Author's Note: This started out as a thing I was writing for owldistraction, but then it turned into an AU, so Imma just have to write something else for her. Edit: She liked it, so it's for her anyway. I'm really AU lately, aren't I? Geh. Probably cause it makes it easier for the gore. Gore and gorn are like the best things ever and whatnot. Anyhow, this sucks. It's as crappy as hell, disjointed as always, and totally recycled and just like a piece of ugly shit and whatnot. But perhaps it is minutely less crappy than what I normally write. Because it was written whilst I was listening to Battlestar Galactica music, and like, the influence of such majestic tunes has got to improve something or other.

Legit, Battlestar Galactica music is amazing. Well, Battlestar Galactica is amazing anyway, but yeah. That music. Some liberties and slight universe-bending just for the sake of...Well, for something. I don't remember what. So let's say cylons. Slight liberties regarding how the SnK universe works for the sake of cylons. But there are no cylons in this fic. Do not expect to see cylons.

Maybe next time. But maybe not. I'm a cylon, so I lie. There's some implied Kim/Violette, Leigh/Rosalya, and maybe possibly perhaps Castiel/Melody if you tilt your head, squint, look with a powerful magnifying glass and borrow Doxy's goggles. And yes, the title of this is from that GEICO commercial...I promise, I'm retiring my fanfic occupation soon e_e'

Edit: I just realized it was owldistraction who gave me the idea for this. Cause like, I said something about a potato, so she said I reminded her of Sasha in the same conversation in which we were discussing Nate/Lys. So yeah. Thanks for the inspiration, dude X3

Nathaniel sees a titan for the first time on the day he loses everything. The two events are not unrelated. One moment everything is normal (normal and not fine, because things were never ever fine, not like this) and relatively mundane, and the next moment Wall Tijie has a gaping wound and titans are running rampant through everything and everyone.

Bloodcurdling screams rip through the air in tune with the thuds of giant footfalls. Pillars of wood and brick crumble to the ground. Nathaniel's breath catches in his throat, golden eyes expanding in a brand of terror as cold as the arctic the Walls have prevented him from ever seeing. For one moment there is no coherent thought, just a wordless realization as deep as instinct.

It's Amber's crooked yelp that breaks him out of it. Nathaniel snatches her hand and pelts for the mass of others trying to evacuate. "We have to go!"

"What about Mom and Dad!?" she wails.

"They're probably dead!" Because even at eleven, Nathaniel is not naïve. He is not naïve and he is not an idealist either.

"No!" With a birdlike shriek, she wrenches free from him and races back toward their undoubtably ruined home.

"Amber!" Nathaniel breaks away from the silver of hope for survival and chases after her into the thick of the chaos like the responsible big brother he's trying to be, for once in their young lives. He almost reaches her.

Almost.

A titan's grubby hand seizes her in mid-stride. Nathaniel can hear the sickening crunch as her spine snaps in its tightening fist. The titan then simply pops her in its mouth and her shrill scream is swallowed concomitantly with her body.

Nathaniel screams too, and it's his scream that gets him noticed by a slightly older boy, shepherding his own silver-headed brother. He veers out of the scrambling masses to take Nathaniel by the wrist and yank him into the fleeing crowd. Nathaniel's head is numb but his feet know what to do, they know to charge with the crowd toward the gate that hopefully someone had the mercy to open. The boy lets him go, and it'll be a few years before Nathaniel sees him again and by then, he won't really remember him anyway.

.

It's inevitable that Nathaniel enlists in the military. He can't stagnate in Black District forever, and anyhow, he wants to fight. He doesn't have anything left to do, really.

.

On the very first day of training, he meets Lysander.

It's evening and Nathaniel sits quietly at one of the many tables, poking his mushy dinner with a fork as his tired muscles complain in twitches and soundless groans. Nathaniel noted when changing that the 3D gear itself left fallow impressions in his skin. Physically lunging around and mastering it was bound to be a joy. Not that Nathaniel minds it, no, not really. He likes the pain in an odd sort of way.

It feels like a step toward accomplishment.

Someone takes a seat next to him. Nathaniel glances to him, recalling glimpsing him earlier when the instructor was explaining how the gear worked. He's different looking in a way Nathaniel supposes is good. Wavy silver hair longer on one side than the other and touched in coal, heterochromic jonquil and shamrock irises, leanly compact frame.

"Hi," he says and offers Nathaniel a subtle kind of smile.

"Hi."

"I hate to bother you while you're eating, but have you seen a notebook anywhere? Blue cover?"

"I haven't," says Nathaniel honestly. "Sorry."

"It's alright. I'm sure it's bound to turn up soon. I just had it an hour ago, so it couldn't have gone far. I'm Lysander, by the way."

So he isn't just looking for his notebook, he's starting a conversation. Nathaniel wouldn't really describe himself as shy, but...Talking to people is just one of those things he doesn't care to do much anymore. Though it any case, it can't hurt to make friends now (actually it can, he knows in the back of his mind, because it's more likely than not the friend you make is going to get eaten by a titan and your friendship will end in bitter, helpless tears). It will probably be beneficial, given that they'll be training together for awhile.

"I'm Nathaniel."

"It's a pleasure to meet you." Lysander puts down his spoon and offers his hand like a gentleman. Nathaniel shakes it wearily.

"Likewise," he mumbles courteously.

"I found your notebook," a third voice cuts in and Nathaniel glances up to see a guy with somewhat mussed black hair holding out said notebook to Lysander. "Or rather, Rosalya did. It was outside."

"Ah, thank you." Lysander takes it and then leans back a little, gesturing between him and Nathaniel. "Leigh, Nathaniel. Nathaniel, Leigh. My brother."

Nathaniel drops his spoon as a bolt of grief pierces his chest. He used to be someone's brother too. "A pleasure," he manages, though he feels like a cat with a fish bone stuck in his throat.

.

Nathaniel doesn't really sleep the best. One would figure that the vigorous effort training takes would wear him down enough to let him sleep, but it doesn't. He closes his lids and finds titans and destroyed walls under them. He hates himself for that, really. Nightmares are a childish affair. He shouldn't have them at all, let alone so frequently. It's pathetic. But hating himself for it doesn't change it.

Sometimes he wakes up sweating or screaming or both. Not as much as he used to, but occasionally. It's rather humiliating when it does happen now, given the shared quarters. However, most of the others stay silent about it.

Most.

"Will you quit freaking out over there?" snaps an agitated voice one night, when Nathaniel's woken up to his own scream. It's Castiel of course, that loathsome cocky bastard from the Black District. "Some of us are actually trying to sleep."

Nathaniel can't stand him. He doesn't even dignify him with a response. Castiel sits up on the other side of the barracks and throw his pillow at him. He has great accuracy even in the dark and hits Nathaniel square in the head. Nathaniel locks his jaw and resists the urge to find something heavier to throw, instead fixing his hair and stacking the additional pillow atop his own.

"I'm not giving that back," Nathaniel hisses. His eyes have adjusted to the dim moonlight and he glares accordingly.

"The hell you aren't," Castiel spits, audibly flustered with himself for making the mistake of using it as a weapon. "I'll go over and—"

"Honestly," Lysander cuts in irritably from some bunk in between them. "You two are ridiculous. Nathaniel, give him back the pillow. Castiel, leave him alone. As established, people are trying to sleep."

Nathaniel takes the initiative and gives the pillow back, albeit chucking it with more force than needed. Castiel grumbles but leaves things at that. If it were anybody else who told him off, he probably wouldn't, but Nathaniel's noticed that Castiel acts like less of a jerk to Lysander than anyone else. They seem to be friends, really.

"I'm sorry we woke you," Nathaniel breathes.

"You didn't," Lysander murmurs so quietly Nathaniel almost doesn't catch it. He gets up and treads to the door, exiting almost soundlessly. After a moment, Nathaniel follows him. He doesn't know why. Maybe because he can't go back to sleep and there's nothing else to do. Lysander sits on the steps and doesn't glance over when he approaches and sits next to him.

"The stars are beautiful, aren't they?"

"Beautiful," Nathaniel repeats, testing it on his tongue. He hasn't described anything as beautiful in awhile. They don't live in a world where things are beautiful. Or if they do, they're too caught up in trying to stop what isn't beautiful to notice. But he follows Lysander's gaze up to the dazzling sliver specks in the limitless black and finds he agrees.

"I was there too," Lysander says next. "When the Wall fell. I know what the ghosts feel like."

Nathaniel...Isn't tremendously surprised to hear this. He gently pats Lysander on the back, and it probably communicates more volumes than his words could. If he had any, that is. He doesn't. Lysander must not either.

They spend the majority of the rest of the night like that, side by side and silent.

.

"Would you spar with me?" Lysander asks the next day in the yard.

Nathaniel isn't sure why they're supposed to learn hand-to-hand combat in the first place. It's not as if they're going to fight titans like that. He supposes it might be that it hones their reflexes and builds muscle. Or it could be for those who plan on joining the Military Police. Frankly, even though they're supposed to be the best at fighting titans, those in the Military Police are far more likely to be fighting other humans. It's a corrupted system and an even more corrupted branch.

Nonetheless, Nathaniel spares a brief smile and says, "Sure."

He rolls his shoulders and readies himself, but is still surprised at the ferocity in which Lysander lunges and swings the wooden dagger right at his throat. He has such a gentle demeanor, after all. Despite his initial misjudgment, Nathaniel manages to reel back and avoid him, slamming the heel of his hand to Lysander's shoulder. Lysander winces but maintains balance, and spins to very nearly crack Nathaniel right in the face.

Nathaniel aims to punch him under the ribs, but Lysander swiftly drops and knocks Nathaniel off his feet with a fluid, sweeping kick. Nathaniel hits the ground harshly, a pained grunt pushed out of his lungs. He gets his bearings before Lysander can pin him and rolls, shifting weight onto his elbows as he hooks his heel around Lysander's ankle. Lysander gasps sharply as his back hits the dirt and Nathaniel scrambles up, springing atop him and straddling his waist.

He pushes the blunt end of the wooden blade to the blue vein in Lysander's throat. It occurs to Nathaniel then that he likes this. He likes being on top of Lysander and seeing him pant, taut and sweaty beneath him. Except he'd like it more if he'd lose the knife and Lysander'd lose his clothes.

"Sorry," Nathaniel apologizes, though it's not as if Lysander can read his mind.

"Oh no," Lysander chuckles breathlessly. "Don't be sorry. It's sparring for a reason. I'd be insulted if you were to hold back on me."

"You're good," Nathaniel compliments earnestly as he climbs off and extends his hand. He can feel the burn of a blush in his cheeks and strenuously hopes Lysander doesn't notice it. "Very agile. I won this round on luck."

Lysander accepts his outstretched hand and smiles as Nathaniel pulls him to his feet. "Thank you, but I do believe you have more than luck on your side."

"Maybe experience too," Nathaniel admits and doesn't let go of his hand right away.

Lysander doesn't seem to mind the prolonged contact. "I'm up for a second round if you are."

Nathaniel's wholeheartedly happy for the first time in...Well, for the first time, really. "You're on."

.

He and Lysander sit outside together just about every night. Except now they do it before even trying to sleep, and it works out a lot better that way. They stay out for as long as it takes until they're falling asleep without forcing it, and then they go back inside. It doesn't eradicate the nightmares, but it significantly reduces them.

They were silent the first night, but usually they talk now. Not always, sometimes they don't even have to, but usually.

"Why did you enlist?" Nathaniel asks one night.

"Leigh wanted to. I've already lost everyone else, I can't leave him."

"So you don't want to be here?"

Lysander gives a thoughtful hum. "I do," he murmurs tentatively. "I just didn't realize it at first."

Nathaniel nods, understanding well enough.

"Why did you enlist?"

"I didn't know what else to do. Besides, I want to kill titans."

"Then I assume you're either going into the Survey Corps or the Garrison?" Lysander gave a slight tilt of the head.

"Survey Corps." Nathaniel nods.

"Me too."

"Your brother is joining the Survey Corps?" Nathaniel guesses, feeling a twinge of discomfort.

"I don't do everything for him," Lysander breathes. "But yes."

"You should talk him out of it and both join the Military Police," Nathaniel declares and glances away. "I'm sure you'll both rank in the top ten. I've seen your skills." And he'd feltthem too, in Lysander's case. He has bruises to prove it.

Lysander narrows his eyes. "The Military Police Brigade abuse their authority and misuse their position. They grow complacent with themselves because they scarcely ever glimpse titans, let alone fight them. I'm not going to be apart of such an atrocity." He's raised just tone just a bit, lost some of the warmth.

"I'm sorry," Nathaniel sighs and looks back to him, looks him in the eye. "It was a selfish suggestion, that's all. I like you. I don't want you to die."

Lysander's features soften and he dips his head. "I like you too."

.

"My cuts are still deeper than yours," taunts Castiel in mid-zip, grinning smugly as he pistons away and slashes open another faux titan's neck, straw and stuffing spilling.

"I'm just warming up," Nathaniel snarls in annoyance. He releases his grapple-hooks and rapidly aims for another bark pillar, swiping another slash into the same practice neck. It's only just shallower, but a millimeter is enough for Nathaniel to curse. He passes Castiel up to compensate for it, and reaches the next false nape first.

"Hey! Asshole!" He's unprepared and almost loses his precarious balance, gear wires hissing as they're prematurely torn free.

"You should've seen it coming!" Nathaniel all but laughs, smoothly striking another practice neck.

"Will you two quit your pissing match, already?" Kim grunts as she speeds forward and fluidly maneuvers between them. She's always had a natural affinity for this and Nathaniel hasn't seen her make a mistake once. "It's giving me a headache!"

"Oh, Kim," Violette chirps nervously from further behind. Violette is someone Nathaniel has immense trouble believing could ever kill a titan. She's quiet in a hesitant way, not a stoic one, and she's really daydreamy. Nathaniel can't ever recall seeing her without Kim, either. "It's healthy to have competition."

Nathaniel wouldn't exactly call what he and Castiel has competition. Just as he's thinking this he sees Castiel's catching up with him and immediately reshoots his hooks and makes a demonstration out of a quick, clean slice.

Nope. Not competitive at all.

"My cuts are still deeper," Castiel echoes proudly.

"But mine are still deep enough to kill and I'm faster than you, so I'd still slay more titans." Nathaniel punctuates the assessment with another successful stroke of the blade.

"Pfft," Kim scoffs. "You're both amateurs. You wanna see speed? You wanna see deep cuts? Watch and learn, boys!" She snickers and then all of a sudden she's overtaking Nathaniel, spiraling in a blur of sepia and beige and flashing silver. She decimates the next practice neck and comes out of her form in a solid lunge, firing her hooks into the platform before her and unzipping the next faux titan's nape before they even dig in.

Nathaniel's jaw drops. He knew Kim was good. Hell, he even suspected her to be better than him, but this good? He never imagined. She's amazing!

Her display shuts him up right away. Castiel too.

"Sorry," Violette giggles softly, a touch of fondness in her tone. "She's like that sometimes."

But at the end of the course, Castiel does something that pisses him off more than his attitude ever did. He helps Lysander out of his gear.

"I must've cinched a strap wrong, or something," Lysander sighs in all his oblivious frustration.

"Yeah," Castiel informs him with a trifling smirk. "Your harness is crossing the wrong way on your back." And he actually touches Lysander's back in the midst of correcting it, and vines of envy replace Nathaniel's veins. "Damn, Lysander. You're the only person I know who can still forget how to put this on right when you've been doing it for months."

"I was going to write it down, but I forgot that too." And then Lysander catches Nathaniel watching out of the corner of his eye. He meets his gaze, but Nathaniel simply turns away and stalks off before he can get caught blushing.

Dinner is when Lysander catches up to Nathaniel, mouth in an uncertain line and eyes wavering. "Hi."

"Hi."

"Did I do something to upset you?" he asks quietly, voice betraying confusion.

"No," Nathaniel answers immediately and shakes his head for emphasis. He feels bad now. "Not at all. I'm sorry I gave you that impression."

Lysander's shoulders slump in relief and he contentedly smiles as he takes a seat beside him.

.

It's a couple months later when Nathaniel wakes up screaming again, and it's the first time it's happened since he and Lysander starting lingering outside the barracks. This time the first hints of sunrise are peeking in through the window and he luckily hasn't woken anybody up.

Or so he thinks.

"Nathaniel?" Lysander asks quietly, sitting up a few mattresses away, hair disheveled and bicolored orbs blurry with sleep.

"Sorry," Nathaniel whispers, voice trembling as he still quakes in his own cold sweat.

Lysander studies him a moment and then gets up, shuffling over. "Don't be." He sits on the edge of the mattress, smoothes the hair back from Nathaniel's eyes and gingerly feels his forehead. Nathaniel doesn't say anything, but he presses into the touch.

"Do you want me to stay?"

"...Please."

Lysander nods and Nathaniel scoots back as he joins him under the blanket. Lysander takes him in his arms and pulls him closer again and they fold up together. Nathaniel closes his eyes and listens to the rhythm of Lysander's heartbeat. Eventually his breathing matches it, and though there's only about an hour left before they have to get up anyway, it's the best sleep Nathaniel's had in years.

From then on, they sleep together every night.

.

"Why do you only dye part of your hair?" Nathaniel asks when the night is starry and everyone except for him and Lysander is asleep.

"I like it," Lysander replies simply. "Do you?"

"Yeah. It's unique. It's you."

A blush tints Lysander's features and he gently bumps Nathaniel's shoulder. As he shifts, Nathaniel spots the familiar blue cover poking out of his pocket.

"What do you write about in your notebook?" He blinks curiously.

"Well you certainly have a lot of questions for me tonight." Lysander gives him an amused look.

"I like learning things about you," Nathaniel explains simply. "It makes me happy."

"A lot of flattery too," laughs Lysander.

"I don't think you mind it." Nathaniel cracks a grin.

"Not in the least." And then Lysander shrugs. "I write mostly everything in my notebook. I document the days, the people I meet. I think it's important. Especially because I don't expect to live long."

Nathaniel's throat goes dry and his chest tightens painfully.

"Sorry," Lysander murmurs. "I know it's a grim thing to say. But it's reality."

"I know," Nathaniel gets out even though it hurts. "I know I'm not likely to live that long either."

.

They graduate. They both make it into the top ten. They could both join the Military Police and lengthen the probability of long lifespans, long lifespanstogether, even, possibly. But they don't. They join the Survey Corps like they said they would. Unfortunately for Nathaniel, Castiel joins too.

"I'm gonna kill more titans than you," he claims brazenly, eyes daring him to accept the challenge.

"Please," Nathaniel scoffs. "I scored three places higher than you." Almost nothing in this life has given Nathaniel this sheer amount of satisfaction.

Castiel folds his arms over his chest. "That's only because they take crap like teamwork into account. As far as killing 'em goes, I'm still going to top you."

"I'm going to kill more titans than both of you combined," Kim interjects, clearly still irked by their eternal pissing match.

Lysander and Violette roll their eyes in the background.

They're assigned to a peculiar woman's squad. Her name is Agatha and she has obscenely long magenta hair that see keeps tightly coiled up and bound so it won't interfere with fighting. However, it must take so long to get it that tight, Nathaniel's sure she'd be better off cutting it. She has a bubbly disposition and giggles playfully when she acquaints her new squad.

"Welcome to the Survey Corps! I'm your squad leader, Agatha. But you can all call me 'Auntie' if you want. I want us to be like family, you know?" She claps her hands together and rocks back on the balls of her feet. "I've just been ranked up, so this is actually the first time I've ever been assigned a squad of my own."

"I wonder why," Castiel grumbles, who, to the bane of Nathaniel's existence, is also in the same squad.

Agatha pauses, bright smile temporarily fleeing her face. She then very violently jerks Castiel out of line by the collar and drives her balled fist under his chin. He sails, limply falls back to the dirt like a sack of potatoes, and Agatha strides forward.

"Anyone else want to doubt me?"

Not a word.

"Good! Now, since you've just graduated and we're all new at this, I've decided to take you all out drinking tonight! That way we can get to know each other and have a little bit of fun before we have to get down to business."

"But isn't that unprofessional?" pipes up Melody. "Besides, most of us are underage."

Agatha quickly steps forward and very effortlessly takes Melody by the arm and flips her over her shoulder, sending her crashing into Castiel (who was just starting to get up).

"Any other objections?"

Not a word.

And that's how they end up at a pub in the Amoris District. Late into the night, Lysander's glassy eyes meet Nathaniel's as he sets the mug down.

"Dance with me."

"Dance?" Nathaniel's eyes briefly flicker to Leigh and Rosalya and Kim and Violette who are both doing...Something. Moving together. "Sorry, Lysander. I don't really even know what that is." Because honestly, who dances in a world like this?

"I don't either. Dance with me anyway." Lysander smiles.

"Alright." Because Nathaniel can't resist that smile.

Lysander steps down from the stool and leads him to the floor. They swing each other around and tug each other in close and refrain and step. They link their fingers and let go, and the alcohol has them both spinning without the additional movement, but they move each other anyway. They have no idea what they're doing, but that couldn't matter any less.

Nathaniel kisses him like he's always wanted to kiss him. He roughly snakes his fingers through his hair and jerks his head down the four centimeters it takes for their lips to smash together. Lysander kisses him back. He kisses him softly and then he kisses him hard, and he tastes like booze and need and crisp black pepper.

.

Their first real mission takes place a week after the night they kiss, and they haven't talked about it since then. They still share a bed and stay up late, just in a new place, and everything is normal between them even if their routine is new.

Their first mission, is, bizarrely, to capture a titan. Nathaniel's mouth nearly hits the dirt and Lysander goes ramrod beside him.

Seeing the looks of shock, Agatha squares her jaw and suddenly looks very serious. "Experimenting on titans helps us learn. The more we know about them, the easier they are to kill. After all, if we never learned that the nape of the neck is their weak spot, we never would've been able to kill them at all."

Venturing past the walls, Nathaniel feels alive like he never has before. The open air is a godsend and the scent of pure forest fir, untainted by the odor of containment, kisses his skin and tingles in his nostrils. The rapid thud of horses' hooves on the untamed terrain matches to his leaping pulse, and when the titans spot the formation and start lumbering over, the edge of fear only sharpens his sensations.

"Now," Agatha calls back she leads her squad into the thick of the forest with hungry titans on their trail. "We're all going to station ourselves in the trees. Kim's going to park the supply cart under where I land. Unless threatened by a titan, you're to remain stationary until I instruct otherwise. I'll make the final decision in what titan we're going to capture, but if you see one you believe is suitable, yell to me or shoot a red flare. Remember, we want one seven meters or smaller. Our space is limited."

That's it. That's the plan. They went over it before leaving and they're going over it again now because some people are starting to panic. It's a weak, scarcely coherent plan. No wonder the fatality rate of the Survey Corps is so high.

The titans are gaining on them with unintelligible grunts and heavy footfalls, so, so close and that's when Agatha gives the order to dismount. 'Dismount' is a word Nathaniel believes to be highly unfitting for the jarring task of launching oneself from a galloping horse into a tree. Nathaniel attempts to aim for the highest branch he can, but everything is so fast that he's practically blind.

He comes to an abrupt halt twelve or so meters up, sucking in a breath as everyone else does the same. Almost everyone, that is. A sharp scream tears through the atmosphere of relative control, reminding them that they are human and they don't have control at all. It's Iris's scream; a titan's pinching her leg between two fingers and holding her over its gaping maw. Agatha dashes in in the same second Nathaniel realizes he's too far to make it to Iris before the titan consumes.

She rakes the nape of its neck with an expert flick of the blade and secures Iris around the waist in the same swing. But before Nathaniel can reflect on the newfound respect for his leader, a titan of fifteen meters sets its sights on him. It doesn't even reach for Nathaniel, it lowers its jaw and snaps at him like a cur. He stumbles backward off the branch more so than he dodges, but narrowly escapes its bite all the same. Reeking, vile breath of decay washes over him and burns his eyes as he discharges the grapple-hooks into its face.

He's reeled up, unafraid, plan in mind. He swerves around, releasing the hooks, planting his feet between its shoulder blades. It's gross, really. This is no time to be noticing minor details, but the titan burns under the soles of Nathaniel's boots like it's a slab of steak that's already been cooked. He notes this as he raises his weapon, but the milliseconds it took him to notice what didn't need to be noticed has cost him dearly; the titan shakes him off like his horse shakes its pelt to get rid of flies.

Nathaniel plummets, lands in the mouth of a smaller titan. Acting on reflex and not really thinking at all, he skewers the blade into the roof of its mouth before it can swallow. He hangs on to the handle even as its teeth snap shut and seal him inside its putrid mouth. It makes a gurgling sound as it tries and fails to swallow him. No matter how bad things look, Nathaniel can't just give up. Not on his first mission, not like this. He thinks he can slash its cheek open and get out that way, but he has to be fast. Really fast, or—

The titan opens its mouth all by itself to take a bite out of another human in its bulbous hands. A human Nathaniel is distraught to see is Lysander. He wrenches his blade out of its mouth as their eyes meet, and Lysander's are uncannily shining in relief.

"As I thought," he breathes. "You're alive."

Nathaniel doesn't have time to question the words as he thrusts himself out of the titan's opened mouth, swiping the blade downward to sever its wrist and free Lysander. It's incredibly lightweight as he shaves it, much more than he expected it to be. He rotates out of its uninjured arm's flailing grasp and zips into the closest tree, nearly collapsing on the branch. Lysander's worked his way free of the pliable dead fingers and pistons by, whipping the blade across the titan's vital point. Thick, deep crimson sprays and leaves him drenched, and an ardent heat stirs in the pit of Nathaniel's gut.

There is a feral part of him that likes seeing Lysander drenched in steaming titan blood. A part of him that relishes in the danger Lysander's placid disposition masks. But that part of him is not something to think about now, when Lysander aims his hooks and dives into the branch beside Nathaniel, squatting and panting heavily.

"Are you okay?" he demands more than he asks.

Then something clicks. "Did you let that titan grab you just so you could save me?"

Lysander nods. Nathaniel narrows his eyes and is a second away from telling him how reckless and stupid that was, when the big motherfucker of a titan he failed to kill the first time around trots past and makes a grab for a sidetracked Leigh. Nathaniel leaps from the branch and catapults himself over. He tears through the nape of its neck with a vengeance and emerges coated in scalding titan blood.

A valiant effort, but as it goes on, they're just too overwhelmed. Agatha calls a retreat. The mission is a failure, but unlike typical results, there are only a few casualties.

.

That night, when all the action is done for the day and they're home and cleaned up, Lysander tightly embraces Nathaniel without warning.

"Thank you for saving Leigh."

"You saved me first," Nathaniel chuckles and winds his arms around him. "Anyhow, we shouldn't have to thank each other. We're supposed to have each other's backs."

Lysander gives a pleasant hum. "We made our first real kills today."

"That reminds me," Nathaniel murmurs. "I...Well, sorry for bringing this up right now, but do you remember how we talked about how likely it is we're not going to last long?"

"Yes," he says. Many people would probably get pissed at Nathaniel for ruining a cheerful note with such a dreary reminder, but not Lysander.

"If anything ever happens, I..." Walls, he sounds sappy. Cheap and hackneyed. Nonetheless, Nathaniel doesn't really know how else to say it. "I love you. I just want you to know."

Lysander freezes. He holds Nathaniel out at arm's length and for one awful moment, Nathaniel's afraid he's made a horrible misstep in telling him. I'm sorry, he thinks and nearly says aloud. But then Lysander kisses him so hard, he's sure any bystander would think he's eating his face like some kind of human titan. Everything's okay.

.

Given the initial failure, Agatha wants to make a second attempt. This time they're going to set out in the evening, given that titans have so far been observed to require sunlight to be active, they're likely to be confronted with less of them. However, the waning daylight is going to make it more difficult to see, particularly concerning titans that may already be well camouflaged in the trees.

But it's always a toss-up. There are always disadvantages, big or small.

(Usually big, just ask the massive fatality rate.)

Concerning the number of titans, she turns out to be right. The swarm of them is a little less than half the size it was last time. Nathaniel kills his second titan in a flurry of meteoric maneuvers and rolls into a landing on the forest floor. This would be nothing short of suicidal if it wasn't in the plan, but it was, and as Nathaniel draws the attention of a duo of awkward, obscurely proportionate ten/eleven meter class titans, Kim and Rosalya swoop in and slaughter them.

Getting all the bigger ones out of the way leaves the smaller ones to pick from. Nathaniel grapples another trunk and hurtles himself upward, passing over the outstretched digits of esurient titans. He catches sight of Lysander in his peripheral, gracefully shearing the nape of a chubby titan's neck. It makes him smile.

"That's the one," Agatha declares vehemently, pointing to a five meter class titan with surprisingly large ears for their class's generally proportionate shapes. Well, proportionate as far as titans went, anyway. "Start firing the ropes!"

Nathaniel steels himself and dips into formation. He's prepared for everything, except for what happens. Out of nowhere, Lysander drops from the air like a stone and crashes to the earth in a heap. Pure panic and absolute incredulity flood every one of Nathaniel's nerves. He breaks out of formation and zaps toward him, heart thrumming at 1000 kilometers a minute. "Lysander!"

"I'm fine," he calls hoarsely, sitting up by the time Nathaniel gets there and holding one shoulder. "Just embarrassed. I forgot to refill my gas." He smiles sheepishly at Nathaniel as blood trickles into his teeth from a wound under his hairline.

Leigh darts over as well and crouches down, frowning deeply. "Are you hurt?"

Nathaniel swallows shakily, studying every inch of Lysander and asking the same thing with his eyes, though he can't find his words.

"Not badly, I don't think. Just my shoulder. It was only a stupid accident, don't worry. Go help the others secure that titan so this trip wasn't for nothing." Lysander's gritting his teeth and quite visibly in pain, but his tone leaves no room for argument. Nathaniel and Leigh obey him and return to the operation, but Nathaniel still feels sick to his stomach.

With the most dire threat of titans themselves so vastly overshadowing everything else, he's forgotten that stupid accidents can happen.

This time the mission is a success. When they return to headquarters, Agatha happily names the titan Kiki.

Lysander's shoulder is dislocated. Boris is a rather friendly medic and gently warns him it's going to burn like hellfire when he pops it back in. Lysander simply nods and grips Nathaniel's arm with his functioning fingers so hard that his knuckles go stark white. There is a nasty, cacophonous sound when Boris carries out the deed and pushes the damaged joint back into place.

Lysander is as silent as a melting snowflake, but Nathaniel can feel him screaming in agony in the way his grip clenches tight enough to cut off Nathaniel's circulation.

"You're going to be out of commission for about two weeks," Boris informs him apologetically.

"What joy," Lysander mutters tersely and he's hardly ever sarcastic, no that's Castiel's department and even Nathaniel's more than it ever is Lysander's; so it's quite the indication about just how much it actually hurts.

And yet a part of Nathaniel is glad. Because two weeks Lysander is off duty means two weeks that Lysander is safe from titans and stupid accidents. It's disgusting and selfish to think about his boyfriend's pain like that, but Nathaniel thinks it anyway.I'm sorry, he mentally apologizes.

.

"Recovery leave isn't as boring as it seems it would be," Lysander tells him one night, a week later, when Nathaniel returns soaked in titan blood with images of devoured comrades reeling through his mind.

"It isn't?" he questions almost absently.

"It isn't. You get to spend time with the strategists, even help them if they ask for your input. Violette let me look over some new formation plans she wasn't sure about. You get to spend time with Kiki too. Agatha's even more eccentric with Kiki than she is with us. She attempted to play catch with him." A faint grin of amusement unfurls on his lips.

"That sounds like quite the useful experiment." Nathaniel chuckles drily and sheds his damp, crusting uniform. He sinks back into their shared mattress, sore limbs sprawling bonelessly.

He doesn't remember closing his eyes, but he must have, because when he opens them again, Lysander's sitting on the edge of the mattress with a bowl of water resting precariously before him. He rinses a cloth in it and gently scrubs the crud and congealed crimson-brown from Nathaniel's face, humming melodically as he does so.

"Thanks," Nathaniel breathes.

"None needed." Lysander frowns a little, almost as though he's offended.

"Sorry."

"That's not needed either." And he dips his fingers in the water and works them through Nathaniel's hair, tenderly massaging his grimy scalp.

.

"Would you spar with me?" Lysander asks when he's healed and they're both done with daily duties in preparation for an upcoming expedition.

Nostalgia ripples through Nathaniel and brings a goblin grin to his lips. "Of course."

Lysander rushes Nathaniel with unbidden vigor and Nathaniel ducks, aiming to thrust his elbow to Lysander's sternum. Lysander narrowly avoids this and feigns a step to left, catching Nathaniel off-guard when he swivels and seizes him in a chokehold. Struggling, Nathaniel twists a hand free and backhands him. Lysander loosens his arm and stumbles back, Nathaniel stumbling forward.

He rounds on Lysander and sends a kick toward his ribs, but Lysander catches him by the ankle before it strikes and twists. Stars explode in Nathaniel's vision as he's decked to the ground, back first. Lysander pins him and presses his forearm firmly to his throat, eyes dancing and sweat glistening off his skin.

"You win this round," Nathaniel coughs in earnest.

"I do." Lysander removes his arm and that's when Nathaniel pushes upward with all his weight. Taken aback and unbalanced, Lysander topples to the ground and Nathaniel straddles him. He pins his wrists over his head and kisses him hungrily, crushing their lips together and nipping at the corner of his mouth.

"Sneaky devil," Lysander rebukes playfully, breath steamy against Nathaniel's teeth.

"I'm sorry," Nathaniel buoyantly tells him with no trace of genuine apology whatsoever. "I just couldn't resist."

"Someone needs to teach you self-control," Lysander purrs and pointedly swipes his tongue over Nathaniel's lower lip before he starts sucking on it.

A shiver dipped in heat twirls its way down the rungs of Nathaniel's spine and settles between his thighs.

.

Nathaniel manages go through an entire year in the Survey Corps without injury warranting any more than a few drops of salve. But his luck eventually runs out, as luck tends to do.

They're on a joint expedition with one of the Garrison regiments, scoping out the condition of Wall Tijie and the titans who clamber through the ruins within. There's been talk of reclaiming it for awhile now, and well, maybe they can. Nathaniel can't help feeling distracted. He's the closest to home (but its not, it's not home now, it probably isn't even there) he's been since the day the Wall was perforated. Lysander and Leigh are bothered too, but they're quiet about it like he's quiet about it.

There's no use crying over spilled blood.

Even so, the yearning, itching curiosity to go back to where his house was nags at the back of his skull and conquers him with an inexplicable gravitational pull. Maybe he feels like he'll get some finality if he sees what's become of it. Maybe he's feeling it on the behalf of his parents, whom he can only assume the fate of, or else on Amber's behalf as she'd died (been eaten alive) when trying to reach that resolution.

He doesn't know. But they're here to observe, to explore, to draw conclusions. Nathaniel doesn't see why that shouldn't include the vicinity where his yellowed memories lay. When Agatha waves her hand and gives them leeway while she discusses plans with the Garrison's Faraize, Nathaniel flings himself into a path he's never taken airborne before, but manages anyway. It's funny that he recalls it at all, given the passage of time.

But maybe things like paths to your childhood home are just the kind of things you never forget. Perhaps sentiment has some merit in this world after all, though Nathaniel's long sense disowned the ideal.

Some of the house is still standing. Nathaniel inhales a sharp breath and pings himself to the neighboring remainders of a house that once belonged to this nice guy named Charli, whose younger brothers played with him and Amber. He used to make chocolate. Nathaniel never really liked sweets, not even as a child, and Charli was nice enough to make bitter, unsugared dark chocolate for him separately. He had pet chickens too, Nathaniel recalls. He used to chase them.

It's only about a fourth of Nathaniel's house that's still standing. The chimney and the spine of the roof, runged with sparse shingles. Everything else is splinters and rubble, crushed or kicked by titan appendages and weathered by time. He remembers falling asleep in front of the fireplace in his mother's lap when he was really small and the toasty heat made him drowsy. He remembers being a little older and threatening to throw Amber into the flames. He wouldn't really, of course. He just liked scaring her. She was a crybaby after all, always running to Daddy, so she made it too easy.

Before Nathaniel can tell himself he's through with the nostalgia and it's time to move on because there's nothing else to see here, a plump titan with flailing sausage arms comes careening around the corner. Nathaniel pulls out a blade, preparing to slay— oh shit, it's an abnormal!

The titan picks up speed and garbles something in dumb noises that it itself most likely does not understand, its boat of a hand swatting Nathaniel right off his perch. He sails through the air and painfully bounces on another forgotten roof, skidding along it at breakneck velocity. His gear detaches as he's razed by shingles and thrown into disorientation by the pinwheel of blurring color.

The color goes red, there's something wet, and then everything's pitch black.

When Nathaniel comes to, there is a muffled roaring in his ears and a sky painted in streaks of tangerine, periwinkle, and coral above. Sunset. It was midday when he encountered the abnormal titan. He's on his back and everything is incessantly throbbing, even his eyeballs. It takes another second to register motion and Nathaniel realizes he's on the back of a cart, and there's Lysander sitting beside his waist. His profile is to Nathaniel and he's got his face buried in his hands, emitting nearly inaudible sniffles.

Blinking, Nathaniel wordlessly lifts a bandaged hand and gently touches his cheek. Lysander abruptly raises his head and turns into the touch, making a little, hiccupy noise as his cold fingers fold over Nathaniel's hand and keep it pressed to his cheek. Red-rimmed eyes, he's been crying.

"You had me scared to death," he chokes out and then he's crying again, clutching Nathaniel's hand tighter as fat teardrops stream down. A few of them slip past the crease and Nathaniel can feel them on his palm, warm and wet. "I thought you were gone..."

"M'sorry," Nathaniel croaks faintly.

Lysander quickly shakes his head and lowers Nathaniel's hand for a moment just to kiss it, before he presses it back to his cheek. "No. No 'sorrys.' You're here, and that's enough. You're here."

Nathaniel's never seen Lysander cry before. At first he hates it, so he tries to make him feel better. "Sunset's beautiful, isn't it?"

"Yes it is." Lysander's still crying, but now he's smiling a beaming smile through the torrent of tears, and Nathaniel decides it's much better that way.

.

Concussion, numerous gashes ranging from his chin to his toes, sprained wrist, cracked collarbone, just plain severe bruising. He's on recovery leave for two months and it's so damn boring it's downright maddening.

The first three weeks were fine. The first week Lysander took time off to stick around with him, even though Nathaniel repeatedly reassured him he didn't have to (later he'll reflect that it was probably more for Lysander's benefit than it was for his own, as Lysander was still really rattled about the whole thing), the second week it was kind of nice to just relax, and the third Nathaniel spent helping the other squad leaders and Boris with paperwork.

Now he's going insane. He can't stand doing nothing. He craves the sensation of titan flesh ripping under a sweep of his blade. He's starved for the open air beyond the Walls. He's so restless it's straining. However, despite the grueling ordeal, Nathaniel doesn't push to get back on the job. He knows if he did that, he'd never hear the end of it from Lysander, or worse, get himself fucked up permanently and be forced to resign. He'll just have to muddle through.

It shouldn't be the hardest thing he's ever done. At the moment though, it still manages to feel like it is. Lounging is tedious, roaming aimlessly is pointless, his thoughts are stale and his gear is getting dusty. This part is more painful than the injuries themselves and it's like the world is taciturn.

Things change drastically, either for the better or the worse; when Lysander and the others return.

Nathaniel waits at the gate as he's made a habit of doing, but when Agatha emerges in the lead, she's as white as a phantom and her hair is unbound. It streams in tangled magenta waves as she urgently rides past Nathaniel without so much as a glance. Unease seeps deep into Nathaniel's skin. Something is wrong. Whether it's overwhelming losses, or a horrifying discovery, or something else entirely, something is just not right.

His trepidation is minutely lifted by a spark of relief when Lysander shuffles through the gate in one piece, but his shellshocked expression and corpse-pale complexion speak volumes. Nathaniel strides over, heartbeat quickening.

"Lysander? What happened? Are Leigh and Rosa okay?"

Lysander swallows, wetting visibly cracked lips with his tongue. "They're fine. Things took a turn for the worse out there, Nathaniel. There were so many titans...So many, but they're both fine. It's not them...I..." He shakes his head, utterly slack-jawed and stunned. What makes this all worse is that this is Lysander; Lysander is honestly the calmest, most composed person he knows.

"What he's trying to say," Kim says and comes to a stop, lime eyes hard as flint. "Is that your pissing match opponent is a titan shifter."

Stupefaction instantly arrests Nathaniel. "What!?" Nobody's seen a titan shifter in years! And she's saying Castiel is!?

"It's true," Lysander murmurs, seemingly out of his daze even though he's still as round-eyed as an owlet. "Castiel revealed himself when the mission went south. They have him restrained in a cart."

The words have only just fled his lips when a cart rolls past the gate. Sure enough there's Castiel, handcuffed by the wrists with the cuffs secured to the side of the cart. His head's tipped back, sable bangs covering his eyes, but Nathaniel can still see the gag in his mouth.

"Traitor," he hisses venomously. He's never liked the guy and that's no secret, but he never suspected he was one of them.

"Hang on," Lysander protests. "You don't know that. He's never hurt anyone before, and if it wasn't for him shifting into a titan back there, the squad might not have come back."

"He shifted to save himself," Kim bites and Nathaniel gets the vibe they're likeminded on this one. "We had the same enemy, that's all. He isn't some kind of hero."

Lysander looks ready to leap to Castiel's defense again, but it comes to their attention that the gate is closed once more and everyone is swarming to the square. Lysander directs a glower of disapproval at both of them and then ducks off to join the crowd. Nathaniel and Kim trade glances and carry on after him, Kim diverging paths, most likely to seek Violette.

The Commander (a rigid older woman people sometimes call the 'Principal' due to her past position as an instructor) is pacing back and fourth before a kneeling, shackled Castiel. Lysander shoulders his way to the front of the throng of onlookers and Nathaniel keeps close to him.

"Well?" she asks firmly and clearly. "Do you mind informing us what your intentions here are?"

Castiel scoffs, as dismissive toward authority as ever. The Commander has a brick in her right hand. She smashes it down on his skull and the crowd is so eerily hushed that Nathaniel can hear it when the flecks of blood hit the concrete. Lysander bristles beside him and Nathaniel's half-temped to grab him to keep him from bolting over there.

"Again?"

Castiel lifts his head, redirecting a rivulet of ruby. "Same reason everybody else is here, to kill titans."

"You are a titan."

"No! I mean, yeah, but no!" Castiel loses that haughty composure instantly, and to Nathaniel's ears, suddenly sounds incredibly young. "I'm not one of mindless ones, and I'm not like the past shifters! I don't have an agenda, okay? I'm just here! I have a life here, I'm not out to get anybody, or rage war against humanity or whatever."

The Commander pauses. She looks as though she believes him as much as Nathaniel does, which is to say, not at all.

"If this is the case, why did you lie by omission?"

"Cause I knew this would happen." He glares at the gawkers.

She gives an unimpressed snort and then leans down, slipping in the key and removing the cuffs from his wrists. "Shift," she demands simply.

"Eh? Why?" Castiel looks up to her suspiciously and the Commander wallops him over the head with her brick again.

"I want to confirm your nature," is the explanation she gives, but she is the Commander, and she does not owe an explanation to anyone, especially not to one of them. It could very well be a pretense.

"I've never done it twice in one day..." He sounds doubtful and now even younger.

"You will today."

After a level staring contest in which he loses, Castiel bites into his palm and the most enormous titan Nathaniel has ever seen replaces him. Its seventeen meters tall and athletically muscled, retaining lank sable hair that's vaguely familiar. At the very sight of it, Nathaniel instinctively reaches for a blade, only to recall he's on recovery leave and wearing none.

"I see," the Commander snipes. "As you were."

Castiel emerges from the neck and sort of tumbles down his titan's rapidly dissolving body, seemingly only semiconscious, or enervated at the very least. That's when Nathaniel regrets not holding Lysander back when he could, because now's streaking over and wrapping his arms around the thing he still thinks is his friend. He holds him up and soothes him, even as his titan's body is reduced to a sizzling skeleton and the Commander orders his arrest.

"Just lock it up until I decide what to do with it," she mandates tartly and walks away with every hair in place.

Castiel yields to being cuffed and gagged again, either too exhausted to fight it or realizing it's unwise. Nathaniel leans toward the former. Lysander hesitantly steps down and regroups with Nathaniel.

"What they're doing is inhumane. You've got to believe me, Nathaniel, Castiel won't hurt anyone." Lysander isn't frustrated by his doubt anymore, just pleading and worried.

"I don't," Nathaniel asserts and tries to steel himself to the look of heartbreak Lysander gives him.

"But Nathaniel, you've known him for years! I've known him for years! If he was really a threat, don't you think we would've known before this?" Lysander's voice is laced with aching. "Is it just because it's Castiel? If it were someone else would you be so sure?"

"I could ask you the same question!" snaps Nathaniel. "If he wasn't your best friend, would you be so sure he's innocent? And to answer your question, yes, I would be just as sure atitan shifter was dangerous, even if it wasn't Castiel! If it was fucking Iris I would be just as sure it's dangerous! I'm sorry, but I don't trust titans! They're humanity's enemy! Every single one of them!"

Lysander's fists tremble as his eyes waver. He wheels and stalks away without another word and Nathaniel doesn't try to go after him. He's never actually been angry at Lysander before, and his stomach is as green as his blood pressure is soaring. And though he wasn't lying when he said it, Nathaniel can't help but wonder if Lysander could possibly be right. Would he be so dead set on distrusting a titan shifter, if it wasn't Castiel? Nathaniel thinks so, he hopes so, but—

But it is Castiel, it doesn't matter if it was someone else, because it's not.

.

It's been two days. Lysander won't stop trying to save him and Nathaniel won't stop hoping the Commander decides on execution.

"If it were up to me," Agatha tells Lysander when he comes to her asking if there's something, anything she can do about this. "I would set him free. I'd obviously restrict that freedom, but the shifters of the past turned on humans when they were exposed. He could be a valuable asset. He killed over twenty titans out there all on his own, not to mention the experiments we could conduct with him..." She trails off with a low sigh. "But it is the Commander's decision and the Commander's alone. I'm sorry."

Lysander isn't angry with Nathaniel, or at least he doesn't think. He's tight-lipped and cool, radiating frustration and some kind of insipid helplessness he resents Nathaniel won't help him with. But angry? Actually angry? Decidedly infuriated with the Commander, but not Nathaniel. All that's directed at Nathaniel out of a rage as unassumingly threatening as thin ice is a look of raw disappointment.

Nathaniel almost thinks that's worse, but he's nearly as disappointed that Lysander, who of all people should understand, is siding with one of them. In any case, their personal grievances matter naught because they are no factor whatsoever in whatever fate the Commander assigns Castiel.

But with all that's going on, their schedules have resumed. Err, Lysander's schedule has resumed anyway. Nathaniel is still on leave. He winds up visiting Kiki (if one could really call it visiting) just because he doesn't know what to do with himself. The titan is nailed down at every joint and roped up around the throat, completely immobilized. Its watery brown eyes shift onto Nathaniel and it pointlessly opens and closes its mouth, almost as though it has the capacity to imagine chewing on him.

"But I don't give you that much credit," Nathaniel tells it aloud.

Kiki continues staring blankly.

Although they have been able to get a lot of information out of observing, the question Nathaniel wants answered the most never is. Why? Why do they eat humans?

That's all. Figure out that and he'll be satisfied.

"Um, Nathaniel?"

For a short-lived, horrifyingly amazing moment, Nathaniel thinks it's Kiki that spoke to him. But then Melody steps into his sightline and he curses his absurdity, chalking it up to lingering effects of his concussion.

"Hey, Melody."

"Do you think we could talk? Somewhere private?" Her cerulean depths fix on his solemnly, tone lowered and hands folded together in front of her.

"Sure." Nathaniel hopes she isn't going to ask him out. He's always had the idea she's fond of him, she'll hint it in the way she smiles at him for no reason at all. It's not as though he and Lysander keep their relationship secret, but Melody's more often a strategist than she is on the frontline, so it's not as if they're abundantly placed in each other's company.

She leads him to the stables and exhales a long breath before speaking, rolling her shoulders like she's getting her courage up. Then Nathaniel is positive she's going to ask him out, and completely unprepared when the words that leave her lips are; "You want Castiel dead, right?"

"Why?" he returns evasively, eyes narrowing.

Melody lowers her head. "I know where they're keeping him and I have a copy of the skeleton key that unlocks the cells. I had it made when Corporal Louis had me on cleaning duty." She unfolds her hands finally and lays her left one flat. There's the key, sitting pretty on her palm. "I'll give you a map too, if you—"

"What do you gain if I kill him?" Nathaniel isn't biting any bait or making any decision until she spills.

"Peace of mind?" Melody laughs nervously, syllables juddering. "It's terrifying enough when there are titans outside the walls, how are we even supposed to sleep at night when they're inside them too?"

"Why don't you kill him yourself then?" He couldn't agree more, but he's still not biting, if only for the fact that this is illegal. It's the Commander's decision and she could very well have him executed in the end anyway. But if Nathaniel gets caught doing something like this, it'll be his head on the chopping block. Worse still, if he gets caught, then Lysander may very well hate him.

"I think I'd falter," she answers quietly, truthfully. "I know in my head he's just another monster, but he still looks human to my heart." Her teeth sink into her bottom lip.

Nathaniel isn't like her, he won't falter. But he still isn't going to do this. He can't. There's too much risk, the consequences would—

He's taking the key from her hand before he can finish the thought.

.

There are guards, but not guards around the clock because there are more important things for soldiers to do than babysit a titan shifter subdued to the point of virtual paralysis, when only high-ranking personnel are supposed to know where he's kept anyway. Nathaniel slips in under the cover of night, clad in gear for the first time in nearly a month. It's actually Castiel's and not his own, because Melody knew where that was too and there's no way he's taking a chance by marring his own when this will probably turn into an investigation.

The acknowledgement that this is the first time he's held a blade in so long has him keenly aware of the unsightly stitches under his clothing and the vexation that he's out of practice. Far from fit enough to attempt engagement with what's truly the largest titan he's ever seen, but of course, there is no engagement here, so that doesn't really matter at all. The Commander's dealt with shifters before, and she's spared no insecurity.

Castiel's restrained almost as tight as Kiki. Forced to his knees within the cell, his wrists are handcuffed behind his back and the cuffs are melded directly to the wall. His ankles are cuffed too and the couple centimeters of chain in between the crescent plates are nailed into the floor. The only mobility he's granted is neck-and-up, though naturally he's been gagged again. He looks over when Nathaniel unlocks the cell, brows lifted. The lantern Nathaniel was smart enough not to light until he was swallowed by the shadows of prison passageways glows in his perplexed eyes and glints on the blade.

Castiel notices the blade and confusion is promptly sacrificed for outrage.

He strains against his shackles and struggles uselessly against the confinement that proves to be absolute, gag muffling his snarls. Nathaniel meets his smoldering glare of hatred with a slitted, accusatory one of his own. Castiel can despise him all he wants, but he's still the monster here. He is a monster and he's going to die like one.

Nathaniel struts forward and snags a handful of Castiel's greasy hair, forcing his head down and swiping the blade across the nape of his neck. There's a slick switch and moist crunch as his vertebrae is severed. He sags lifelessly and blood that looks more like raven ink in the dim orange light spreads in tiny rivers and courses down until it drips on the floor below.

"I guess you were right about your killing skill being better than mine," Nathaniel says flatly. His skin quivers with disgust that he unknowingly competed against this vile creature.

He leaves as silently as he came and disposes of Castiel's gear in a pond.

I'm sorry, Lysander. Someone had to do it.

.

Its untimely demise is publicly announced the following day. They don't mention it was foul play, and Nathaniel doesn't fear getting caught.

This is the second time Nathaniel sees Lysander cry. He holds it together until lunch (if one could call going through the motions in zombified silence holding it together) and then he quietly excuses himself from the table. Nathaniel isn't sure if his presence is wanted, in fact leans toward believing it's unwanted, but he follows him anyway.

Lysander goes from a muted stoic pillar to a quaking sobbing mess so suddenly it's like someone flipped a switch. He buries his face in his hands and drops to the grass, crumbling in a frail little ball and unable to hold back reedy mourning noises.

This is the one and only time Nathaniel feels like a murderer.

He gets down and hugs Lysander tight; he must've been wrong about his presence not being wanted, because Lysander latches on and clings. He presses his face into the column of Nathaniel's neck and gasps sobs into his skin, ceaseless tears and runny snot creating a stickily hot patch of wetness under Nathaniel's pulse. His grip is like iron but he won't stop trembling. It's almost like he's going to collapse, so Nathaniel just holds him steady the best he can.

"I'm sorry."

Lysander pauses and exhales a very long sigh, shaky breath moist with tears. "Don't say things you don't mean, Nathaniel," he states tautly. "Not to me."

"I mean it. I'm sorry about anything that hurts you." He's sorry. He wouldn't take it back, but that doesn't mean it hurts him any less to see Lysander like this. It's not as though he killed Castiel maliciously, it's just something that had to happen one way or another for everyone's safety, and the Commander was delaying it for too long.

Lysander grows quiet and nods. He uncurls his fingers from the material of Nathaniel's jacket and lets his arms fall flat, simply leaning in and resting his head on Nathaniel's shoulder.

Nathaniel rubs his back in small circles, but he knows it doesn't really help.

.

"Louis let me borrow one of his books today," Lysander says one night when they have the stars to themselves.

"That's nice. What was it about?" Nathaniel tilts his head and idly moves his fingers to brush Lysander's. Lysander intertwines them and smiles a private smile that glints silver in Nathaniel's peripheral.

"The places outside the Walls." He heaves a velvet, blissful sigh just thinking about it. "There's so many different kinds of places. There are forests where it rains all the time and flowers bloom in colors we've never even heard of, and that's just the beginning."

"What's your favorite place?"

"I don't know if I can pick one. Maybe the mountains. I'd like to see them the most, anyway."

"Mountains?" Nathaniel puckers a brow. "Sorry, I'm not familiar..."

"They're like hills, but gigantic. Hundreds of meters tall."

"Ah. I'd like to see that too."

"I'll take us there," Lysander promises him with starshine twinkling in his eyes and a voice smoothed of all that stunts dreamers. "When all the titans are dead, and we don't need the Walls anymore, we'll be free and we can go climb one together."

Nathaniel hesitates. At eighteen he is still not naïve, nor has he become an idealist.

"I'm not saying it will happen soon," Lysander hums and gently nudges his shoulder. "We could be old and wrinkling by the time we're free, but we'll still be free."

"You'll still want me then?" He half-jokes-half-hopes, and tries not to remember the night when they admitted they weren't bound to last very long.

"I'll want you always," replies Lysander and it comes out much more like a fact of life than a romantic hook. He warmly presses his lips to Nathaniel's temple.

.

Louis's squad encounters a speaking titan. Or so they claim anyway, Louis himself included. Nathaniel is dubious, but not disbelieving or distrustful. It could've been a shifter, after all, though according to Louis, it didn't seem in possession of a shifter's mental faculties. When it spoke it spoke in fragments, and only spoke of its hunger for humans.

Either way, his squad was on an isolated expedition and unprepared to capture it. So now they've merged with Agatha's and set out to do just that. They split up to cover more ground and Nathaniel naturally goes with Lysander. They work well together, really, compliment each other's abilities. Nathaniel's quick, Lysander's incredibly balanced, Nathaniel's merciless, Lysander's unruffled, etc.

Though they haven't encountered any titans yet, they come across a telltale sign that one is nearby. A bolus of chewed human limbs in a viscous, noxious lump against the base of a tree trunk. The result of a titan's full paunch, as they don't digest.

"Nauseating," Lysander comments with a trace of weariness. They're all jaded here.

"Indeed." Nathaniel grapples and hares himself to a higher branch, if only so he doesn't have to look at it. The movement gets him noticed by an uncommon, female-formed titan that zaps out from behind another tree and raises its hooked fingers, clawing for Nathaniel. He's up too high for it to reach, but apparently this still doesn't sit well with Lysander, because he flings himself after it, free-falling, launching himself in and shaving its nape.

Even when he should be focusing on other things, Nathaniel never fails to notice how violently elegant Lysander is. There's something to be admired in the polished motion of his maneuvers and the neat execution in the way he handles his blades. He nimbly rotates back and poises himself on his chosen branch, as predatory and sharp-eyed as a falcon.

"Should we keep moving on?" Lysander asks, seemingly oblivious to the way Nathaniel's eyes are tracing every curve of his body and every edge in his posture for what must be the millionth time.

"I suppose." Nathaniel shrugs and turns away, grinning coyly to himself as he shoots to another tree. "To be honest with you, I don't expect us to find it. The last time Louis and his squad saw it was hours ago. It's probably long gone."

Lysander follows Nathaniel's lead. "Thought I'd like to be optimistic about such an elusive find, I'm inclined to agree. But all we can do is try, right?"

"Right." He gives a short nod.

In that very moment, a strangled caterwaul pierces the air like a knife, a near-inhuman staccato of pure fear.

"That's Leigh!" gasps Lysander. He veers sharply and jets off toward the echoing cry. Nathaniel redirects his grapple-hooks and races right behind him, apprehension mounting beneath his ribcage.

When they reach Leigh, he's putting all of his power behind both blades to rend open the bulging belly of a titan roughly eight or nine meters tall. Nathaniel is absolutely dumbfounded.

"What the hell is he doing?" Lysander all but screeches as a bay of syrupy, sizzling liquid the color of beet juice bursts fourth from its gut in a rancid flood. The fetor is almost overpowering and stings his eyes, but what's worse is that Leigh stays down and starts searching through it desperately. Nathaniel's breath hitches as the horrifying realization of what's going on dawns on him. It dawns on him just as the regenerating titan reaches for Leigh again.

Lysander is so perturbed he misfires and drops out of the sky, falling to the revolting mess below with a mighty splash. Nathaniel swings and plunges to the back of the titan's neck, tearing the blade along its flesh in mere moments away from being too late. He withdraws as it topples and makes a jerky descent, peeling for Lysander and Leigh as soon as his feet touch the ground. He trips and almost face-plants in the now lukewarm pool of titan stomach gunk, but manages to retain stamina and sprint over.

Nathaniel's simultaneously relieved and awed to discover that Rosalya's alive. Leigh sits in the viscous substance with her in his lap, and though she's veneered in the foul fluid from head to toe and burned to the point of blistering, she's breathing and even partly conscious.

"It — It swallowed her whole. It didn't chew, so I thought she might be okay if I could just get her out in time," Leigh's rambling on, shaking and hyperventilating even though the leap of faith he took paid off. Painfully rattled, he looks wildly from Lysander to Nathaniel and back to Rosalya. "You are okay, aren't you Rosa?"

"I need a bath," she murmurs dizzily, blinking as if she can barely comprehend what just happened. Nathaniel doesn't blame her, he can barely comprehend it himself.

"Thanks for killing it," Lysander breathes, turning to Nathaniel and seeming to have a handle back on his composure. "I should've helped, I'm sorry, I just—"

"Don't worry about it," Nathaniel interrupts, clapping him on the shoulder. It may have been eons since Amber's death, but Nathaniel still remembers the feeling of freezing up upon seeing her in danger.

The mission to find and capture the speaking titan is a failure. They go home with nothing more than a few less soldiers and the knowledge that under certain circumstances, there is a fleeting time window to rescue someone swallowed whole.

It will have to suffice.

.

On the next expedition, Kim gets killed. Another uncommon, female-shaped titan of fifteen meters bites her head off and stuffs her in its mouth, and then she's just gone.

For Nathaniel, this is a reminder of their mortality as well as another crack in his heart. It's not that he's ever forgotten, he hasn't, he's never ever forgotten how easily his life could be cut short, but...But Kim was the best in the squad. She was the most skilled, efficient solider they had. She still fell prey to a titan's maw. If the best can fall, any of them can fall.

Violette is hysterical and unconsolable on the way back. She scrunches up in the corner of a cart of sheets for the dead (unused, unused because in this world the dead are devoured and there's nothing to cover) and wails into Kim's blooded apricot-orange scarf, the only thing left of her.

"You always told me to be strong," her shattered voice whimpers into the fabric, rivers of tears overflowing from under her tightly closed lids. "You always told me to be strong and not cry, but won't you let me cry for you now, Kim? You have to, right? You're not here to tell me I can't." She sobs and sobs and doubles over on her knees, sinking so low her hair splays across the wood.

It's Lysander who scoots over and empathetically wraps her in his arms, coaxing her to stain his chest with all her tears and rubbing her back in small circles like Nathaniel did for him once. Comforting her would generally fall to her friend Alexy, but he's positively catatonic in the same cart. Alexy's this usually buoyant, playful guy from Louis's squad. Nathaniel doesn't know him particularly well, but they've had conversations here and there.

Now they have one major thing in common. Alexy's twin brother Armin got killed by the same titan that decapitated Kim. All that's left of him is a bloody pulp of an arm, and Alexy clutches it in an unresponsive stupor.

That night when they stand around the pyres, Violette changes drastically. She's still sobbing, but now her despair is seething and she swears on her blade that she's going to slaughter every single titan she sees. It's jarring to Nathaniel; he doesn't think she's ever even killed one by herself, but that's what loss does. It changes you. It hardens you. He silently wishes her the best of luck and looks to the ashes that plume in the sky. None of them are Kim's, but this is a tribute to her anyway, her and Armin, and everyone else ever gobbled up by a titan.

"Kim was right about one thing," Nathaniel murmurs to Lysander as his eyes follow a flickering spark. "She killed more titans than me and Castiel combined." They don't talk about Castiel, of course. Nathaniel doesn't even like referring to the creature by name, let alone discussing its occupation before it was revealed as such. But this is one big funeral, Kim's funeral too, and at someone's funeral you talk about what they accomplished. Her accomplishment was offing seventy-one titans.

Lysander lets out a low, stiff sigh. "You haven't finished killing them yet, Nathaniel. You still have years of titan killing ahead of you."

Nathaniel peeks out of the corner of his eye and observes Lysander in the firelight, the bluish dark of the shadows it doesn't touch, the way it illuminates his features and accents the solemn way he holds himself tonight.

"Don't die," he begs him in a voice that fractures. "Don't ever die on me, Lysander."

Bicolored depths turned pumpkin and vermillion by the flames meet his own. "Nathaniel..."

"I'm sorry." Nathaniel looks away. "Truly, I know that's not something you can promise me."

Lysander takes his hand and squeezes. "It'll be okay, Nathaniel."

There's a lump in his throat that blocks the words from forming, so he just squeezes back.

.

A week later, Nathaniel is dreaming about the fire. He dreams about comrades' corpses who weren't there reduced to brittle, charred skeletons and burning. Burning, burning, burning, burning hot—

He opens his eyes and finds the burning still there, a thick, stifling heat. There are sounds too, harsh, wet, hacking. Coughing, Nathaniel realizes, and then he realizes it's Lysander coughing right next to him and he sits up, alert.

"Lysander?"

Lysander removes his hand from his mouth and looks over, moonlight illuminating the sheen of perspiration on his skin. He's throughly soaked, sweat beading in his lashes and collecting in the dimple of his upper lip. Fever is baking right off of him, and Nathaniel doesn't even need to touch him to tell.

"Hi," is what he says, hoarsely and wearily, and not quite all there.

Alarm sends the hairs on Nathaniel's arms standing straight up. "I'll be right back, okay? I'm going to get Boris." He draws a sharp breath, patting Lysander's clammy hand and slipping out of the mattress with worry writhing and tying his stomach in triple knots.

According to Boris, it's nothing serious. Just some virus that's been going around. But it's serious enough to have Lysander moved to the infirmary, and that's too serious for Nathaniel's comfort. He injects him with some serum or another that's supposed to help and then suggests Nathaniel keep his distance if he doesn't want to catch it. It goes without saying that he doesn't want to catch it, but like hell he's leaving Lysander.

He stubbornly remains a fixture by Lysander's bed, wooden footstool under his butt and damp cloth in his hand. He dabs away the droplets of his boyfriend's sweat and rinses it in cool water once more, smoothing it to his forehead in an effort to quell the inexhaustible heat.

"Hey, Nathaniel?"

"Don't talk," Nathaniel soothes mildly. "Just rest."

"Will you marry me?" Lysander graces him with a radiant smile despite all his malady.

Nathaniel splutters, blushing tomato-red and choking on his own breath. His heart leaps and tumbles in his chest, and he can hardly believe his ears. "L-Lysander..."

"I've thought about it before, us getting married. I'd love to see you in a suit. Especially from behind—"

"Lysander!" Now Nathaniel feels like he's the one with a fever and hides his flaming face with his hands. But at least he knows Lysander doesn't really mean it. He'd never say something so inappropriate. This is all just nonsensical delirious sick-talk, not a real proposal. "No," Nathaniel tells him with a sad little smile, taking Lysander's hand in both of his and holding it fondly. "I'm sorry, but we can't get married. We're too busy to get married."

"I suppose you're right," Lysander sighs out. "But maybe we can when all the titans are gone..."

"Maybe we can," Nathaniel agrees and tenderly kisses his flushed cheek.

.

They're reclaiming Wall Tijie. They're going to eradicate every single titan inside, all the nearing ones beyond it, and fix that massacre of a hole. Every Survey Corps squad is on it, every Garrison branch. This is a massive job, it's going to take all the manpower available.

Nathaniel is in the middle of unleashing his blade upon the nape of a titan's neck when a bigger one lumbers up from behind and spots him. Nathaniel doesn't even realize it's there until its gargantuan fingers have curled around his torso. It lifts him, grip clenching and wreaking his ribs to shattered fragments that cave in and slit his lungs.

He cries out in agony and surprise, blood and spittle flying from his decibels. Weapon still in his hands, Nathaniel brings it down, but it merely scratches the titan's rapidly regenerating appendage. It bites his legs off first, its tarnished teeth clamping down and sundering them with its mindless effortlessness. The pain is an all encompassing inferno, but when Nathaniel screams all that leaves his lips is bubbling ruby.

Flesh and muscle is destroyed or else just hanging on in meaty flaps, bones pulverized between mammoth teeth, blood pouring out of him in buckets.

I'm sorry, Lysander, he thinks irresistibly, pain rocketing through everything, even the limbs that are no longer there. Maybe next time.

But at nineteen Nathaniel is not naïve and never an idealist. He knows there's not going to be a next time, there's only the now and the now is blurring before him and darkening at the edges, slipping from his grasp.

.

.

.

"Excuse me?"

Nathaniel looks up from his clipboard to see a Victorian-styled guy standing before him. He's that guy that transferred last week, Nathaniel recalls.

"Yes?"

"I hate to bother you, but have you seen a notebook laying around? I seem to have misplaced mine."

"I haven't. Sorry, Lysander." Nathaniel lowers his eyes back to his clipboard.

"Wait...Have we met?" The guy lifts a brow, the hint of an apology veiled behind his unusual gaze.

"I don't think?" Nathaniel blinks dubiously.

"You just addressed me by name..."

He did? Huh. He didn't realize. How weird.

"Oh, right." Nathaniel offers an apologetic smile. "Your name was on one of the principal's bulletins, with your picture. Since you're new here, and all." This is bullshit. Nathaniel doesn't even know what the guy's name is, but an excuse is better than coming off as creepy.

"Ah, that makes sense." Lysander politely dips his head in farewell and walks away.

Nathaniel thoughtfully chews his lip after he's gone, absently tapping his pen against the table. What a peculiar thing...Oh well, no time to dwell on it. He has other things to do.

This turned out being happier than I thought. Must be the Battlestar Galactica music giving me good vibes. It still sucks sour turd though o_e'

I wonder if rolling in toothpaste would make me less mediocre. Probably not. There are probably a million fucking typos in this. Gotta edit those.