick-up truck. They were well respected.

Reiner had always expected to wake up one day, transformed by puberty, have the wool lifted suddenly from his eyes, and find Annie undeniably, horrifyingly attractive. He had expected to fall head over heels in love with her in the sort of passionate, animalistic way his parents were in love. The way that hurt physically until their bodies burned away the tears. The way that made people scream in the night. The way people told stories about, where a man and a woman went on a hunt, and bathed in the blood of their kill before taking one another like the beasts they hunted.

That was clearly not how it had happened. Reiner was thirteen, and puberty was doing all the things that puberty did. Only instead of Annie, it was Bert, and looking at it, it wasn't that much of a surprise at all.

When they were five, Reiner had remembered suddenly that Bertholdt's favorite flowers were the ones that grew up at the top of the ridge past where the coyotes roamed, and so he'd gone, and gotten them. When they were nine they'd started diagnosing fake illnesses with kisses in games of doctor, something Reiner had started. When they were eleven Reiner had been fascinated by the fact that their penises were different.

He couldn't see how he'd missed it before.

He tried to correct for damage, and dodge the bullet by avoiding the other boy. Which only made it worse, honestly, because then he was lonely. He gave that up after three days, and then tried the approach of just pretending nothing was wrong. He went back to sleeping at Bert's with semi regularity, and having him over just about as often.

They went back to sharing beds, and plates of food, and being friends. Tender, and caring, even when he wanted the harsh edges of love to cut into his flesh. He ignored it though. Ignored it when they curled up around each other, and Bert brushed unconsciously against sensitive areas.

He ignored it almost a full year. They were fourteen when he slipped up, and actually presented.

Necks. Necks were the center of heat, and passion. Stories told by village elders painted the necks of men, and women in vivid detail, bowing to the side to show trust to lovers, and mates.

Reiner bowed his neck without even thinking to question the action. It was too blatant really, something he only noticed when Bert's mouth was on him, and there were teeth digging into his skin, and by that point he was already baring his own teeth, and growling low in his throat, clutching at the other boy's shirt to pull him closer.

It was their first sexual interaction. Reiner tried desperately to keep the harsh edges out of it. He tried, and fought to keep it friendly, and soft, when they had their hands down each other's pants, and were begging with desperate, incoherent sounds into one another's ears.

It was not romantic. It was experimentation. His mother had told him that that was alright. Children would be children, and certain things needed to be gotten out of the system. It was simply important that it wasn't spoken of.

The thing about belonging to an endangered species was that there was a desperate push for everyone to reproduce. Other than that, no one cared so long as it wasn't spoken of.

Reiner's real fear was that he'd never looked twice at a girl. He'd never looked twice at a girl, and yet he was spending his time learning all of the ins and outs of Bert's body, becoming adventurous with getting the other boy off.

It was fucked up.

What was more fucked up was the increasingly romantic way in which they handled things. There was a side to Bert that Reiner had never anticipated. One that allowed him to come away bleeding slightly with more, and more frequency.

They were six months shy of fifteen the night Bert said it. Four words. He said them, and Reiner had flown at him with all the passion their parents had told them about. Their bodies had been scored by their own claws, and they had bitten trenches in one another's shoulders. The sheets turned red, and stained by their frantic, and continuous movement as they rutted against each other's thighs, and groaned.

And then, they'd sat there in the aftermath, watching one another's wounds heal with wide eyes, and realized that this was going too far.

"We need to find girlfriends," Reiner said, and Bert nodded.

They needed to get over this phase. They needed to stop pretending that it was love. Clearly it was a substitute.

"I call Annie!" Bert said loudly, and Reiner punched him in the arm.

"Not fair. Annie, and I are the ones who are supposed to be gettin' married!"

"Very fair. You can actually talk to girls. I'm only ever able to talk to Annie."

They were half a year from coming of age. Their fathers were taking them out on their first hunts, and preparing them. They didn't have much time to develop relationships, and yet it had never been more pertinent.

Reiner met Hilde properly when they ran into her over the caracas of a deer both of their fathers had put bullets into. She was fierce, and nothing like Bertholdt, and so Reiner had assumed she would be a safe bet, a good distraction. Flirting was simple enough. It was like talking. Like joking, and he'd always been told he was funny.

He threw in a few good cocks of the head, slight hints of presenting, and received them in return. That's where his father found them. He looked at Reiner who was gaining slow, but sure custody of the doe with something like exasperated pride.

Hilde had been there the next day when Reiner had been tasked with scaring up some pheasants, and pulled the stunt of snatching one of mid air one handed. It was pretty much a securement of his position as a potential suitor. All he needed to catch her interest.

Much to his father's half hearted chagrin, he, and Hilde courted one another in the proper way for about a week before they began to properly date.

They chased one another, and snarled playfully, waiting for full moon nights to skip home, and meet in fields. It was classic, and yet when he was kissing her, he was thinking about Bert. He was thinking about four little words, and awkward admissions of thinking of one another when they were alone. About Bert's teeth deep in his skin, holding him still.

It made him angry. It made something horrible curl up in his stomach.

They started fighting. It was Reiner mostly. Reiner getting titchy, and snapping at the other boy. It was pushed from passive to active one day, when Bert's repeated attempts to gain his attention finally broke him down, and he stood up, violently throwing his fishing rod down.

"Stop fuckin' touchin' me!" he'd yelled, and pushed the other boy.

The ensuing scuffle had ended on the ground with Reiner's teeth on Bert's throat ready to rip when Annie lead their fathers to them. The knowing look on his father's face made Reiner want to vomit as Bert's dad helped him up, and dusted him off, and asked if he was alright.

Reiner was sent to his room for the rest of the day, and none of them caught any fish.

The second time they fought, it was Bert who threw the first punch, but it was Reiner who had called him a faggot.

That was two days before Hilde decided they should go all the way. Once again, it was the classic love story. She pushed him down, and mounted him with a snarl, nails digging hard into his chest outside under the stars, but he was still thinking about Bert. Bert's hands, and Bert's nails, and Bert's teeth.

He realized then, and there -as they reached a simultaneous orgasm that only made it more ludicrous that he wasn't happy- that he had made a huge mistake.

It wasn't a phase. He realized with crushing clarity as he kissed Hilde goodnight. They weren't going through some strange rebellion. It was what love felt like. Desperate, and stupid, and wonderful.

He climbed through Bert's window, and crawled into bed beside him.

"Bert?"

"Reiner?"

"I'm so sorry."

"What for," Bert asked, and that made Reiner fall in love with him just that much more because he should have known what for, but instead he was genuinely curious.

"I'm sorry I'm an asshole."

"You kind of are," Bert said with a soft laugh, and Reiner found his arms reaching out in the dark to pull him close because it had been two whole months since they'd touched without it hurting. It still hurt.

"I love you," he said when Bert was cradled against his chest. It hurt to say it. It hurt because all his life he'd been told love was some great thing that happened once in a life time. Something special, and sacred, given to them by the goddess of the moon. But this wasn't. This was something they couldn't have because they were already disappointing to their parents enough.

They would be exiled from their home, and sent down the mountain into the rest of the world with no life, and no papers, and no idea at all how to live.

"I slept with Hilde," Reiner said into the pillows, feeling the wet on his face. "I thought of you."

He was crying when Bert returned the sentiment. He was crying when Bert said, "I remember our first kiss," because he remembered it too. He cried harder when Bert said, "I remember the first time I noticed how much I liked you." He sobbed when Bert said, "I remember the first moment I knew it was love."

Bert's hands found his face. "Am I upsettin' you?"

"No," Reiner said, "It's just fucked up 'cause I don't know what to do. I love you, and that's supposed to be a good thing, but I hate myself for it."

"We could die together," Bert suggested. Reiner thought about the naive fourteen year olds that had been so much like them in Shakespeare. He shook his head vehemently. He didn't want to be that person. He didn't want to do what he'd always been told was quitting.

Maybe he was a coward, but death was too final for him. There were still hills, and grasslands to be explored. There was still a coming of age ceremony waiting for him in the hall of elders. There was still his chance to prove that he was a wolf to be feared. He was too young, and too unrealized. He didn't want to be Berik. He wasn't ready to follow yet.

Bert buried his face in Reiner's neck.

"We'll figure it out," Reiner said. "There's gotta be somethin' we can do. We can just live next to each other, and be best friends."

"Best friends," Bert said with a small laugh.

Reiner thought of their fathers. About what friendship looked like. About the occasional conversations his parents had about bite marks after he went hunting with Bert's dad. He felt like he'd looked too close at the wrong abstract picture.

"No one would ever have to know," Reiner told him, thinking about the look on his father's face when he, and Bert had fought the first time. "It would be our life, and no one would have to know."

Bert frowned, but nodded, because no matter how much they didn't like it, it was the way of the world. That was just how it was. These were the things no one spoke of.

Months passed. Reiner tried to distance himself more and more from Hilde. She was too small, and too sharp in her words. She was nothing to compliment him. He resented her for being more of a match in his parents' eyes than Bert would ever be.

His father turned disappointed eyes on him again after watching a verbal disagreement through the open back door of their house. Hilde was mad at his sudden disinterest. He told her to leave, pointed northwards to her house, and just shouted, "Get out," tendrils of his wolf prickling at the corners of his features. She had looked at him like she didn't know him, which- to be true- she didn't.

His father just shook his head when he came back in, and went back to helping with the dishes. There were no words exchanged. Just disappointment. Disappointment was the worst thing one would inspire in their parents. Everyone had always told them that.

When they were fifteen, the day after each of them had reached that milestone, and Annie had caught up, they went to the hall, and were given their bands. They were grown now. They were adults. Or mostly. There was still the hunting trip the three of them would undertake.

They would still have to bring home a bear, and present it's carcass to the town square, each of them undertaking a task in seeing it to the after life.

Reiner had been the one trained in skinning, and butchering. Bert had been the one set to cook the muscles in the fats. Annie had been the one trained to tan the hides and tendons, and bottle the oils for future uses.

They were sent out one week later with three tents, and three guns, three knives tucked into their three knapsacks sitting on top of three bedrolls. They were family, bonded by blood, and tears, and the loss of their fourth wheel back before they'd really been men, or women at all.

They set out on their own for the first time, and across their fire, Bert and Reiner stared at one another, realizing that it would soon be their time to trip for two years into the human world beneath the mountain. Beside him, Annie ripped a hunk of jerky into smaller strips, and handed them about.

"Just go, and fuck," She said softly. "I don't really care, and I'm not about to tell anyone about it."

They both looked at her with wide eyes, Reiner sputtering, and trying to deny everything.

"Honestly, I'm relieved," She said, biting off a bit of the jerky she'd kept for herself. "If you hadn't picked each other, you'd both be tryin' for me, and that's just too fuckin' weird. I mean, Bert tried to ask me out, and I couldn't look at him for three days. You're like my brothers, and I don't even want to have to think about your penises, so keep them to yourselves, and go have a fuck fest in one of the tents. Just be sure to keep it quiet so you don't scare off our game."

It all seemed hysterical in that moment. All that worry, and all that dread about someone knowing, when in the end they were family. They were packed up, and they had been since they were barely walking, back in the days when they'd drooled, and chewed on each other's ears, all rolled up into balls of mutual need for comfort.

Reiner stood up, and moved over to her, dropping down beside her. His arm was heavy around her tiny shoulders as he drew her up close to his body.

"I love you, Annie."

She looked at him as if he'd just sprouted wings, and flown to the moon.

"You're the best not-a-sister a guy could ever ask for."

Bert laughed when Annie tried to fight the hug. She was never really one for friendship, or friendly things. He joined in though, and they wrapped her up in a sandwich of mutual need for comfort, because the world was scary, and maybe they weren't really ready to be adults.

They all slept in the same tent that night, the three of them wound up around each other because they were family. They were closer with one another than they would ever be with anyone else. That was what it meant to be packed.

And the next morning when they woke with the sun, and dropped their tents, and strapped their packs to their backs to set out for tracking a bear, they did it together like they should. It made it a lot less scary. Reiner tried not to think of what it would come to if he and Bert had to leave then. Because Annie would likely stay, and the idea of being apart was the worst thing he could imagine.