The train swayed gently beneath them, rhythmic clacks of the track carving out a silence too comfortable to break.

The compartment was small—enough space for four people, maybe, but just the two of them occupied it now. Armin sat with one leg curled up, Eren’s jacket draped over his shoulders—oversized and smelling faintly of metal and sweat and something unmistakably him.

Eren’s head rested against his shoulder, not heavy, just there, like gravity had nudged him into place and he hadn’t found a reason to move. His hair was still damp from the steam, curling in odd directions; his knuckles were wrapped in clean white bandages. Armin’s weren’t much better. A strip of gauze peeked out from beneath his sleeve, but it didn’t hurt. Not anymore.

Their hands were laced together between them, resting in the space where their knees met. Eren’s thumb moved every so often, brushing over the back of Armin’s hand like he couldn’t help it. Armin didn’t say anything about it. He didn’t need to.

Outside the window, dusk was falling fast. The sky was all bleeding gold and pale gray, and the trees zipped by in quick, blurred strokes. The kind of scenery that made it hard to believe there’d been blood hours ago. Screaming. Chaos. That at one point, they hadn’t been sitting here, alive.