Something had changed.

Reiner wasn't sure what it was, but it had certainly shifted enough of his personal space that it pushed him awake, a residual habit from years of military duty. It was just enough of an environmental difference he needed to take stock of his immediate surroundings. Without opening his eyes, he had already determined all was quiet in the small apartment.

Jaeger curled up under the bookshelf, the huffing breaths of the sleeping Shepherdish not in any form of distress.
A little bit of bustle on the platform outside, the clink of military, the shuffle of Brahmin.

Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that would otherwise force him into a state of alert. But something had changed enough to nag at him. The longer he tried to ignore it and drift back off, the more it pushed at him.

With a certain amount of reluctance and a deep drawn breath, he opened his eyes to the faint dark. The overhead bulb had been flicked off, a small sliver of station light filtering in under the door. It transformed the contours of the room, streaking furniture in outlandish disorienting shapes that would cause panic had he woken up still fresh from a nightmare. As it was, all it took was a few slow blinks to acclimate his still-tired eyes to it.

The armchair and short table came into sharper view, the edge of the bookshelves on the far wall and the breathing fuzzy ball that was the dog beneath them. Familiar walls and shapes manifested against the sharp contrast of before, softening to give the world a little more depth and dimension. Once he had reacquainted himself with his surroundings, he turned his attention slowly toward Volk, sleeping next to him.

The light caught the edges and tips of her unruly fluffy mane, the mass piling everywhere as it usually did. Another recognizable feature that helped ease the nervousness that had woken him. She breathed long and slow, still relaxed in the throes of sleep. Nothing was out of the ordinary, everything was in its place. Except the pale gleam of her face pointing toward him.

What he'd felt was her rolling over, a subtle movement in his environment he had barely picked up on it at first. Usually she slept with her back to him. Not that he hadn't seen her sleeping face before, he'd seen her asleep from a distance. But for whatever reason, this time felt different than those. Maybe it was the proximity or the circumstance that brought it on, but something more had changed between them, a shifted dynamic that was new and strange.

It was almost cute, with the way her lips parted ever so slightly and her hands curled on the pillow between the two of them. A few stray hairs ruffled as she breathed on them, flashes of faerie lights around her face, a touch of the ethereal in a fairly quiet night in Polis. Everything stood out and he couldn't help trailing eyes across the softened angles in her face, across the delicate curve of her neck to the slope of one shoulder, sharp white against the void mass of her hair behind it. It was beautiful, soothing in the returning fatigue.

He let his eyes trace the shape of her outline, starting to finally drift back to sleep when she moved again and stirred him back to alert. It must have been a restless night, a shift of her shoulders as she attempted to roll a little and failing that, set to twitching her lips and brows and fingers in various ways. Though so subtle a motion, it was enough to make a few locks of hair fall across her face, the tickling ends setting her muscles to riot. Her head twitched a bit more furiously against the touch of the creeping curling tendrils and her plight spurred him to move. He reached a hand forward, brushing the offending lock up and back so it returned to the central mass on the other side of her head. It helped her settle, the twitching dulling to silence.

Unseen monsters fought off and peace returning, he pulled his hand back in time to hear her breathe sharply in. Her eyes cracked open, glazed in sleep, black against the rest of her. There was hardly a tint of blue that remained, swallowing the pupils as well until he wasn't entirely sure which direction she was looking. Yet, he still felt that gaze on him, simply knew when she had woken enough to look at him. It was calm, a slow and tired blink given before she moved, snuggling down further in her spot. The angle changed and the light caught enough of one iris to fade the dark blue in, a streak of color against the monochrome he'd been facing.

The sight tugged at him, poked a portion of his brain he'd heard before but never indulged. He could barely acknowledge it himself, and the mere idea that it was back in his thoughts caused his lips to thin. In annoyance or determination, that remained to be seen. Not even he knew.

She was beautiful, he was well aware of what he thought of that, and the jumbled thoughts that floated around his head around this revelation were in no condition to see the light of day. They were more than just duty partners now, they were more than just friends. They were more now than any of that, but what they were, he could barely squeak to himself, as it was admitting something he had barely any grasp of. He was sure of that, even with the flutter in his chest that he instinctively took as a fight-or-flight reaction.

He wasn't sure if it was that she could read his face, twisting as it was in internal turmoil, or if she was simply grasping for her own purchase in the waking world. But whatever it was that spurred her to reach a hand forward and place it on the back of his, twining her fingers between his, it stopped his thoughts. He was almost positive the shrill screech of brakes was audible outside his own mind, looking her in the eye in surprise. He was awake now, even if he hadn't intended to be, maintaining eye contact as a way to ground himself.

She huffed a heavy breath, blinking slowly again. Clearly, she was still tired, a small telling half-smile creeping across her face. "You know..." she started, voice low and slurring, her language skills still in a mire of sleepiness. "...You know, I think I want your eyes to be the only ones I wake up next to..."

For a half a second, Reiner thought his heart had stopped beating. A heat crept across his face and the fluttering in his chest returned with such a vengeance that it stopped his breath as well. Now why had she gone and said a thing like that, something he couldn't recover his reeling brain from, no matter how hard he grasped at it. This sensation was new and on the first hand, he hated how it made him feel -flustered and annoyed at being flustered- but on the other hand, he was reveling in the warmth that ignited in his ribcage and started spreading.

He made an attempt to return the sentiment, but couldn't formulate anything very articulated, coughing out, "Me too..." and hoping it got the maelstrom of emotions across to her.

She chuckled, squeezing the hand she held captive just enough, her eyes starting to close. "It's still night. Try to get some sleep."

It was comforting and ceased the noise in his head enough he could relax again. "Ja...ja. Alright..." he started, waiting for his body to ease back into a calmer state, resting his head on the pillow again and watching her eyes shut completely.

His weren't far behind, evening out his breath as he tried to grasp something else elusive; sleep. It proved harder than he thought, his mind drawing back to the startling events right before and refusing to calm down.

Into the dark of the room, his voice whispered, "But now I can't sleep."


A/N: aka Reiner discovers he has feelings at 3am and doesn't know how to handle them.

A V-Day prompt for Reiner's creator featuring our two babs being adorable.
Enjoy the Saurkraut-y goodness.