New Year's Eve was the day new promises were made for the upcoming year. Good intentions of dieting, exercising, finding love, indulging less, caring more, and overall becoming a better person, with a better lifestyle. It was a night to countdown to the next stage in a person's life.
Promises would be made. Love would be shared. Hope would be spread. Cheer and fun and laughs and drinks.
A new year. A new fresh start…

Or in Rivaille's mind, a fresh pile of shit to walk in. What the fuck is up with all the cheesy romance movies and forfeiting sleep to see a ball of lights drop down to signal the change in date?

And why… in name of Baby Jesus's shitty diaper was Eren sitting in his living room preparing to do just that?
"Rivaille! Come on the movie will start soon!"

He scowled, restraining himself as best he could not to slam the refrigerator shut with a brutal kick from his foot. Two glasses of wine and a plate of grapes and cheese, compliments of the brunette dunce sitting on his couch this very moment, balanced in his hands as he crossed into the living room and took a seat.

"That's why there's a pause button on the remote dip shit."

Eren, ever the optimist, ignored his rude comment, just as he always did, and taunted Rivaille without a care in the world. Tapping the tip of the raven's nose with his pointer, Eren's eyes crinkled in delight.

"How can you be so grumpy on New Year's Eve?"

"How can you not?"

The quick response earned his a small chuckle but otherwise the glare he sent did little to intimidate the brunette. An infuriating fact that left him pouting, indignantly, over his glass of wine.

Eren plucked a piece of cheese off the plate and popped it in his mouth. Bold as ever, he snatched a grape from its vine and made an elongated 'Ah' sound as he directed it towards Rivaille's lips.

"I don't want it."

Stubborn as he were, Eren ignored him again. Instead of heeding his warning, he pressed it against his sealed lips and smiled.

"Sure you do!"

"mno mey dunot."

"What's that?"

"mo mey dount"

"Rivaille, I really can't understand a word you're saying," Eren complained as he relented the grape just a bit to allow him to speak.

"I said…N-," The grape was, ever so eloquently, shoved into his mouth and silenced him.

"See! Tasty right?"

His eyebrows creased as he set his glare back on Eren. Maybe if he stared long enough the kid would catch on fire.
No… wait….. He didn't want that.
After all, Eren was sitting on his couch; he'd ruin the upholstery.

"You're lucky my couch would get ruined."

Eren blinked, and had his mood not been so sour he'd find it comical.

"Never mind, start your shitty film so we can get this over with."

Eren complied with a wide smile, as if the raven had eagerly asked for him to start the DVD.

'Oh yes Eren! I can't wait to watch these two idiots such face after only just meeting each other! It's obvious they're truly madly and deeply in love! How can they not live happily ever after in their shitty New York apartment that costs four times too much for ten times the less space? Brilliant! They should get married and have a little shit machine to toot around the house! It would be the perfect ending!'
Fat. Fucking. Chance.

An hour into the movie and he was convinced he would need to either pluck his eyes out or swallow battery acid. Is this really what people believed was an ideal love story? Ridiculous.

Throughout the movie thus far, he happened to notice something interesting; intriguing really. Of course, it had nothing to do with the movie what so ever, but with Eren.

He would catch Eren, out of the corner of his eye, staring over and biting his lip. And every time he turned to face him, to get him to speak, the brunette's head would jerk back into place and make a lame commentary on the movie thus far.

'Wasn't this scene just great?'

No, no it fucking wasn't Eren.

After what felt like the hundredth time, he'd had enough. Reaching for the remote and pausing it he turned to Eren and stared him down for answers.
"Aw! Rivaille, why'd you do that? It was getting good."

"Getting good….," he rolled out the sentence slowly off his tongue, "Are we even watching the same thing?"

"It's not that bad."

"It really is."

No hesitation; immediate and final. Rivaille was leaving no room for argument, this was a terrible film. A complete waste of production budget. The stare down didn't last long before the brunette caved.

"Ok, so it's not that good…."

"It's not good at all."

"It could be improved."

"No Eren. This movie is shit."

With a laugh and an awkward scratch behind his head Eren relented, "Ok. Alright. The movie sucks."

"You haven't been watching it anyway."

The accusation caused Eren to still in his movements. Slowly lowering his hands to his lap as he looked off to the paused screen.

"I have…"

"Eren, you've been staring at me and biting your lip as if you were constipated for weeks. What the hell is it you want to ask?"

And there it was. Rivaille was too keen on him nowadays for Eren to brush him off. He could see through him easily; worse yet, even more so since his conversation with Jean. It was as if all his secrecy and tact had been exposed and shed.

As he thought back to that conversation he silently pondered whether or not he should just spill. Take Jean's advice like he said he would and ask. Put it all on the table and hope for the best. All of nothing.

But the nothing was frightening, even for him.

"Have you ever… thought back to that night?"

Rivaille raised a brow, a look of irritation crossing the curl of his lips.

"You're going to have to be a little more specific Eren. I've had many nights. Nights watching movies that stink of shit. Nights I was 'allowed' to sleep at a decent hour. Nights where my mouth wasn't assaulted by grapes. Nights spent on the toilet."

"Ok. Ok," Eren stopped him, but not once making eye contact as he pressed his left thumb between his right and pointer of his right.

"I was talking about… the night we came back to your place… after the bar," he added as the brow continued to defy logic and raise higher in a condescending manner.

"That night… what did it mean to you?"

"What are you on about? I think that movie screwed with your head."

His expression had softened but Rivaille honestly hadn't a clue what he was referring to. It wasn't rare these days to have Eren come stay at his place after a round of drinks. As a matter of fact, it became quite habitual as of late.

Unless…

Unless he meant…..

With a sigh, Eren cut off his thought process and spoke before he had the chance.

"I spoke with Jean not too long ago… for advice."

"That seems like a horrible idea."

Eren rolled his eyes with a small smile and agreed with a huff of laughter, "I know right…"

When he didn't continue he figured Eren might lose his nerve if he didn't press it. He didn't want to assume, nor did he want to be the first one to say it. And to be honest with himself, he wasn't even sure he was quite prepared for this conversation at all.

Eren had wormed his way from nuisance to enigma in a quite short span of time. Something clicked between them, he knew, but he wasn't sure, not entirely at least, on how to handle it. Even now, this overwhelming need to protect Eren conflicted with how he felt and what those feelings urged him to want to do.

"Perhaps you shouldn't take it then."

Rivaille suggested, hoping to narrowly escape this situation. The blurred line between them worked, aside from the sexual tension he'd never admit to, but for Eren's sake, for his sake… No… was it for that reason?

Or was he just afraid? Was he just continuing to make excuses for himself as he had done from the beginning?

"I won't then."

Relief. Disappointment.

He couldn't decide which emotion prevailed over the other.

"Great, now can we find something else to watch I won't sit through another minute of-…"

Without warning, Eren had crawled closer to him on the couch. One knee pressed into the cushion as the other kept to the ground as he leaned forward.

"What are you..?"

Rivaille swallowed as his eyes followed the hand that reached for the back of his neck. The firm grip pulling him closer despite his weak attempt to hold himself in place as Eren's lips came dangerously close to his.

"He told me to talk to you… but I can't find the words. I don't know what to say."

The moist air hit his lips and he instinctively parted his lips to lick over the flesh. When had his eyes dropped to look at Eren's mouth anyway, and why the hell did he have such a power over him. He was caught in limbo. Not sure whether to move closer or keep the distance. To kiss him or push him away. Perhaps both. Perhaps just shove him and claim his lips, but he refrained.

Whatever it was Eren wanted to say, to do, it was his time. Rivaille needed to keep himself reigned in.

"If I can't get it across to you in that way… with words," his lips were closing in.

Closer, warmer. Each breath of air hitting his lips stopping Rivaille from taking his.

"Perhaps I can get through to you this way."

With the soft murmur of those last words the distance closed. Their lips met and Eren did his damnest to take control of his. Take control of this situation and of Rivaille himself. And despite the hand Rivaille pressed against Eren's chest to stop him from doing so, he found he couldn't push him away.

Eren easily redirected it by twining his fingers around his wrist. Gently pulling away the appendage, his opposite hand dropped from his neck and down his shoulder and arm to his other wrist. Pinning them both at his sides, Eren moves closer. His body closing in on Rivaille's as the world seems to shift and he finds himself pressed with his back against the cushions and his head barely clearing the arm rest.

The gasp of surprise leaves him open for Eren's wandering tongue and before he can protest, come up with some lame reason why they shouldn't be doing this, Eren enjoys the sanctity of his mouth. A lap of a tongue over the roof of his mouth makes him shiver, as Eren's body presses into his and he thinks that letting Eren have this moment of control isn't so bad.

Not with the way his hips begin to rock against his and his fingers tighten around his wrist as Eren begins to fall short of breath; obviously getting aroused. Though he can't say he's any better.

There no excuse in the world he could come up with to play off why, exactly, his own tongue moves to Eren's and his own hips move against the brunette's. He's playing right into his hand and he enjoys it. The peaking of his own growing erection is evidence enough of this and through the haze of his mind, he can't for the life of him figure out how things escalated so quickly.

How, as Eren's mouth detaches from his to claim his neck with a particular roll of his hips, they managed to slip from watching some piss poor romance jumbled diarrhea on disc, to dry fucking on his couch, but he honestly couldn't care at this point over the details.

Not with Eren's weight on his. Not with Eren's groin rubbing against his, blocked by the layers of fabric between them that kept him wondering just how different it would feel without the friction of their jeans or the hard seam of their zippers, just heated flesh hard against each other.

It had been so long ago, yet he still tries to recall how he tasted. If Eren's tongue were as skillful as it were as it was than because it seemed oh so much more so now.

Moans, panting and tiny admissions.

'I want you.'

'I want to have you.'

'I want to be with you.'

It made his chest swell and his abdomen knot, or perhaps the abdomen was his cocks fault. He couldn't know, his body was overloaded, rutting up against Eren's a bit more desperate as they came closer and closer to the edge. Like some score of virgin teenagers dry humping to completion, a cry of Rivaille's name off Eren's lips pushed him over as well.

"I meant it… I mean it Rivaille."

The air between them was hot, and thin, and his head felt light and woozy. He wasn't at all prepared for Eren to start straight back into talking again.

The most tactful response he could manage was an exhausted huff of a 'huh'.

"For a while now…. I've… I want to be with you."

Rivaille swallowed, shifting a bit uncomfortable with Eren's weight still on top of him and the sticky sensation he was itching to wash off, soiling his boxers and jeans.

"You are with me."

"You know what I mean," Eren pressed a bit firmer this time.

"And if I don't?"

"I've fallen for you," he lets out breathlessly and before he loses his nerve he continues, "I love you."

Rivaille clicks his tongue to hide the blush that seems to want to seep to his cheeks.

"You really have watched too many of these damn movies."

"That's not quite the response I was expecting," Eren teases, but he doesn't seem in the least put off and it sort of irks Rivaille in a way.
"Were you expecting some kind of romantic line from me," he asks with a raised brow.

And Eren just answers with his own, the nervousness creeping back into his voice as he pushes for an answer.
"Perhaps not that much… but I was hoping for some kind of reconciliation."

Rivaille looks away from the green eyes boring into his own, releasing a short breath as he feels the anxious twitch of Eren's fingers against his wrist. Does he deny himself still or does he reciprocate? Was it even possible any more to delay what seemed inevitable?
"And what did you have in mind exactly then?"

He doesn't look back. He doesn't face him. He doesn't want to look back to the kid he saved from the shower; the one who followed him, practically stalked all this time, the one who now was pressed on top of him, sending his heart into a frenzy.

"Become mine," Rivaille looked to him at the corner of his eyes and Eren finished with a warming smile, "Let me become yours."

When he doesn't answer Eren seems to deflate a bit, his shoulders slump and Rivaille doesn't waste any more time to let him have his mind wander. Reaching up he presses Eren's head to his chest and threads his fingers through his hair.

"You're already mine Eren. If you hadn't noticed you've been my responsibility since I pulled you out of that damned tub."

"That's not what I meant," Eren whispered breathlessly, knowing full well what he did mean.

Looking off to the side he chuckled wanting to shake his head as he saw the time on the clock.
"If it weren't you I'd swear you'd planned this."

"Huh?"

"Happy New Years Eren."

Sure enough, Eren looked off to the side and nearly broke out in laughter. Happier than he'd ever remembered being.

"Happy New Years Rivaille."