Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Reiner has been dead for a while now.

He doesn’t remember dying, but he must have at some point. Why else would he be here, shambling through the streets looking for fresh flesh to devour? The living don’t do that. He doesn’t think so, at least.

Reiner is lonely. He’s been alone ever since he died, maybe since before he died. The only respite he gets is when he consumes the living. Like the boy cowering in front of him now. Reiner had thought, maybe, maybe this time one of them would get a shot in his head. But no. The freckled boy’s gun had clicked and done little else when the trigger was pulled, and the knife that he had flung at Reiner had missed its mark, burying itself in his neck rather than his brain. Reiner raises a numb hand to pull it loose and let it fall to the ground, before pouncing.

The boy screams as Reiner tears him open. His unnatural strength makes quick work of finishing the job, and the screaming soon stops when Reiner rips open his ribcage. Blood is pooling on the street. The smell will draw more of Reiner’s kind in, soon, so he has to move fast to get the best morsels of the human. The liver is good, and Reiner uses sharp fingers to tear it out, tucking it into the pocket of his hoodie. His favourite part, though, is the brain.

Reiner grabs the head with each hand over an ear, and slams it repeatedly into the pavement, waiting for the telltale crack that means he’s struck gold. He snaps the skull open like a pistachio by pulling on either side of the fissure he just made. As he digs his bloody fingers into the opening to pull out the delicate flesh, he hears the approach of others. They’re welcome to the rest of his meal. He’s found his prize, and takes his leave.

The worst thing about being dead? He can’t remember a thing about his life. It’s gone now. This is all he is. A corpse, dragging himself through the ruins of a city, eating those who are still living.

He shouldn’t be so hard on himself. They all do it. After you’re killed by the walking dead, you become one yourself. Well, as long as some asshole doesn’t rip your brains out of your body before you have the chance to reanimate, that is. 

Reiner reaches a good area to stop, in the narrow space between two buildings. No one is here to blow his head off. He collapses onto his knees and pulls out the brain he went to so much trouble to get, and stuffs a bite into his mouth, fluid running down his chin.

Fresh summer breeze, without the stink of rotting flesh being carried on it. Birds are chirping overhead. He turns beside him to look at someone else - a young boy with sandy hair and a sharp face. He’s lit in gold sunbeams and his voice is rich and coarse.

“Marco,” the boy says, “I think we should head back soon. My mom will be looking for me.”

He nods and says something back, but isn’t sure what it is. The sun is warming his face as he turns to walk down the grassy hill, back towards the rows of homes lining the horizon.

—

Time passes, and the world changes. 

He’s running, running, being dragged along past chaos and corpses by the boy from earlier. He looks older, hair a bit longer.

“Wait, we have to go back-”

“No!” The boy shouts back at him, “They’re gone, Marco! Keep moving forwards!”

The boy sounds resolute, but he sees a tear running down his cheek. He keeps moving forward.

—

“I don’t think you’re a good leader because you’re strong. I think you’re a good leader because you know what it is to be weak.”

—

Reiner gasps in a breath of air that he doesn’t need. It was always a shock to go from the high of human memories back to the drudgery and numbness of death. The whiplash of dying all over again is the price to pay for living for a brief moment. He takes another bite.

—

“I want to tell you something,” he’s looking at the boy again, who’s fussing with his hair in front of a mirror. He looks older yet, starting to get a hint of facial hair. His muscles have filled out, too. He looks handsome. Beautiful, even.

“Can it wait? I have first watch tonight. So does Mikasa. I want to make sure I look good.”

“Oh, uh, yeah. It can wait. You already look good, by the way.”

“Thanks, man. I’ll talk to you later, yeah?” He slaps him on the shoulder and leaves before getting a response.

—

“And then Mikasa complimented me on my aim! I mean, it’s all thanks to Sasha, really, since she’s been helping me practice. But still! I think I actually managed to impress her. And her hair looked so nice tonight, too. We have watch together again next week. I think I’ll ask her to have dinner with me.”

He’s watching the boy talk animatedly. He feels sad, for some reason.

“So, what did you want to tell me earlier, Marco?”

“...Just that Connie was the one who dropped your toothbrush in the mud and put it back without cleaning it. Don’t tell him I told you.”

—

A lot of these memories focus around the sandy-blonde boy. This Marco guy that Reiner ate clearly held him dear. Reiner wonders what became of him. Is he still alive? He shoves more of the flesh into his mouth.

—

He’s kissing the boy, pressing his mouth firmly against his lips. The boy is unresponsive, not pulling him closer but not pushing him away, either. He ends the kiss, and speaks.

“I like you. I really like you. And I should have told you earlier, but I just couldn’t. I wasn’t brave enough. But now I’m going on this mission, and I might not come back, and if I die I just couldn’t do it without telling you first. I love you.”

“Marco…” The beautiful boy is pressing his fingertips to his lips, looking shocked. A large metal gate groans open in front of him. It’s time to go.

“I’ll see you soon. We can talk more then.”

—

He’s running through the streets. His team has been killed, eaten alive. The pharmacy they were completing a supply run to was supposed to be empty, according to previous reports. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t. The dead were lying in wait, rotting in place until their prey were presented to them like shrimp on a platter. Marco is the only one still alive. He has to make it back, has to see him again.

He’s tackled from behind and hits the pavement hard. He wiggles out of the grip of the corpse then rolls quickly away. He aims his gun at the monster's head, and pulls the trigger. 

It clicks uselessly. He’s out of ammo. He still has a knife, though, and throws it. He misses.

The zombie dives on him. He’s out of chances. He screams as the soft flesh of his belly is ripped open, blood splattering the beast tearing into him, then-

—

Reiner coughs and spits out the sour tissue on his tongue. That was always the worst part of seeing the memories of those he killed. The inevitable end.

He’ll get nothing more from this. He drops what’s left of the brain and gets back up, continuing on his way.

It’s been eight months since Marco left and didn’t come back. Jean has been coping about as well as can be expected, after losing his best friend. Still, though, it doesn’t seem to matter a whole lot anymore given that Jean will be joining him soon.

Jean was sent out with a small team of scouts, including his friends Sasha and Connie, to do a supply run at a pharmacy. It’s the same one Marco was going to when he… Well, Jean didn’t see any skeletons in the building when they entered, which he couldn’t decide was a relief or not. If anyone died here, they weren’t granted the peace of a complete death.

What definitely wasn’t a relief was when the zombies ambushed them. There were so many of them, and too many newbies on the team to stand and fight. The only option would be to run through the back door, but Daz, the idiot, had decided it would be a good idea to use explosives in close quarters. The walls and shelves in the hallway to the exit had collapsed like a house of cards.

The way out is blocked, with Jean and a few others on the wrong side. He can see Sasha and Connie staring at him through a gap in the heavy metal shelving in horror. Connie starts trying to push the rubble out of the way, but there’s no time. Jean grits his teeth and turns back to the advancing zombies. There’s too many corpses for them to fight back. He’s going to die here. Sasha and Connie can still make it out - they have a shot, if they leave now.

“Go,” Jean shouts at them, “We’ll be fine, trust me! Get out of here!”

He doesn’t wait to see if they listen to his orders. He raises his gun and makes a few clean shots, taking out some zombies who collapse to the floor like puppets with their strings cut. It doesn’t help the situation much. Jean looks away from Samuel, who has just disappeared underneath a pile of zombies. His detached leg skids across the floor in front of Jean, leaving a trail of blood.

Daz screams. He starts running toward the exit, clearly trying his luck at outmaneuvering the zombies. Jean thinks there’s no way he’s going to make it, but then, they’re all going to die anyway. Jean won’t stop him from giving it a shot.

Just as he expected, Daz is brought down quickly. Jean averts his gaze as he’s ripped apart. He’ll be living that himself soon enough. He adjusts his aim and takes a shot at another flesheater. He hits true and the rotten skull explodes like a watermelon. That was his last bullet, and he drops the gun to the ground rather than taking the time to holster it. It won’t do him any more good. He pulls his wicked hunting knife from its sheath on his waist and brandishes it.

Reiner is ripping the meat off of a human’s thigh with his teeth. The blood soaks the front of his hoodie as he swallows. He goes to take another bite.

“Go! We’ll be fine, trust me! Get out of here!”

It’s another one of the living that Reiner and the rest of the horde had cornered. He recognizes the voice. Why does he recognize that voice? Reiner turns his attention away from the meal in front of him and looks for the source of the voice. Then he sees him.

It’s the beautiful boy from Marco’s memories. He’s fighting with vigor and life, firing off some shots from his gun before dropping it and switching to a gleaming blade. He spins and slices his way through a few of Reiner’s kind. He’s clearly flagging, slices losing precision. He misses a stab against an enemy, and gets shoved backwards, flipping over a counter and landing heavily on his front. He’s in Reiner’s direct path now. The boy is dazed and his grip is loose on the knife.

The other living people who remain are being picked off one by one, screams fading out. Reiner approaches the boy. When he’s crouching in front of him, the boy tightens his grip on the knife and takes a swing at Reiner. The knock to the head and the weariness of battle must have made him lose his edge, because the knife doesn’t stick through the side of Reiner’s skull. Instead, it wedges itself in his neck. Reiner gets a sense of deja vu as he pulls it loose and drops it clattering to the floor. This is the part where he rips open the boy in front of him and devours him.

This is it, for Jean. He isn’t ready to die, not by a long shot, but he’ll accept it if he has to. The zombie in front of him is massive and muscular, stained red with fresh blood. The screams of his comrades fade to silence and the room is filled only with the noise of flesh being ripped and chewed.

The blonde corpse is staring at him with an odd and unreadable expression on its face. Probably bloodlust. Jean tries to give himself comfort in his final moments; he didn’t hear Sasha or Connie’s screams with the others, so they must have listened to him and gotten out in time.

There’s black ichor slowly oozing like tar out of the wound on the creature's neck, and Jean watches as it reaches a clumsy hand up and swipes up the goo onto its fingers. It reaches out to Jean, then, and smears the filth onto his cheek. Jean squeezes his eyes shut and tries to tune out the horribly cold sensation.

“Shh,” the zombie hisses at him as it removes its hand. Jean opens his eyes, and the creature is holding a finger to its lips. “Shh,” it repeats.

Is it… shushing him? It wraps a huge hand around Jean’s wrist and pulls him to standing with a vice grip. Jean shakily allows it to. This is unlike anything he’s ever heard of. Zombies go for the kill, always. Why isn’t this one? Saving him as a snack for later, maybe?

His head feels fuzzy and the grip on his wrist is inhumanly strong. He’s out of weapons. Jean doesn’t see any other option but to allow the zombie to pull him along after it as the horde leaves the building. 

Reiner doesn’t know what he’s doing. Making a huge mistake, probably. He saved the boy instead of eating him, something that has never occurred to him to do before today. Reiner feels like a freak and, somehow, like a traitor to his kind. None of the others would save a living boy.

It’s not too late to kill him. Reiner could even leave his brain intact, allow him to come back as one of their kind. The thing is, though, the dead only stick together out of necessity. Hunting is much easier in a pack. The boy would lose any kind of spark he has in him, sleepwalking into death.

And, well, Reiner is lonely. He doesn’t want the boy to die. He recognizes him from the memories he stole from the freckled man. This one is kind and devoted to his friends. Maybe… maybe he could become devoted to Reiner, too. Maybe he wouldn’t have to be alone anymore. Maybe.

The boy’s wrist is probably warm under Reiner’s fingers, but if it is, he can’t feel it.

Jean is tired. They’ve been walking at a slow, steady pace for what feels like hours, and the grip on his wrist hasn’t loosened one iota. He’s almost too exhausted to be scared any more, and takes time to observe the corpse dragging him along.

This thing has blonde hair, Jean can tell. It’s filthy and matted with dirt and blood now, but some shining strands still come through. It was a young man, when it was living. It’s massive and muscular with a shadow of facial hair. The prominent roman nose and strong jawline makes Jean think it was handsome, once. Now it’s dead.

The wound Jean had inflicted on its neck is nearly closed. The ichor has stopped flowing and the gap in its skin is only open the slightest bit.

It seems like the ichor smeared over Jean’s cheek in a cruel imitation of war paint has been keeping the zombies from realizing he’s not one of them. Something to do with the smell, maybe. It reeks, even hours after being applied.

Jean looks back at the path ahead of him, and finally realizes where all the zombies are headed. The mall. It’s been known as a hotspot for flesheaters, absolutely packed with them inside the building and in the parking lot, too. He tries to tug his wrist slightly to see if he can get loose and make a run for it, but the creature holding him tugs back, and tightens its grip further. Jean will have bruises, he can tell. The other living dead look at him, intrigued by the fuss. Jean stops fighting back, and they lose interest.

Reiner has made his decision. He’ll keep the boy, take him to his home and make sure he’s safe. He’ll show the boy he means him no harm.

They approach the mall, and Reiner leads him through the broken glass doors. The group of dead split off in different directions, Reiner heading toward the area he calls his own. The store used to sell linens and things like that. Most of the items are still there. Reiner likes to touch the fabrics and feel the texture under his fingers, and when he takes the boy there he reaches out his unoccupied hand to run them over the towels on the shelf beside him. 

He brings the boy to the back of the shop, releasing his hand and pushing down on his shoulder until he sits on the floor. His amber eyes are sharp and darting around, but always settling back on Reiner. If Reiner had any blood left, he would be blushing from the attention. He feels a bit flustered, to have such a beautiful boy looking at him with such focus, even if it isn’t borne from any positive interest. No one has looked at him without trying to kill him for as long as he can remember.

“Stay,” he tells the boy, struggling to get his tongue to cooperate.

“Stay.”

What? Did the zombie just… talk? No, that isn’t possible. Jean must have misheard. Corpses don’t talk. They don’t think, don’t feel. They always go for the kill. That’s what Jean was taught. The alternative is unthinkable.

“Safe,” it says, and Jean can’t deny this time that it talked to him. He’s looking it dead in the eye. It doesn’t move. Is it waiting for a response? It asked him to stay. Told him he was safe. Jean doubts the second point, but the walk through the mall revealed too many enemies for him to leave without at least resting and coming up with a plan first.

Jean shakily nods, and the beast stands and walks off.

In one of the memories Reiner had stolen, he had seen the boy drawing in a sketchbook.

“Stay still, Marco. I can’t get your pose right if you keep moving around.”

The boy was laughing and he’s laughing back, laying in verdant grass that tickles his skin.

“Are you going to actually let me see it this time? How do I know you’re even drawing me?”

The boy rolls his eyes.

“Of course I’m drawing you. Who else is around? I’ll show you this time, if I can finally do one that turns out good. People are hard.”

It had been the most relaxed the boy had ever looked in one of the memories. Reiner wants him to be able to relax now, so he trawls the remains of the shopping center to find something suitable.

Jean is still crouched in the corner of the shop, trying to stay quiet. There weren’t any corpses in the direct vicinity of the shop when he was brought here, but there’s no way of telling whether there are any now. Even if there aren’t any directly around the shop entrance, there are dozens that he would have to pass before reaching an exit.

He’s trapped.

Jean doesn’t believe for a second that he’s truly safe here. If he was that gullible, he would have died long ago. He isn’t a rookie. He’s survived this long. He won’t go out this way. When he does die, he’ll be old and gray and enjoying the finer things in life. Or if he does have to die young, he’ll do it on his own terms. Saving someone, buying his comrades time, something . This is what he tells himself, trying to will his hands to stop shaking.

The blonde beast of a zombie returns, and Jean prepares himself. This is it. This one is smarter than the others, true, but they’re all flesh eaters. Jean will have to run, as fast as he can, and try to make it out of the mall. He’s outnumbered by far, but if he’s fast and clever enough he can make it. He has to. The only other choice is to lay down and die.

The flesheater is crouching in front of him now. It doesn’t look like it’s ready to pounce, but Jean balances himself on the balls of his feet anyway. When it does lunge, he’ll only have a short window to escape. 

The zombie reaches behind itself. It’s pulling something out of its pocket. Jean knew it was different, but is it really clever enough to use a weapon? Bad news for humanity.

It’s not a weapon that it pulls out of its pocket, though. It’s a little travel-sized sketchbook, and a cheap pen advertising some insurance agency in blue and white print. It stretches its hand holding the items towards Jean, and grunts.

Jean hesitates. Is this a trick?

“These are for me?”

The corpse nods. Incredible. Jean tentatively grabs the items, trying to avoid touching the thing’s skin. He fails, and shudders when his fingertips brush the cold flesh. He pulls back quickly, and observes the items.

“How did you know that I draw?”

The thing shrugs pathetically.

“...Well, thank you.” Jean isn’t about to be rude to this beast that could rip him apart with its bare hands. He still remembers the steel of its grasp on his wrist earlier. But, it hasn’t eaten him yet. Maybe he won’t die today.

Jean turns his gaze to the art supplies he’s holding now. This creature is intelligent, and it doesn’t seem to wish him ill will. Maybe there’s a future for humanity, after all.

Jean realizes his fatal mistake too late. While his gaze is on the sketchbook, the creature lunges toward him, mouth open and teeth bared. Jean can do nothing but gasp, squeeze his eyes shut, and brace himself to have his throat ripped out.

That’s not what the corpse does. It’s pressing its lips against Jean’s. It’s… kissing him. Jean opens his eyes, not moving another muscle. The zombie has its eyes closed, moving its mouth fervently and sloppily against Jean’s. Its tongue swipes his bottom lip before making its way past it and into Jean’s mouth. It’s horrifically cold and slimy, and tastes of rotten flesh. Jean nearly gags, but forces it back. He’s still staying stock still, not knowing what he could do that would set the creature off and result in his death.

Finally, blessedly, the thing pulls away. Jean sucks in a breath. There’s a shining string of saliva connecting them still, and Jean keeps his eyes locked on that rather than meeting the corpse’s empty gaze. It starts to lean back in, and Jean can’t help it. He flinches. The strand of saliva splits.

Rather than finally going for the kill as Jean expected, the corpse flinches back even worse than Jean did. Jean meets its gaze now. It’s scanning him, up and down, taking in his defensive posture and the fear in his eyes. It crawls backwards on its hands and feet, before its back hits a shelf and it stills. Jean hasn’t moved.

“S-s-sorry. Sorry,” it chokes out. Jean doesn’t respond. “I-I- I’m sorry.”  

This might be the most Jean has heard it speak so far. That was practically a complete sentence. Jean still doesn’t relax, but he does lift his arm and wipe his sleeve across his mouth to remove the overly-viscous and foul smelling saliva the corpse had left on his face. The beast turns its gaze away and stands up slowly, before shambling out of the store. 

Jean is alone again.

Reiner is an idiot . His brains must be rotting in his skull. He can’t believe he just did that. He practically forced himself on the beautiful boy - of course he would be scared! He probably thought Reiner was going to eat him. Which, granted, anyone else and he probably would have eaten them. It was a fair assessment. Reiner had already eaten the boy’s friend - Marco. Not that he knew that. 

Why did he try to kiss him? He’s good-looking. That was definitely a part of it. Reiner remembers the memory of the kiss Marco had taken from the boy. Reiner knew, abstractly, that his lips were warm and a little chapped. Reiner knows the boy is special, kind and rough in equal measures. And he hadn’t tried to kill Reiner again since his first attempt. Reiner felt like maybe he liked him, too. But obviously he was wrong.

Reiner has to make up for this misstep somehow. He wanders around the mall, looking in the store windows. He wishes he could move faster, but he can really only get his speed up when he’s fighting for food. Reiner shuffles past what used to be a flower shop. There’s still an attendant in there. She’s wiping the same spot on the counter over and over. Her intestines are spilling out of her and trailing on the floor. Reiner steps into the shop and grunts. She grunts back.

The flowers are brown and dry. Reiner didn’t think his guest would like them. Who would want a dead thing? Reiner continues on.

Chocolates. Reiner thinks that living people like chocolates. Reiner doesn’t remember his time as a human, but he thinks if he was one he would like chocolates.

The chocolate shop is picked nearly dry. The only food left is a few foil-wrapped truffles in a bulk bin, and when Reiner goes to pick them up he sees they are covered in flakey dried blood, spilled in some past conflict. Reiner picks off a little blood and puts it in his mouth. It tastes old and dusty. He doesn’t think the boy would like it. He drops the truffles and continues. He isn’t having much luck.

Jean continues wiping his mouth after the corpse leaves. That was fucking awful. Easily the worst kiss of his life, and the first one he’s received since Marco died. The meaty, rotten flavour is lingering and Jean takes the flask of water off his waist, using some of the precious liquid to rinse out his mouth and spit onto the floor. He hopes that this can’t infect him. He runs his tongue over his gums and the insides of his cheeks to make sure there’s no open wounds the zombie saliva could have made it into.

Was that even meant to be a kiss? It seemed like one. Again, out of character for a flesheater. It didn’t bite Jean, though. Not a hint of teeth. He can’t think of what else that was supposed to be.

Then there was the apology. It said it was sorry . And it looked like it felt guilty, too. But that can’t be right. The dead don’t feel remorse. But… they aren’t supposed to talk, either, or kiss, or let the living stay as such. This thing isn’t fitting into any of the categories that it’s meant to.

Is their understanding of their enemies fundamentally wrong, or is it just this one creature that’s an anomaly? His gut is telling Jean to find a weapon. End the abomination when it comes back, then book it and hope he lives.

But… there’s so much they don’t know about their foes. Humanity is losing this fight, dying faster than they can kill. When will they have enough information to win? When will this nightmare end? This zombie is different. It can think. It can feel. Jean might have an obligation to learn more. This might be their only chance.

Jean is so deep in thought, he nearly misses the return of the creature. It’s walking up to him slowly, almost sheepishly, now that Jean is assessing it for any signs of humanity. It doesn’t blush, can’t, without any blood flowing in its body, but the short, hesitant steps and sloppy posture remind Jean of a scolded child.

It finally reaches Jean after seeing he isn’t running, and places something on the floor in front of him.

It’s a can of beans.

“Is this…for me?” Jean scooches further forwards. The zombie retreats back in equal measure. Is it trying to give him space? Or is it scared of him? Jean treats it how he would a wild animal, telegraphing his moves clearly and moving slowly as he reaches to grab the food.

“You brought me food?” The corpse doesn’t give any indication of hearing him, looking off to the side and staying still.

“Hey, I know you can understand me. Respond, I know you can. You got this for me?” Jean tries not to be too snippy, but that isn’t one of his skill sets and it’s been a hell of a day. The corpse finally meets his eyes and nods slowly.

“Thank you. Do you have a can opener?” The zombie’s eyebrow twitches. 

“Do you know what a can opener is?” It shakes its head jerkily.

Jean looks around. They’re in some kind of off-brand Bed Bath & Beyond. There might be a can opener in here somewhere. He’s hungry. He rises fully to his feet, and the beast rises too, looking alarmed.

“Relax,” Jean says placatingly, “I’m just going to find something to open this up with, so I can eat, yeah? Okay?”

“Okay.” 

Jean startles when it responds. The word comes out rough and craggy, but it’s undeniably a word. It had spoken earlier, sure, but it’s still a shock. It’s like if you bumped into a mannequin or street sign and apologized on reflex, only to get an apology back in return. Odd.

After some careful digging and searching with the zombie following him all the while, Jean finds a can opener which he holds up in victory. He settles back down onto the floor and pries the can open, then starts scooping up the brown beans with an old plastic spoon he had found. The zombie has settled down across the aisle from him, and it’s watching him eat with total focus. Zombies don’t eat human food, preferring to eat humans as food, but this one has already proven itself different. Jean offers it the beans, but it just shakes its head and keeps staring at him.

“Well, this is awkward,” Jean mutters to himself. Conversation, conversation. What would a zombie like to talk about?

“Weather’s been kind of shit lately, huh?”

It narrows its eyes at him and minutely shakes its head, seeming perplexed. That was a no-go, then. What else was there?

“Do you, uh, come here often, then?” Jean doesn’t expect a response to this either, but the creature surprises him.

“Home,” it forces out. Talking sounds painful and frustrating. Jean wonders how hard it’s gripping onto what remains of its humanity.

“This is your home?” It nods. “Nice place. Lots of, uh, towels.”

More silence.

“My name is Jean, by the way. I don’t think I introduced myself earlier.” The zombie perks up. Looks like that got its attention.

“Jean,” it pronounces his name clearly and correctly on the first try. It points to him as he says it, then pulls its hand back and pats itself on the chest.

“R-R-R-” It’s trying to say something. Its name? Does it have a name? That’s incredible. It’s having some trouble, though.

“Do you have a wallet? I can check your ID, get your name from that if you like.” Jean thinks he saw the telltale bulge in its pocket earlier.

“It might be in your back pocket. Just pull it out and hand it to me, yeah, there you go. Let’s see here…” Jean flips open the worn leather wallet passed to him.

He stares for a minute. There’s an ID, alright. It has a photo. The photo shows a young, healthy man, with well groomed blonde hair and a confident smirk on his face. His shirt looks neatly pressed and his cheeks are flushed and healthy. It’s a far cry from what the person turned into. Jean’s heart suddenly aches for the thing in front of him. 

It’s so easy, no, not just easy, but necessary, to forget that each of the monsters that haunts them was once one of them. The boy in this photo probably never thought he would be this one day. He didn’t want it, didn’t deserve it. He got an even more shit hand dealt to him than Jean did - at least Jean is alive.

He’s been staring for a bit too long. His eyes feel wet, and he wipes them quickly before turning them to the text on the card.

“Reiner. Your name is Reiner Braun.”

Jean. The boy’s name is Jean. It’s a beautiful name, soft and easy for Reiner to pronounce. It suits him. Reiner tries to introduce himself in return, but he can’t. Why does he have to be so awkward? Jean will probably think he’s weird and leave him.

Jean doesn’t, though. He prompts Reiner to pull something from his pocket and hand it to him, then he’s staring at it - is he crying? - Reiner wants to reach out and comfort him, but he isn’t sure what he could do that wouldn’t scare Jean even worse. But then Jean is scrubbing his eyes dry and speaking.

“Your name is Reiner Braun.”

His name. Someone said his name . It’s been so long - no, it’s been forever. No one has said Reiner’s name before. It makes him feel real . He’s not just a ghost wandering through the streets, stealing bits of life from others. He has a name. He has an identity. He’s Reiner Braun.

“Dude, Reiner, are you crying ?”

Is he? He didn’t notice. He smudges a clumsy hand across his cheek, pulling it away to show sludgy rust coloured tears. Jean has set aside the food that Reiner gifted him and is balanced on his knees and one hand, reaching the other in Reiner’s direction.

“I didn’t think corpses could do that.” Neither did Reiner. He’s never done it before. 

“What are you?” Jean asks. Reiner shrugs. He doesn’t know.

Jean is tired. After getting food into his body, the exhaustion of the day catches up to him quickly. He gathers up musty towels and pillows and makes himself as decent a bed as he can on the ground. He tries to put it in the most easily defensible corner of the shop, wanting a shot at survival if he’s found overnight. Reiner is watching him make his bed with curious eyes.

“I’m making a bed. What, don’t you sleep? Dumb question, maybe. You don’t need to sleep, do you?”

The thing - no, Reiner, doesn’t talk most of the time. It seems very difficult for him. Jean has been called a loudmouth before, so they strike a surprisingly easy balance of Jean talking and Reiner listening. It’s the longest Jean has gotten along with someone other than Marco without an argument breaking out.

“Anyway, it’s gotta be past midnight by now. I’m exhausted. I have to rest, even if this really won’t be the most ideal place to do it. Promise you won’t change your mind and eat me in my sleep, yeah?” Jean is just talking, not paying much attention to what’s coming out of his mouth. Reiner is listening attentively, though, and does respond this time.

“Promise. You’re…safe.” He kneels next to where Jean is already kneeling on the floor, reaching out as though to grab his shoulder, before changing his mind and pulling his hand back.

Neither of them have mentioned the absolutely tragic kiss from earlier. Really, Jean has no desire to think about that again for the rest of his life. Reiner has been very careful to respect his personal space since that moment, though, which Jean appreciates. The dead boy seems to crave human contact - yet another oddity for his kind - so Jean throws him a bone and reaches out to pat his shoulder. His sweater is crusty with dried blood.

“Thanks, man. I appreciate this. Really.”

Reiner blinks foggy eyes at him. Jean thinks back to the photo of him when he was still living. He had rich hazel eyes, then. Now they’re muted and clouded over. Jean wonders how well he can see. He settles into the makeshift bed and lays down his head. Reiner is still looking at him.

“Are you just going to watch me sleep?”

“Yes.”

“That’s creepy.”

Reiner looks surprised, as if the thought of it freaking Jean out hadn’t occurred to him. He quickly turns and stumbles a few steps away, then settles facing away from Jean like a sentinel. It makes Jean feel safer.

He closes his eyes and tries to sleep as thoughts of the day plague him. He hopes Sasha and Connie made it back okay. He couldn’t stand to lose any more friends.

Jean’s mouth tastes absolutely foul. Worst morning breath of his life. He’s not sure if it was the old, room-temperature beans, the slight dehydration, the rank kiss, or a little of everything. He would really like to brush his teeth.

“Reiner?” Jean calls quietly as he rises onto his elbows. The dead boy quickly shows up, evidently having been hanging around nearby. 

“I need to brush my teeth. I’m going to see if there’s a staff bathroom that’s safe to use, alright? I’m sure there are some toothbrushes in this shop somewhere too.”

Jean gets up and starts searching. Reiner is following him again, same as when Jean was looking for the can opener. It makes him nervous. He tells himself to relax. If Reiner was going to kill him, he would have by now. Right? Right.

He makes his way to the back of the store with his newly acquired hygiene products. He had not only managed to track down a toothbrush and toothpaste, but soap and washcloths as well. His lucky day.

There is indeed a small employee washroom at the back of the store. Jean, somewhat sarcastically, tries to turn on the tap above the sink, fully expecting nothing to happen. Running water was an oddity nowadays. To his surprise, the sink sputters out some brown gunk before it starts running clear, cool water.

“Huh? What is this? Is this store on a well, or something? This makes no sense,” he turns to tell Reiner who probably couldn’t care less about Jean’s amazement but is still listening raptly.

“Well, I’m not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth. It’ll be good to feel clean for once.”

Jean starts by brushing his teeth. He spits into the sink when he’s done and marvels when the suds are swirled down the drain. The water isn’t getting warm, of course, but he happily washes his face anyway.

Jean wishes he had clean clothes to change into, but that would be too much to ask for. As it is, he strips off his shirt and starts wiping down his armpits and chest with a wet washcloth. Reiner makes an odd noise beside him, but when Jean looks over nothing seems to be wrong. He finishes his makeshift bath and reluctantly dons his sweaty shirt again. When he makes to leave the bathroom, he stops.

Reiner is filthy. Actually, all zombies stink, but Jean doesn’t usually hang around zombies and have sleepovers with them. Plus, Reiner doesn’t seem like most zombies. He might actually appreciate being clean.

Jean looks back at the sink. Well, if he’s playing house with a zombie anyway he may as well go all in.

“Reiner, wait here. I’ll be right back.”

Jean leaves the bathroom. He sees that Reiner took a few steps as well, despite Jean’s instructions, but he’s only moved just enough to keep him in his eyeline rather than following on his heels. Jean grabs the chair he saw at the cash under one arm and brings it back to the bathroom, setting it aside for now. He grabs the toothbrush instead, figuring it makes sense to start with that. Reiner’s breath is atrocious.

“Come here. Closer. Okay, do you remember how to brush your teeth?” Reiner shakes his head, eyes looking wary.

“You just put it in your mouth and move it back and forth. Here, try it.” Reiner obediently takes the toothbrush from Jean and puts it in his mouth, doing the worst job of cleaning his teeth that Jean has ever seen. Jean sighs.

“I can help you. Gimme.” Brushing a zombie’s teeth is an insane thing to do. Sasha and Connie will never believe this, when he tells them. Really, he may as well stick his fingers in Reiner’s mouth and ask him to bite. For some reason, he knows Reiner won’t hurt him. He still goes carefully and slowly, trying his best to be predictable.

“Okay, now spit. No, in the sink! Jesus, I really have to do everything around here.”

Reiner gives him a look like a kicked puppy and Jean feels bad.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it. Here, sit down and put your head back. I’m going to wash your hair.” Jean pulls up the chair he grabbed earlier and puts it in front of the sink, facing away so Reiner can tilt his head back into the stream of water. Reiner stays where he’s standing.

“Go on, I’m not going to bite. I’ve trusted you, now it’s your turn.” That gets him moving. He seems eager to please. Jean wonders what Reiner would do if Jean only asked him, then shakes that thought off.

“Okay, I’m going to turn on the tap now. It’ll be cold.”

Reiner’s heart doesn’t beat anymore, but if it did it would be thumping out of his chest right now. Jean is leaning right over him, so, so, close. He smells incredible, musky and human. Reiner wants to surge up and take a bite, but he won’t. He would never. Jean has been talking to him, and using his name, and treating him like a trusted friend. It’s more than Reiner ever could have asked for. He feels human , and finds he desperately wants more.

Jean warns Reiner that the water will be cold. It doesn’t matter to Reiner - hot and cold aren’t sensations he can experience any longer. Jean uses his hands to touch Reiner’s scalp, fingertips digging pleasurably into the skin.

“Man, you really haven’t been taking care of yourself. It wouldn’t kill you to wash your hair once in a while, you know. Or at least run a comb through it. It’s all matted. I’ll get it clean though, don’t worry. One time, my friend Sasha fell directly into our goat pen and landed in the food trough, then when she got out of that she slipped in goat shit and got her hair all full of mud, too. I managed to get her hair clean, so this will be no problem at all.”

Jean talks a lot . Much of it is aggressive or accusatory, but Reiner doesn’t think he means anything by it. Reiner doesn’t have much room to judge, anyway. Most of the stuff that comes out of his mouth are blood curdling cries for flesh. And Jean is probably right - why hasn’t Reiner been taking better care of himself? People would like him more if he cleaned properly. He’s embarrassed now.

“Sorry,” he tells Jean. “Didn’t…think of it.”

“Huh? Oh, it’s no problem. I don’t mind helping. Hey, that was the longest sentence you’ve said yet. Is it getting easier? You getting some good practice in?”

It is getting easier. Reiner’s tongue isn’t so numb and stiff, and his lips are obeying him. Maybe it’s the practice, but Reiner thinks there’s more to it than that. He isn’t sure how to put that into words, though, so he doesn’t try.

“Aaand I get the silent treatment again. No worries, I’ll just keep talking to myself. Hey, lean forward a bit. I need to get the back of your neck.” Reiner obeys. 

Jean’s fingers, long and clever, weave through the short hair on his nape. Reiner can’t feel heat, but he swears Jean is leaving warmth where his fingertips touch.

“Okay, I’ve gotten it mostly clean. I think one more wash and you’ll be good.”

The water streaming from Reiner’s scalp is dark red. Jean knew, logically, that some of the brown gunk in his hair was dried blood. But seeing proof of it in front of him gives Jean a tangible reminder that Reiner isn’t innocent. He’s not human anymore, and he’s probably killed people. Hell, he was at the pharmacy when Jean nearly got eaten. He must have been there for a reason, and Jean doubts it was to pick up his prescription.

Jean shakes the thought from his mind. Flesh eater or not, Jean needs to focus on the present. Right now, Reiner isn’t a threat. Jean keeps talking as he gets the hair cleaner and cleaner, using a generous amount of the cheap cherry-scented hand soap he had found. He moves on to the final rinse, then turns off the water and instructs Reiner to sit up. Jean leans over to wipe Reiner’s face clean with a wet washcloth and towel his hair dry, then he stands up straight to admire his work.

Reiner’s hair is a gleaming, golden blonde again. Jean is jealous - if he had neglected his hair like Reiner had, he’d’ve needed to shave it off. The clean hair, clean skin and brushed teeth make Reiner look (and smell) almost human again from the neck up, if you discount the cloudy eyes and the pale skin. From the neck down, well, his clothes are filthy enough that it’s not worth cleaning the skin underneath them, and his dark hoodie is riddled with tears and what Jean thinks might be a few bullet holes. Still, though…

“You look nice.”

“I look…nice?”

“Yeah, of course. You have beautiful hair. Try to keep it clean from now on, okay? Don’t throw away my hard work, you slob.”

“Here, try these on,” Jean shoves an armful of dusty clothes at Reiner. After assessing for mold and dry rot, the few clothes left in the mall even close to Reiner’s size were colourful, summery, polyester nightmares. Still, the abandoned merchandise only smells of dust and mildew, rather than of rot and gore, so Jean figures it’ll be an improvement regardless of how much of an eyesore it may make Reiner.

Reiner is awkwardly grasping onto the pile of clothes that Jean gave him and looking at him, bewildered. Jean doesn’t know what he’s so confused about. Then again, it seems like Reiner hasn’t changed his clothes once since whenever he met his untimely demise and zombification. Maybe he doesn’t know how.

“I’m not helping you get changed. That’s where I draw the line,” Jean says, then he considers the man in front of him and his clumsy, numb fingers and amends, “I’ll do the buttons for you. But that’s it!”

Jean nearly swears that Reiner’s bloodless cheeks turns pink, but he turns and stumbles into the changeroom before Jean can rub his eyes and reassess. Probably a trick of the light.

Jean contemplates sitting in the dusty chair outside the changeroom, but that feels a little too much like a makeover montage to him. Instead, he pokes around the sunglasses display near the checkout to entertain himself while he waits for Reiner.

“How’s it going in there?” Jean calls out when he hears a particularly loud ‘thump’. It sounds like Reiner fell on his ass. When Reiner grunts at him in response, Jean turns back to the sunglasses.

Looks like they weren’t a hot commodity when the apocalypse struck. Sunglasses are useful and most people Jean knows keep a pair, but these are fashion sunglasses, not utility ones, and thus most of them have been left on the rack. Jean wipes the dust off the little mirror at the top of the display with his sleeve and picks a pair at random to try on.

They’re shiny, huge, and make him look like some kind of insect. Jean checks over his shoulder to make sure Reiner isn’t out yet then turns back to the mirror and raises his hands in front of him like a praying mantis. Yeah, these are terrible on him. He takes them off and tosses them over his shoulder.

The next pair he picks up have a tortoiseshell frame and look straight out of the seventies, double nose bridge and everything. Jean thinks they actually look pretty good on him and he contemplates sticking them in his pocket when he notices a smudge of blood on the lens. Gross. Those get discarded as well.

Jean picks up a third pair, a pointy and dramatic looking lime green set, and pops them on his face when he hears Reiner opening the change room door. Jean can’t help it. He laughs.

“Man, you look ridiculous.” It’s true. He does. He’s wearing bright pink board shorts and a matching shirt. The outfit fits him in size, if not in energy. The bright colours don’t look right on a flesh eating creature of the night and contrast poorly against his bone-white skin. Jean reaches out to do up the buttons on the shirt.

“You look…ridiculous.”

Oh. Jean is still wearing the sunglasses. He takes a break from the buttons to pull them off his face and set them on Reiner’s instead. They go with the outfit. Jean can’t help it - he boops Reiner’s nose as he’s pulling his hands away.

“Not bad. You smell way better now, at least. Maybe we can find you something more stylish some other time.”

Chapter Text

Jean needs to leave.

Really, he does. He’s lingered here for too long. In his defense, Reiner is fascinating. He’s like some sort of cross between a human and a zombie - the pale skin and dead eyes of a zombie, but able to think and speak almost like a human. Jean can hardly be blamed for sticking around as long as he did.

But, he needs to go back to the base. Let people know he’s alive. Poor Sasha and Connie are probably mourning him already. He also needs to tell people what he’s found - Hange would have a field day with a specimen like Reiner. Who knows - maybe he’s the key for humanity’s future. Jean needs to debrief, and he can’t do that while he’s still in the mall.

So, one day, he asks Reiner to go and find him more food. Reiner obediently rises from where he was kneeling and shambles off. Jean feels bad for lying, but he’s seen how Reiner stares at him almost constantly. Reiner isn’t a danger to Jean, he knows that by now, but whether he would be okay with Jean leaving and reporting Reiner’s existence to other livings is unknown. Better to ask forgiveness than permission.

When Reiner turns a corner in the mall, Jean acts. He scoops up Reiner’s old, disgusting sweatshirt and pulls it over his head. Hopefully the scent will afford him some kind of protection. He’s also noticed that the other zombies in the mall have routines. They tend to gather in the food court in the daytime and shamble through the hallways at night. If Jean leaves now, he’s unlikely to run into any during his escape.

He moves. He’s unarmed, so he won’t be able to defend himself if he gets into a scuffle. He’ll have to put all of his energy towards being quick and clever. The best way to win against a zombie? Don’t get in a fight with one to begin with.

His plan works out well in the first few stages. Getting to the door leading out of the mall is a cakewalk - any zombies hanging around in the stores were bypassed quickly enough that they may not have even spotted him. Be that as it may, the area outside the mall is an unknown factor, so Jean takes a brief pause to try to peer out the glass door, trying to examine the area outside for any sign of movement. The glass is old and stained with browned blood and dust, so the visibility isn’t the greatest.

Fine. He’ll just have to go into it blind.

Jean apprehensively pushes the door bar. It clunks back heavily, and Jean slowly opens the door and peeks outside. There’s nothing in his path forward that he can see, so he takes a step outside.

That was a mistake.

Reiner has found food for Jean.

Nothing too special, unfortunately. Reiner would have loved to give Jean something worthy of him, but, well, he doesn’t know much about human food. He thinks that they cook things - Jean had complained in passing about only being able to eat cold, canned food recently. Reiner doesn’t know anything about how to cook. He eats all his food raw, though granted, he has a tough time telling warm from cold anyhow. Maybe it makes a big difference. He isn’t sure. He wonders if there’s something in the mall he could use to heat up the can of peaches that he found, but thinks better of trying to figure it out in that moment.

It’ll be something he and Jean can figure out in the future.

He gets back to where he left Jean, making his footsteps heavier so as to not startle him. Funny, normally when Jean hears him coming he’ll poke his head out to make sure it’s Reiner, but Reiner doesn’t see him doing that. He rounds the corner.

Jean isn’t there.

The wailing moans of the dead accost Jean’s eardrums the very moment he walks out. On top of that, the midday sun is burning his retinas after so long spent inside the dark, powerless mall. Jean is completely disoriented and about to be in for a world of suffering if he doesn’t do something, anything, now.

So, he opens his sun seared eyes wide, damn the pain. There are two zombies to his left (an older man wearing a janitor's uniform, and a young man, probably around Jean’s age when he died) and one on his right (a blonde girl, probably no older than seventeen. She has a Hello Kitty shirt on). They’re cutting off both side routes, so he goes forward, running directly into the parking lot. 

The parking lot is crowded with dilapidated cars, trucks, and everything in between, that were crashed or abandoned in the wake of the outbreak. Seems like a few too many people had taken notes from Dawn of the Dead and headed to the local shopping mall to take cover from the apocalypse. Their mistake. Jean wonders if any of these cars belong to the three zombies now on his tail.

The lucky thing about the zombie apocalypse is that corpses don’t really have the ability to run, given their muscles and tendons are rotten and, in many cases, bitten off in chunks prior to their deaths and subsequent undeaths. Given that, Jean has an easy time weaving around dusty car collisions and sliding over hoods to evade his pursuers.

So, given that zombies are generally slow and mostly stupid, how did they manage to back humanity up into a corner, you may wonder. Well, the answer to that is the same as the reason that Jean ends up having a harder time escaping the parking lot than he anticipated: sheer numbers.

As Jean takes a sharp corner around a scratched up Acura, he immediately has to do an about-face as he’s confronted with another zombie. This one is barely tall enough to reach his shoulders and has a truly awful bowl cut, but he’s baring his teeth widely and dried blood crusts his chin. Jean readjusts his course to cut through a small gap in between a midsized sedan and a minivan. He makes the mistake of glancing through the windshield of the minivan and sees most of a family still inside, scratching at the windows with cracked and bloodied fingernails, never able to figure out how to undo their seatbelts in the years after their deaths.

Jean grimaces, averts his gaze, and keeps moving.

He’s never been the most lucky (his friends always joked that he used up all his luck just surviving to adulthood - probably more accurate than he’d like to think) and his lack of fortune rears its ugly head when he finds himself at a dead end.

In his rush to avoid the flesheaters, he seems to have navigated himself in a huge U. He’s facing the insurmountable brick wall of the mall. On his right are more scattered vehicles. It might have been his best bet to go that way and once again attempt to weave through the cars to an eventual escape, except even now he can spot the movement of at least a dozen zombies who’ve grown wise to his presence. To his left is a transport truck, too tall to climb over, and he can’t cut through the cab, either: like the minivan, it, too, has an unfortunate passenger.

Can’t go over it, can’t go through it. He’ll have to go under it. 

The truck is sagged from age and flattened tires. The gap beneath it is barely wide enough for Jean to squeeze through flat on his stomach, pulling himself along with his arms. It’s not a big enough space to get his knees under him, but he tries to go quickly, anyway, especially when he hears the moans and wordless yelling of his pursuers coming closer. Zombies aren’t great at figuring out puzzles, so he hopes that him being out of their line of sight will be enough to keep them from following. 

Jean sees the legs first. It would be hard not to, given that they’re directly in his path. He grabs the severed and desiccated lower half of a human body and leverages his arm to the side to fling it out of his way. The legs go easily. Jean wonders how that happened - if the poor soul was trying to do exactly what he is now, but got grabbed, and ripped in two. He wonders, briefly, what happened to the top half of the body, as he reaches the other side of the truck and starts to pull himself out. He doesn’t have to wonder long, as the zombie chooses that moment to grab his pant leg.

Jean shouts in surprise. He was certain that he wasn’t spotted crawling on the ground by any of the zombies on the other side, but as he’s kicking the guy’s face to try to get him to let go he notices the putrid black intestines trailing on the ground where the dude's legs should be.

Jean’s kicking doesn’t do much good. His legs are still under the truck and he’s unable to get enough momentum in his kicks to do that much damage. The half-man is about to sink his teeth into Jean’s ankle when Jean is grabbed by the back of the neck like an unruly pup and dragged forward, out from under the truck completely. Jean is preparing to be feasted upon by a gang of zombies when the one who pulled him out lets him go, then takes two sure steps back to the zombie still holding Jean's ankle.

Jean gets a good look at the ankle-biter now, out in the sun. He’s probably just past retirement age. He has a pair of shattered reading glasses dangled from a colourful beaded chain on his neck - it looks homemade. By his grandchildren, maybe. He has crows feet wrinkles by his eyes. He probably used to smile a lot. Jean can picture him reading bedtime stories to his grandchildren, doing silly voices for all the characters and making everyone laugh. 

Reiner stomps on his head once, twice, then a third time. His glasses are smashed beyond repair and his head is an ugly smear on the pavement.

Jean is sometimes afraid of Reiner.

Yeah, okay, the guy is a huge meathead and a bit of a teddy bear (a blood soaked teddy bear, maybe, like one that a scary little girl would carry around in a horror movie, but still). He’s been friendly enough to Jean since they met (aside from the whole kidnapping thing, that is) and has had many opportunities to, y’know, tear out Jean's throat and devour his flesh that he hasn’t taken.

History would say that Jean has no reason to be nervous now, then. At this moment, he’s still stuck staring at the broken-egg mush that was the kindly looking old killer zombie’s head a few seconds ago (and when did Jean get so soft that the flesheater’s death upsets him, anyway?). When he eventually turns his head skyward to make eye contact with the still standing Reiner, he half expects a look of rage or, god forbid, hunger on his face. And yeah, he’s still got a hell of a lot of adrenaline making its rounds through his bloodstream right now, which isn’t helping his nerves.

When he does lock eyes on Reiner, though, the dead man isn’t angry. He’s not hungry, and he’s not gnashing his teeth and baying for blood. He looks sad. Disappointed, maybe.

“You…were leaving.”

Jean takes another few seconds to blink and catch his breath. He’s not entirely sure how to respond to Reiner. No, Reiner, I was just taking a casual afternoon stroll?

“Yeah, I was leaving.”

“Why?” The question is choked out of Reiner’s throat, coarse and choppy.

“I can’t stay here forever. I need to get back to my friends.” It’s true. Sasha and Connie are probably worried sick about him, if they aren’t already in mourning. Even Eren is probably baying for zombie blood (not that that would be anything out of the norm).

“Thought we…were friends.”

“Sure, yeah, we’re friends. But that doesn’t mean this setup was permanent.” Oof, maybe that came out a bit harsh. Jean has never had a soft disposition.

“Come back in,” Reiner insists. “Stay.”

“I’m not staying.”

Reiner loses his words. His face makes a series of twitches, like it can’t settle on an expression to make. He ends up turning his face away from Jean violently, his lips pulling up into a snarl. He’s avoiding eye contact. He’s upset. His eyes even look a little shiny.

“Look,” Jean says, trying to be firm, “I’ll visit, some day. But I need to get back to the base. Sasha and Connie will be worried about me, especially after what happened to Marco-”

Reiner flinches.

Why did Reiner flinch?

Jean doesn’t pick his sentence back up. He watches Reiner, who’s now clenching his jaw and averting his gaze even further if that were possible. Jean gets a sinking feeling in his gut.

“Reiner,” he says staccato. Reiner doesn’t react. “Why did you react like that? When I said Marco’s name.”

“I…” Reiner is visibly struggling with his words and can’t seem to decide which way he wants to face. He’s worrying at the edge of his shirt with his fingers, then he reaches one hand up to pull at his hair, pained.

“He was sent on a retrieval mission,” Jean says slowly. “The settlement needed medicine. He was sent to a pharmacy. The same one you were in.”

He already knows what must have happened, doesn’t he? But Reiner wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.

Jean’s hands rise in an impulsive urge to cover his own ears. He catches sight of his sleeves, then - Reiner’s sleeves, of the hoodie Jean put on to try to cover his scent. It’s stained brown - with blood, Jean knows. It’s telling, too, that most of the bloodstains are dribbling down from the collar, like a child’s messy bib. These aren’t stains from when Reiner was killed. They’ve gotta be from after.

From eating someone.

“Tell me you didn’t,” Jean says hoarsely.

“I’m…I-....”

“Reiner, please. You didn’t.”

“I’m…sorry.”

He does look sorry. He really does. Tears are dribbling down his cheeks (since when could zombies cry?) and he’s practically folded in on himself in shame. It doesn’t make a difference.

Jean leaves.

It’s been two days since Jean left, and Reiner is dead inside.

Not that that’s anything new, really. But somehow he’s never felt so lifeless. 

Things go back to the way they were before pretty quickly. Reiner settles back into his routine. Shamble around. Stand in place. Shamble around. Sit in place. It used to be the norm for him. Not a comforting routine, really. Nothing was comforting. Nothing used to be very uncomfortable either, though, to be fair.

But since Jean left, uncomfortable is all he’s been feeling.

The rain chills him and makes his feet wet and uncomfortable. The sun makes his skin itch and peel. He can’t (doesn’t want to, doesn’t care enough to) take his shoes off, but he thinks if he did, he might have blisters.

None of it matters.

He’s a monster. It was stupid of him to pretend not to be. He’s eaten people. Not even because he was hungry. He just wanted to, felt some horrible black hole open up inside him and demand it of him, and they were there.

The dead don’t need to eat, but his stomach has been rumbling recently. He contemplates going to find a living to devour. He’s a monster. He might as well stop trying to be anything else.

He doesn’t get up.

Jean has made it back to the settlement. Finally. It took him nearly a full day of travel, even after finding a pedal bike in decent enough shape to use. The movement might have been good for him, pedaling furiously and bypassing every obstacle in his way, but he could only exercise away his worries for so long. 

Anti-exposure protocol in Paradis is strict. It’s one of the main reasons that they’ve made it this long without any major outbreaks in the settlement. Immediately upon his arrival to the gate, he was swept aside, stripped completely, hosed down and examined for bite marks or wounds, then put into solitary confinement for a two-day observation period to make sure he didn’t turn into a monster in his sleep.

And, man, does solitary confinement do something to a guy’s head.

It’s not like he doesn’t have anything to do. As the infection prevention and control lead, Levi Ackerman is thorough and strict but not cruel. Jean has some books, a nice, barred window, and even a pencil. Pretty solid accommodations given that he might need to be shot in the head and ruin everything with his blood. Still, Lord of the Flies isn’t serving as a great distraction from Jean’s turmoil. Maybe he should try to sleep.

The issue is, every time Jean closes his eyes, he sees things.

Some are things he’s been seeing for years - the start of the apocalypse. Trost falling. Burning buildings, corpses in the streets, rivers of blood. Same old, same old.

But he’s also seeing Reiner.

Reiner in the pharmacy. Reiner pulling Jean’s knife from his body and dropping it to the ground. Reiner stomping on another zombies head, crushing it into a paste. Reiner in his blood-stained rags and his acrid, rotting scent.

Reiner in pink shorts. Reiner letting Jean shampoo his hair. Reiner apologizing, crying. Reiner’s ID, the flushed and healthy visage of him before his death is seared into Jean’s retinas.

Reiner pouncing on Marco, ripping into his neck, his torso, filling his stomach with greedy mouthfuls. Blood staining the tile flooring of the pharmacy.

Jean wonders where Marco is now. Did he rise? Was he intact enough to do so? Jean finds himself hoping that he wasn’t. Reiner is an anomaly for his sapience, and even so, he’s not right. Marco deserved to live, but failing that, he deserved a death. A real death. None of this living-death bullshit.

Didn’t Reiner deserve that, too?

Jean lays on the mildewy mattress and wonders if he can train himself to sleep with his eyes open.

Reiner gets up. He shambles. He stands. He shambles some more.

His mouth has been feeling strange lately. He can’t figure it out. It tingles and prickles. His tongue gets stuck to the roof of his mouth. It tastes of something, too, something other than blood - which until now has been the only thing he could taste. It tastes bad. He doesn’t know how to describe it.

He thinks of Jean. Jean is most of what he’s been thinking of lately. Reiner wonders if he’d be able to find him. Jean deserves to take his revenge on Reiner. Reiner has it coming. He’s a monster. He needs to be put down.

It would be nice to see Jean again, too, even if he put a bullet in Reiner’s head.

He shambles some more. It starts to rain, and Reiner turns his head to the sky and opens his mouth. The strange feeling and taste on his tongue go away.

Jean is released from quarantine on the morning of day three. Sasha and Connie, as expected, were beyond elated to see him. So much so, in fact, that Jean was too busy eating real, hot, food and ignoring the topic of where he was for the last week and what happened with the zombies to immediately report to Hange what he’d discovered.

And, sue him, it’s a bit of a sore topic right now. Jean needs a few hours to recuperate, to feel normal again, before he can go dredging it all up in front of others. Reiner. His time in the mall. Marco’s death. It’s too much right now. His head is spinning, has been for the last few days.

But the next morning, Jean wakes up in his own bed. He sighs to himself, then gets ready for the day. It’s time for him to make a report to Hange.

Jean is at the door to the main meeting hall, where he’s pretty sure Hange is. It’s where all the leaders and people in charge meet up to discuss things and make plans. Really, calling it a hall is a bit of an overstatement. It’s just a tiny room that they also use to store old electronics and cleaning supplies, but hey, space is a luxury when every inch of non-infested land needs to be defended with blood and tears. Jean steps to the door and raises a hand to knock.

“-full scale attack, as soon as possible.”

“When?”

“The day after tomorrow, if we can move out on time. Strike while the iron’s hot. And before we end up having to use the explosives on something else.”

“And you’re sure this is a sound plan?”

“I’m sure. It’ll work.”

“...”

“Armin helped me with it.”

“Oh! Well, then, that’s different.”

“Let me do it, sir, and we can get rid of hundreds of zombies in one blow. The first step to reclaiming the city.”

Should Jean be eavesdropping? Nah, probably not. But does it count as eavesdropping when the people on the other side of the door are talking so loudly?

“Jean reported he’d been at the mall during his time missing. Let’s get him here and get his input on the plan.”

Jean doesn’t manage to back up in time to avoid getting hit by the door swinging out at him.

“Ow!”

“Oh, Jean, we were just talking about you!”

“Hange,” Jean nods and straightens up respectfully while still grasping his bruised nose.

“We were just talking about you,” Hange repeats, nodding their head. “Come in, come in.”

Jean acquiesces, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. Inside the room is Hange, Erwin, and Eren.

Hange was the only one he was planning to speak with about Reiner, though Erwin being there is just as well. Anything he told Hange about Reiner would inevitably get back to Erwin eventually, as the de facto leader of their group. Eren, though, is a wrench in his plans.

Eren is…how can Jean put this. Mildly insane? Completely bonkers and feral when it comes to zombies? Jean once saw him decapitate a zombie with nothing but a pair of nail scissors and pure, unfiltered rage. Jean loves the guy (don’t tell Eren that, it’ll go to his head) but he’s not the kind of person who would react well to the knowledge that a zombie has developed intelligence. Best for Jean to wait for a better moment to bring up his recently acquired acquaintance.

They’re planning on destroying the mall.

Erwin had explained the plan Eren proposed to him - using recently and dubiously acquired plastic explosives to demolish the mall at vital support points, causing it to cave in on itself and destroying all the zombies within. Any stragglers would be picked off by a dedicated team of the most proficient fighters they had. It wasn’t a bad plan, really.

The issue was…

“Reiner,” Jean mutters to himself after the plan fully sinks into the wrinkles of his brain.

“Huh?”

“What?”

“You said ‘Reiner’. What’s that?”

Jean really needs to start keeping his inside thoughts inside. Still, this is vital information. Reiner can’t be killed in the attack on the mall, he just can’t. He’s too valuable. As a source of information, Jean means.

“Reiner is…important. He’s a zombie.”

“You named one of them?” Eren is aghast. Hange and Erwin are looking quizzically at Jean, like maybe they think he was in quarantine for a little too long.

“No, moron. He had a name already,” Jean explains defensively. “Reiner is different.”

Before he can be scooped up and brought to a doctor, Jean drops the bombshell.

“He can talk.”

Eren, Erwin, and Hange respond about how Jean expected them to.

“He can what?”  

“Excuse me?”

“Are you for real?”

“He can talk,” Jean confirms. “He stays in the mall most of the time. He can understand language, communicate with us. He didn’t attack me once while I was there. He’s almost human.”

Eren’s face darkens.

“This is bad news,” he says. “If you’re not making this up, it needs to be destroyed.”

“What? Are you kidding me? This could be a turning point for us. He could be the key to a cure.”

“It could be the key to the end of humankind. It can talk? What next, walk like us, talk like us, look like us? It could waltz right into the middle of human camps without anyone the wiser. We need to eliminate it and any zombies like it. For the good of mankind.”

Jean’s blood runs cold. This isn’t the way that he hoped this conversation would go. But still, Eren isn’t the authority on this.

“Hange, Erwin,” he turns to them, “I think he’s important. I really do. We’re outnumbered by zombies, a thousand to one. We need to learn everything we can, or we’ll lose. We have hope now. He doesn’t want to destroy us, we shouldn’t destroy him.”

Eren scoffs. “Can you honestly say that? That it doesn’t want to kill us? They’ve been eating us alive. Can you really say that your zombie has no blood on its hands?”

Yes, Jean wants to say, but he can’t. He goes still. His mouth shuts.

“This is interesting,” Hange breaks the silence. “Jean, if what you’re saying is true, then your zombie could be majorly significant. I don’t think we can destroy it just like that. Still, Eren has a point. It could be dangerous. Erwin, I want to capture it.”

What? No.

“Capture him? Why?” Jean asks.

“It could be a key to a cure, like you said. We’ll need to keep it close, for testing. Blood samples, tissue samples, bone marrow. Some brain tissue, even. Any part of it could change the world for the better.”

“Very well,” Erwin finally speaks. His voice is deep and firm. “Eren, your plan to destroy the mall is approved, with a modification. Retrieve this zombie and bring it back to the base. We’ll make sure that your team is well equipped to subdue it.”

Eren looks sour. 

“For the good of mankind,” he eventually agrees.

Reiner’s head hurts.

It’s strange. He doesn’t like it. He wonders if his brain is rotting away, if he’s about to become the first zombie to ever reach the end of its lifespan. His eyes feel heavy. He lays down and his eyes close.

They open again the next morning. He feels better.

Preparations for the attack on the mall are nearly finished. Everyone in the settlement is bustling and busy, sharpening weapons and stocking backpacks. People are excited to finally strike back. The fighters will set out in a half hour.

Jean feels a bit sick.

Hange is a genius. So is Erwin. If they think that capturing Reiner for scientific testing is the best path to bring humanity forward, then so be it. Jean shouldn’t interfere. Jean shouldn’t want to interfere.

He takes a deep breath and turns away from the hustle and bustle. He needs to clear his head, so he starts walking.

Reiner is a zombie. That’s a rock solid, irreversible fact. There’s no undoing it. And saving one zombie isn’t worth potentially putting the salvation of humanity on hold. It’s just not. Reiner is a zombie. Reiner ate his friend. Jean needs to realize that and stop sympathizing with him. Still, the thought of Reiner chained up in some dark cage having bits and pieces of him chopped off day after day for experimentation makes Jean sick to his stomach.

When did he get so damn soft?

There are some trees where Jean is walking. Hange had said something about mental health and green space when they had insisted that certain plants should remain uncleared in the settlement. Jean thinks that his mental health is too much of a lost cause for some twiggy branches to help.

Jean thinks that Eren has been looking at him differently since yesterday. Jean wasn’t asked to come along on the mission, ostensibly because he just came back from an ordeal and needs a rest. Jean doesn’t think that’s the real reason he’s being made to stay behind. He’s the only person that’s argued against killing a zombie in years, probably since the beginning months of the pandemic. It’s just not done.

Jean spots a bit of movement out of the corner of his eye, on the ground. He crouches down curiously to get a closer look. 

A little moth is fluttering in the grass. One of its wings has been torn pretty badly. It won’t get up into the air like that. It’ll just stay there, flapping uselessly until something bigger comes by to rip it to shreds. Jean feels sorry for it. He straightens up, lifts a boot, and brings it down swiftly. It’s the best he can do for the little guy now. Sometimes the best thing you can do for a creature is to let it die.

The strike team has already set out by now. Jean might be able to make it to the mall before them if the pedal bike is still where he left it.

The mall is foreboding in front of Jean. It seems bigger than he remembered. He sneaks back the way he left, passing by the rotten corpse of the legless zombie which is now swarming with flies, sliding back under the truck, and tiptoeing around cars and over to the door. Luckily, miraculously, he doesn’t attract any unwanted attention on the way in.

The mall is dark inside, darker than he remembers. It stinks, too. He must have gotten used to the stench when he was there before. It’s the bitter and nauseating scent of death, already permeating his nostrils and making his eyes water. He has to stand still just inside the entrance for a minute for his eyes to adjust, before he begins making calculated steps towards the linen store that Reiner has made his home in. His gun is grasped in a firm grip, safety off and pointed at the floor as he moves.

Jean’s heart is in his throat. He feels as though if he were jostled, it would bubble up past his lips and splatter onto the ground in front of him. 

This is for the best, he reminds himself. It’s the only thing you can do for him now.

Jean comes up to the store that was his home during that strange week. He looks up to the sign above it for the first time. Bed, Bath and Beyond. He supposes zombies count as Beyond.

He walks inside. 

To be honest, Jean was half expecting Reiner not to be there anymore. If Jean were in his shoes, he might have ran. Left the place behind and not thought of it again. But Reiner is still there. Jean sees the broad sweep of his shoulders and the back of his blonde head. His hair still looks pretty clean. Maybe a bit greasy, but not bloody.

This would be easier if it were bloody.

“Reiner,” Jean says gently, before he can stop himself. Damnit. Reiner jumps up and turns quickly from where he was slumped on the floor, locking eyes with Jean. That’s gonna make this a lot harder.

“Jean,” Reiner breathes out, looking wide-eyed and shellshocked. 

“I’m here to kill you.”

Reiner freezes, then lowers his eyes to the ground. Jean waits. He’s not sure what he’s waiting for. His gun is raised, pointing straight between Reiner’s eyes.

Reiner drops to his knees, head bowed.

“I understand,” he says. His voice sounds different. Richer, maybe. Less atrophied. Jean wonders if he’s been practicing talking to himself while he’s been gone.

“You understand?” Jean asks, bewildered. “What do you mean, you understand?” 

The deep grief and sorrow that Jean has been feeling for days has lifted, revealing not happiness or contentedness but rage. Reiner understands? What the fuck?

“You’re just going to give up? You’re going to sit there and let me kill you? Get back up. On your feet. Have some dignity, for fucks sake. What’s your problem?”

“I…what?”

“I’m here to kill you. Don’t you care? Don’t you want to live? Don’t you feel anything at all?” Jean is close to yelling now, the only thing keeping his voice down is years of survival instinct shutting him up lest he get swarmed by the other occupants of the mall.

“I’m…sorry?”

“Yeah, you’re fucking sorry. A sorry sight. You know why I’m here? I’m here because Eren is right. You are dangerous. You ate my best friend. But you don’t deserve to be some science experiment trapped in a living hell for years. You deserve to die. Fucking idiot, brains rotting in your skull. Fucking zombie. It’s in your nature, isn’t it? To eat people, to kill them? You can’t control it.”

Reiner is silent. He still hasn’t stood up. Jean has the sudden urge to kick him, but he resists.

“Marco died for someone that doesn’t even care enough about himself to fight back?”

The fight drains from Jean suddenly. What the hell is he doing? He slumps to the ground cross-legged, sitting in front of Reiner.

“What happened?” Jean asks. He needs to know. “You killed Marco. In cold blood, I’d say. He was more the type to avoid zombies, not pick fights with them. But you didn’t kill me. Why?”

“I…” Reiner looks up from the ground, connecting his eyes with Jean’s. “I didn’t want to.” Reiner clenches his fists where they rest on his knees. “I didn’t have to anymore.”

“You didn’t have to?”

“I could control it.”

Jean stays silent. He knows Reiner can control the bloodlust. He didn’t know that he hadn’t always been able to. What made Reiner go from mindless and bloodthirsty to the way he is now?

There’s no way to know, really. Even if they could figure it out, would it be worth the torture Reiner would have to go through to get there?

Jean had been thinking about Marco a lot recently. Picturing his death, being hopeful it was a complete one. No one deserves undeath.

Jean rises to his feet. He adjusts his grip on his gun, then points it at Reiner’s head.

“I forgive you,” Jean says. His eyes are prickling. “But I still need to kill you.”

Jean starts to squeeze the gun.

Reiner looks into the barrel of the gun, then past it and at Jean. He’s upset. There are tears pooling in his eyes. Reiner wonders if they’re for him or for Marco.

It doesn’t matter any more. Reiner is ready - no, not ready. That’s not the right word. He’s prepared. Death can’t be that bad. Reiner would have preferred to be alive, really alive, but being really dead is a close second place.

Reiner sees the muscles in Jean’s hand start to tense. He closes his eyes.

“Jean.”

Reiner’s eyes shoot back open. Jean turns to the source of the voice.

“Eren?” he asks.

A man comes out of the shadows, dark hair and dark eyes. He’s armed to the teeth and is splattered with rotten blood. He’s looking at the gun in Jean’s hand, then he shifts his eyes over to Reiner.

“You’ve pulled yourself together,” Eren says to Jean, not unkindly. “Good. I was worried about you. This is the zombie?”

“Yes,” Jean replies after a short pause. He looks on edge. “I’m going to kill him. I’m not letting you take him back to Hange.”

“That’s fine.”

“Huh?”

“I said that’s fine. I agree. He needs to die. Hange is too optimistic. We need to kill them all. It’s our only path forward. Go ahead.”

Jean turns back to Reiner. Finally, Reiner thinks, they can get this over with. He’s ready. He closes his eyes again and waits.

And keeps waiting.

When he finally opens his eyes back up, Jean is still pointing the gun at him. He’s trembling. Why does he look so upset? Reiner isn’t worth being upset over.

“Jean,” Eren says again. “You’re struggling. That’s fine. I can do it for you.”

Eren pushes down the hand holding the gun and raises his own.

Jean lets his hand go down willingly. Why couldn’t he just shoot? Has he really gotten so soft? Reiner is a sapient zombie, sure, but he’s still a zombie. Jean is trained to kill them. He choked. Why did he choke?

Reiner is still kneeling there on the floor, bruised knuckles on clenched fists. He has some crust in the corner of his eye, just like Jean gets after a long nap. Eren draws his handgun, clicking off the safety. He aims.

“Wait!”

He fires just as Jean shoves into him and knocks them both onto the floor. He hears the bullet explode out of the barrel. He doesn’t know if it hits Reiner or not.

“Jean, what the fuck?” Eren grits out. “What are you doing? It needs to die!”

Jean whips his head around to Reiner. 

It can’t be, can it?

The bullet didn’t completely miss its mark, but it wasn’t fatal. Reiner is clutching his cheek with a hand, groaning. He sounds pained and confused.

“Reiner,” Jean scrambles over, grasping Reiner’s shoulders. 

“Reiner, let me see,” he asks gently. He pulls Reiner’s hand away from his cheek.

It’s bloody.

Red, vibrant, blood.

“You’re bleeding,” Jean can’t believe it. He swipes his fingers across the crimson. It’s sticky when he presses his fingertips together.

“I’m bleeding?” Reiner has eyes like dinner plates.

“Does it hurt?”

“It hurts,” Reiner laughs, looking at his red fingers. “I’m bleeding!”

“You’re- wait, let me check-” Jean holds two fingers to Reiner’s neck. 

Thump thump, thump thump.

“You have a pulse,” Jean says, nearly crying. “Eren, get over here, he has a pulse.”

“He does? He can’t,” Eren is rising from his position on the floor, then he quickly walks over to Reiner and crouches, cautiously reaching out and wiping the blood from the slash on his face as if to check it’s actually oozing from that and not just some trick. He presses two of his fingers to the same spot Jean did.

“I’ll be damned. Well, this changes things.”

“I won’t let him be experimented on,” Jean defensively says, rising to his feet and pulling Reiner up with him.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Eren scoffs after a few seconds. “He’s not a zombie. He’s alive. We have human rights for humans. You don’t seriously think that Hange would still cut his limbs off, do you?”

“What?” Reiner asks, looking at Jean aghast.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jean tells him.

“You need to get going,” Eren tells him. He looks at the watch on his wrist. “Oh, shit. You need to get going now. Explosives are primed to go off in T minus four minutes.”

“Fuck, okay, let’s run.”

Reiner and Jean book it out of the mall. Eren takes a different route to meet up with his teammates, sending Jean and Reiner in a separate direction. Apparently Eren took Floch with him, who’s more of a shoot-zombies-first-ask-questions-later kind of guy that they didn’t want to be running into during a time crunch. They’ll rendezvous with Eren closer to the settlement.

“Come on Reiner, run run run!”

“Running!” Reiner huffs and puffs behind him. Jean is dragging him along by his hand. His warm, sweaty hand. Reiner isn’t used to actually having to breathe and sweat while exerting himself and is doing remarkably poorly. Jean will have to make fun of him about it later.

They push through the doors and book it through the parking lot, sliding over car hoods and focusing more on speed than stealth. The parking lot is going to go up soon, anyway, and any pursuers will be lost in the blaze.

Finally, they make it to a safe area. A bus stop a couple blocks down. The bench has an advertisement for some kind of real estate couple. Hungry to Serve You! the bench proclaims. It makes Jean chuckle a bit before he collapses onto it. He pats the seat next to him.

“You know,” Jean says a few seconds later, as they watch the dust cloud rise from the ruins of the mall, “I was really gonna kill you. I would have done it.”

“I know,” Reiner says. He’s still out of breath, but the timbre of his voice is soothing. “Thank you.”

“You’re a weird guy.”

“You like it.”

Jean guffaws. “Yeah, I guess I do. You freak.”

A few seconds pass. Jean watches a moth flutter by. Reiner is smiling softly to himself, sitting on his hands and kicking his feet. Jean thinks it’s cute.

He hesitates for a second, then leans over and presses a kiss to Reiner’s cheek.

“Come on, let’s keep moving,” Jean stands and offers a flushed Reiner a hand up. “We need to get back home so we can brush your teeth.”