BOLD CHOICE OF WORDS for one living at the pace of an hourglass. Red in its glory, poetry drips from her lips and he downs it whole just to spit it back out—takes her soft lament and turns to nails on his coffin. Caught between the devil and the deep-blue sea, to think she's got one foot dangling over the abyss is to admit he's lost track of what is his and what isn't: sentiment that crawls under his skin like growing vines; he might as well breathe through her lungs alone.

"Did ya read that somewhere?" There's an itch on the back of his neck, he reaches for it—a thousand pleas lodged between teeth and tongue but none that ought to be said in the open, or during a ride too long to allow for discomfort. To keep it light, to lift ones shoulders into a shrug: no pretty words to ever leave his lips, if she craves softness as salvation she ought to find it somewhere else.

The teen flinched at the sharp words at not touching her head. She bit her lip as the tearful teals looked to him and she lowered her hand to her side. “I-I’m sorry…” She responded meekly, once again looking to the floor and her head hung in shame. The poor girl felt like a child being punished, scolded for something bad. Yet, in a way, the teen was. 

It was silent from the girl when he spoke to her again, those eyes still glancing at the ground. “…I…I was afraid that I wouldn’t have made it….” She said quietly, praying she picked the right words to say. She didn’t want to irk her new acquaintance. She sighs, “….Are you alright? You aren’t hurt either, are you?”

SALT AND IRON on his tongue; to stand unscathed in the wake of devastation is to count one's losses, however mortifying they might be. Deafening ache, sours his very spine and lodges itself on the back of his neck: he took his years and traded for two sets of sharp teeth and bloody-sharp claws, for what? Home no more, he stands on ruins; he's caustic excuse of an existence, grounded on salt and sand alike.

He inhales defeat and it stains his lungs, it's scar upon rotting scar and it festers, hungry—and he's not one to fall to broken knees but fuck, how many bodies must he bury? Afloat in a sea of red, he's scattered and it shows but she's the one who has it rough—crossfire-stained, victim of circumstances bigger than breakable bones and teary eyes; she spells one word: revenge.

The bastards, fodder, the remnants thorn under ruins and those awaking to carnage of blood and flesh alike—they spell revenge: make them pay. Even when they're weak and frail and flinch at his every word: he never meant to be so sharp, doesn't mean he was kind. "I- am, too," comes to admit defeat, to down it at once; his grief crawls on the back of his throat and leaves a trail of disconnected words he'd rather forget.

Face your sorrows; his eyes shift her way, clenched jaw and biting teeth and he's not the best at comforting, family's no more than a wound that opens every now and then. "I'm not hurt," he rushes to respond for once, reads the strain in her words and pushes himself back on his feet—put your bones back together, repeat. He clears his throat, forks finger through blonde hair and attempts to slick it back in place.

from @titanfought​‘s reiner.

The question's inked bold, met with furrowed brows and a scrunched-up nose. Newspaper in hands and feet perched atop a coffee table, he shifts to cast a glare Reiner’s way: "are you that fucking naive?" Curses drip from chapped lips like an ode to his sanity, a single eyebrow rising and inquiringly so.

       exhaustion scrawled across countenance, eyes dark with sleep deprivation. she deserves this — AFTER EVERYTHING, after living for herself for so long, after returning to her homeland to give herself up and repay the debt she stole.       ( eating that boy may have saved her life, given her five years, but it’s time to face the music, ymir! TIME IS RUNNING SHORT. )

       “ what was he like? ”       a loaded question, a deathbed question. marcel galliard remains in her, only faintly; like waking, sweating, from a dream with only fractures and shards to piece together what you dreamt about.       “ your brother. was he as much a fool as you are? ”

BROTHER, FORGIVE ME. Bare your teeth: there's a devil in his throat, it chokes. To gasp for air is to admit defeat—hold it in, divinity will stain your lips with things both sweet and rotting; he now knows wich with. White knuckles and marks on his palm, he's heard of her—she's nothing but tale of woes, stained edges. Shallow goddess he’s to feast on, and yet she's all but a deer in the headlights.

Undertow, mourning's like a parasite, eight-legged crawl between his lips and down: to consume. OLD FRIEND, from gods and parasites alike—if divinity is to see a creature with a broken back and be unmoved, he's golden enough already. He's scarlet enough, bruised out of his skin and digging fingers on his palm until it drips: he's not one for talking but she's poking buttons and he's not made of stone.

She exists on pity, heaves through his lungs already. Her life is his to take, she has everything he ever wanted and all he was stolen: glory that drips red; at what cost? Flesh and blood, the price weighs on his guts but it is not his choice to make. He's half anger, half nothing—it's all gone sour, fitting. If she starts threading on safe grounds, he hesitates nonetheless—what was he like? "He was.. better- than me."

An he's trying, but she finds a way around his silence and breaks it, lights the match to let it burn. His feet move but of its own accord, instinctual, he's got her backed against a wall in more ways than one. Fool, the word echoes and ricochets between rotten bones, he'd tear her every piece with bare hands had that meant he'd have his brother back.

He wears his weakness for her like a badge of honor – usually. Steel-toed, iron-wrought, he’s brick-and-mortar bones built from the ashes of something softer; she can still see the sincerity of his smile, misplaced now on features ran ragged with grief, twisted with anger. Now he’s a boy unwavering – usually, but she’s the persistent hum of forbidden greed here and here only, an earthquake beneath his stubborn foundation.

This world owes her nothing but these stolen moments and she intends to take them, burrows beneath his skin and revels in knowing that she can get there.

Usually.

Peace kneads into the rivets of her spine with each tap of his fingertips, soothing, an ache she lives with and so rarely tends to, professionalism skewed for games just like this - she falters, slips in the moment, looses her own grip and slides backwards both physically and mentally. Relaxes in a way only he can allow.

And it bites her right in the ass; somehow she’d forgotten about his off-kilter sense of humor and how easily he can shut her down when he really, really tries.

The soundtrack of her downfall is his muffled laughter, then the outright boom of his failure to hold it in and she can’t do anything but stare, jaw-ajar gasping, rattled, shook. Flustered, maybe, if you’d want to be generous. Dumbfounded if you wouldn’t.

She loses so little that she’s not used to it, feels out of place anywhere but in the bustling lights of the winner’s circle. He earns one single flicker of a glance before she hums and tries, tries to ignore the laughter, the sound and the feeling of him shaking from it at her back.

Porco: 1.

LAUGH YOUR LUNGS TO DUST, no better way to choke. Symphony of good days, sunny-side on; they're few and spaced-between but he takes her every breath and carves it in the back of his throat. She's memory of warmth and sprouts a garden on his scarlet tongue, he's grinning. There's an ache on his cheeks and it reminds him of home but drags him back to ash-colored reality with an iron fist, turns laugh to scowl.

Damned be those to get cut on the edge of his tongue: sharp as always, he aims where it hurts but sometimes all he needs is a silent victory. A single brow shoots up and his breath is heavy, messy, he's been laughing and it shows between the lines. Lungs that weigh but not in grief, the sight is one to behold: he takes the words from chapped lips and leaves a dumbfounded mess behind.

Pleased, his lips are parted as well but the shadow of a smirk remains, he leans to the side and locks eyes with the dark in hers—place to rest his bones, he'd live in the darkness of her stare for the rest of his days. "Oh no," expression of mockery, exhaled with a hint at yet another fit of laughter for now contained: she should be used to it by now, he's not overly humorous but when it rains it pours.

"Cat got your tongue? Or you're afraid to hurt my-" a pause and be clears his throat, back against his chair as features lose color for the sake of their façade; "feelings?" He flashes both brows up, canines peeking through the veil of his smirk—there's a hint in his words, not all pastel-painted fantasy; a line released inch by inch and just enough for him to feast on her reaction.

Reiner bites back his scorn for the pompous know-it-all. He always thinks he is better than him somehow. Always pissing on him from a height. He knows this was about the other’s brother and it pains him. Losing Marcel was one of the worst things to have ever come to Reiner but probably more so for the latter man. 

Traitor… that word cuts him deeper than any blade ever could. It had tore him apart in the end to betray all of those on Paradis. He had left here with an intent to slaughter every last morsel and yet he has returned, humbled and contrite. Likewise his tone reflects this penitence. ❛ I never claimed to be anything else, did I? Do you not think I wake up everyday wishing it was me in his stead? It should’ve been me that day. ❜ He was not looking for sympathy it was just fact. Things would have been better off. He was a coward and, whats-more, a murderer. But the most reprehensible of it all was he was a traitor to those he had befriended on that island. 

❛ My friend and your brother was the one greatest man I ever had the fortune to know. Everything he had done up until that point was to protect you. Though I too disagree with his decision to save me and not himself I ask that we respect it in his memory at least. ❜ It was a stretch. More than likely this would only provoke more of a reaction from the other but it was what Reiner feels was the most respective motive for the sake of their loss.

He's the opposite of meticulous but narrow-eyed still—recurring conversation, he's known to turn words south for his own set of reasons. Turn pain to poison, his words are cyanide and Reiner fits the picture just right, tips over the edge every now and then.

Deserved, he'd say. Personal vendetta, he dares not to even hide it anymore—which side are you on? He shifts his gaze elsewhere, sorting between memories of his own and those he's foreign to. "Good," a mourn; sharp eyes locked on him and devoid of remorse. "The wrong warrior died, end of the story," words distilled, feigned indifference burning on his tongue.

And yet, brows shoot up at the incoming speech—he's heard it, a thousand times too many. No, excuses Reiner chews on and dares to spit back out; rotten work. Clenched jaw and truth be told he's heard it thousand times too many but it never fails to crawl under his skin and find a nerve to strike.

She’s tip-toe tasteless in her approach, meticulously maniacal, poised on the silver edge of chaos as is her nature. Feline, and in all ways a bastard. Razored, shaved down, she’s a thorn fitted for his side especially, his own personal problem. Her posture hides weapons tailor fit to slip right through the missing chunks of his armor, legs locked at the ankle as she plops on the arm of his chair with her personal style of heavy gracefulness. They lock eyes - minute, momentary - and she smiles, soft but threaded with a tell-tale mischief he knows too well. 

“What if I told you I was?” She feigns innocence well enough but her grin’s her scarlet letter, telling - bright crimson blaring. She never was good at swallowing all of her expressions. “There’s an entire world out there, Pock - there’s plenty to talk about.”

He expects no less from her—tell-tale madness, chaotic in every sense of the word; his personal brand of a pain in the ass. To pick a fight is to shovel dirt, then lie in it. No, he dances with her words, barely—walks on the edge and flirts with the fall but remains unmoved. His Achilles heel; keep your weakness where you can see it. Silk-sweet devil on sight, puzzled eyes and furrowed brows her way until she's sitting pretty on the arm of his chair and that'd be a breath too close for comfort had he not been used to her game all along.

Keep your weakness where you can touch it, grow fond of it. A huff and he's looking away with a hint of amusement to cover up the mess beneath, he shovels dirt back out but still gets buried every time. A cascade of rattled bones, he drums fingers on the lower of her back as if that's nothing but routine—each stolen touch added to a long line of breathless pining that both tightens around his throat and tells a tale stale by now.

"Cute," he mutters, hand-in-hand with her words—coated in sarcasm and dripping, he approaches her the same but knows there's no lie in his retort. Not to him, not about her—she's a thousand different razored threats but there's no turning back now, he's tangled in her vines. And he looks around, searches for a red flag to take him by the collar and shove him back in place: machinery first, boy second; finds nothing but an empty room swept by a scarlet hint.

He takes it and twists it, flirts with the fall but only with feet digging the ground. A thousand words he could whisper, followed by a thousand more he wouldn't dare to repeat—there's a fine line he ought not to cross despite the hand on her back and the remainings of a kiss pressed against her neck but in no way it means he can't turn the moment his, in every sense of the world. And with that in mind, he presses lips into a tight but wide smirk, batting eyes her way in mockery so blatant it leaks between his lips and turns thread to crack a heartbeat too fast.