Chapter 17

At some point in the night, I wake in part to find that I have unconsciously crawled closer to Reiner than before. More shocking, though, is the way that he has shifted to accommodate me. His arms enfold me, encouraging the depraved, desperate side of myself that aches for warmth.

No, that's not quite right.

I adjust a little, tilting my abdomen back so that I can peer up at his sleeping face. Last I remember, we were side to side sitting against the cave wall. My mind plays a dozen fanciful scenes across my eyes, each more elaborate and unlikely than the last. I imagine myself nodding off, my forehead drooping down until my muscles loosen up enough to drop my head on his shoulder. Or perhaps I nodded off and he reguided it to rest against him. Maybe I was shivering, colder than I ought to be, so he readjusted his arm to rest over my shoulders. Then maybe that wasn't enough–maybe then he had to cradle me, a bride-in-arms, hoist me from the steps and across the threshold of the walls between us to place me where I am now.

Or maybe in my feverish haze I bullied my way into resting here, my legs between his and my torso stretched over his own. He's slumped down a bit, our two packs acting almost like pillows to support his neck and shoulders. I set my head back down against his chest for a second and just…listen. To the fabric against my ear. To the heartbeat beneath it.

Reiner is…warm.

One of his hands rests behind his head. The other is practically searing itself over my spine, resting in that careful way that only sleeping limbs can acquire. That lack of deliberation and yet that very testament to it. I wish I knew which of us moved first. Which of us discarded enough of our pride to accept the necessary heat our bodies could offer. We have come a long way from the people we were in the forest, tossing a single jacket back and forth and watching each other walk in different directions.

I lean up again, this time scooting my hips closer to Reiner so I can sit up a little. The hand against my back slips down, glossing over the slippery fabric of my jacket, landing at the small of my back. Even in placing my splayed fingers against his chest to earn enough leverage to sit up more he hasn't stirred. My weight is inconsequential, unnoticeable to the corded muscle rippling over the cage that guards his heart and breath. For a moment I imagine pressing down, pressing harder, forcing it to give way and acknowledge me.

My hands are knives, my prey decided. I cut a path from his chest to his neck. It has retained no evidence of the way that I bit it earlier in my near-rabid desperation to retain my medicine. Reiner will leave this cave with no evidence it ever existed. Everything that has transpired here, between us, will vanish, like tracks in a blizzard.

…I don't want that.

My eyes widen. My fingers freeze. And I can't tell if it's because my body has recognized my traitorous thoughts, or if it's because the man I've leaned over has opened his eyes.

They're lidded with sleep, lazily blinking even as a small scowl sets in to force his gaze to focus. Without thinking my fingers have relocated to smooth those creases out, to banish that part of him that seeks to wake and disturb…this. Is this something that can be disturbed? A moment still enough to notice when it vanishes?

I am warm. Held. Silent, soft, and an entire world away from feeling secure. But I am feeling something. It is a pull, the call of the moon to the tide, begging me to back away one second and coaxing me to draw closer the next.

My half-undone braid slips over my shoulder and falls against the warrior as I tilt my head lower. I'm watching his eyes, those golden tones nearly impossible to make out in the darkness, those curt lashes guarding me from deciding where exactly he's looking. I crave the answer. Does he look at me? At the cave? Does he recognize what he sees–does he detest it?

Desire it?

My lips part. The hand barely attached to his brows extracts itself, moves to his cheek. To his jaw. The hand on his chest that steadies me as I lower myself again relays the heartbeat thudding beneath my fingers, the dull intensity of the blood drumming louder and faster. His eyes open fully. He's looking at me.

His breath ghosts my mouth, my lips, my teeth. The darkness of the cave obscures the distance that still lingers between us. The gap could close if one of us even thought of moving closer. The gap could never close. It feels as expansive as a canyon, an ocean. As small and delicate as a moth's wing.

I hesitate.

Reiner's hand, the one against my back, twitches to life. For a moment it grips me, latching tightly, sending waves that ripple all throughout my body, and for a moment my breath catches in my throat–

And then it relaxes.

Releases.

The sun splits through the horizon.

We sit back, extract ourselves from one another, speaking with actions and a mutual, silent agreement that it is time to go.

The warrior and I walk near enough to stay together, yet far enough that there is no mistaking our distance. My mouth dries as the world wakes up slowly, chasing dawn into day. I don't bother asking for the water in Reiner's pack. Whenever he glances at the mountain ahead of us, I stoop to scoop snow and set it against my tongue. It cools me, sobers me, covers the shame that coats me like sweat.

I'm a damned fool.

My mind stays empty. My footsteps are dull. I have no heat in my head, no sway in my gait. The headache has dissipated with surprising gentleness. The fluctuations in temperature that accosted me earlier have all but vanished. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that my fever broke overnight while I slept.

It would be easier, I think, to say that it broke later. That it broke with the morning sun. That I was still feverish, still running of carnal instinct and petty delusions and impulses that meant and mean nothing. Reiner might believe me. Reiner might not. The warrior trudges onward, distancing himself further and further from that cave. That abysmal, atrocious cave.

I try to remind myself that he's a murderer. That he's the one holding my medicine hostage. That I was sick, that we were cold, that nothing happened, that I didn't do anything.

I didn't do anything–but I'll never escape the knowledge that I'd wished, in the moment, that I had.

Of all the people in the 107th, the person I least expected to find us first was the one who did. The second Eren Yeager crests the hill, something in me crumbles and kills itself off. Like a deciduous tree in fall, siphoning off leaves one by one in order to preserve its resources in the trunk. I discard memories, shame, confusion, distrust. I leave each behind as I practically break out into a run in order to get closer. I see more of the trainees as I rush towards him–Mikasa, and Sasha, and Connie and Marco. They were looking for us. Weren't they?

Eren meets my eyes, glances at Reiner, and looks at me again. He frowns. "You got lost," he says, and for a split second I convince myself that he was worried.

"Eren," Mikasa interjects, her tone almost like a gentle warning, a plea for civility. "So did Christa and Ymir. It was a big storm yesterday."

So the plot carried on without us. I survey the rest of the trainees, flocking closer and waving now that we've been spotted. I see Reiner drift towards Connie in my periphery. "Yes," I murmur distractedly. "It was."

The world returns to normal. The sun rises and sets. Meals get served. The bell rings daily, the showers run, the snow falls.

I wake up one morning with my medicine under my pillow and a new bunkmate over my head. "Seems like Annie requested a relocation," the girl smiles sympathetically. "I'm Mina Carolina. I don't think we've ever talked before, so it's nice to finally introduce myself!" It takes me a moment to recognize her, but somehow, I do. She's one of the girls who later gets put into Eren's cadet squad. Otherwise known as one of the people that dies during the Trost arc. I smile weakly, unconvincingly so, and tell her it's nice to meet her too.

The next day, when I head to the mess hall to meet with Bertholdt for our lessons, it's to find Armin waiting there instead. He eyes me with something utterly unreadable in his expression. "Bertholdt asked me to take over teaching you, as a favor. He said you were learning how to read?"The best I can offer him is a nod. That unreadable expression morphs, and solidifies as something sturdy and reassured. My answer has confirmed something for him; I've no idea what. The notion should make me more nervous than it does, and yet, all I can think about is the warriors.

I stop seeing Annie in the mornings altogether. Reiner and Bertholdt never stray near me during the meals. And everytime my head tilts up to watch them walk by my table as if they didn't even notice its existence, I find Eren's eyes on mine.

The green of his eyes bleeds past his sclera, down his tear ducts and straight into the soil. Shoots of green start sprouting through the snow. The winter becomes a deluge of sludge and sleet, turning the paths into slick trails of mud. The training grounds warm up, the days grow longer, the buzz of the trainees grows louder and louder. We all know what comes next. We all hold our breath.

Flowers begin to appear on the camp's periphery the day the wagons filled with brand new sets of ODM gear roll in. The petals unfold like lover's hands unclasping as box after box gets unloaded and prepared to be opened the second the last layer of snow melts.

And slowly, gently, almost imperceptibly so, I forget who I once was.

A/N: Bit of a short chapter as I set the stage for the next arc of the story (and regain mobility in my right hand, lol). Enjoy!