Chapter Text
She’s the last one that the Jaegerists pull out of the cellar where they had taken them, and by then Mikasa’s nerves are already shot. The past few days—weeks, really, and hours specifically—have frayed away at her defenses, leaving her feeling like a child. She just wants things to make sense.
So when they take her to the main dining room, empty save for Eren, she tries to feel relieved. He’ll explain, she tells herself. It’ll all make sense now.
“Eren,” she says, crossing the room to where he’s standing, slouched against a table, his hands flat behind him on the white tablecloth. “What’s going—”
“Sit down,” he says. His voice is cold enough to freeze her in her tracks. He nods to the man who’d brought her, someone she doesn’t recognize, and the door slams shut, leaving them alone in the huge central room.
“I . . .” Mikasa says, blinking. “I don’t—”
“I said,” he says, voice flat and empty, “Sit down.”
Mikasa sits in the chair closest to her, stunned into compliance.
He looks so different. The last time she’d seen him had been weeks ago in the attack on Liberio; before that when they all crossed the sea together. His hair had been so much shorter. His face hadn’t been as thin or pale as it is now. How much is it just that he’s grown, she wonders, and how much is something else entirely?
She focuses on the details of his face—his eyes are the same, and his lips, the slope of his nose and the jut of his chin. He’s still Eren.
She’s sitting at a different table than the one he’s leaned against, twisted in her chair to face him fully, her hands folded anxiously in her lap. Mikasa waits for him to speak, and after a long moment, he does. His eyes flit over her from head to toe and he says, “I wanted to talk to you alone.”
Mikasa nods along. She’d wanted to speak to him with Armin, but he must’ve already. She tries to feel better about that fact. But something in the air lets her know that something about this scene is very, very wrong. The way he’s holding himself, the clipped tone of his voice, the detached blankness of his face.
“Armin and Hange and the others will be fine,” he says. “They’re being moved to Shiganshina. You will be, too, when we’re done here. So.” Eyes still fixed on her, he drums his fingers on the table once, twice. “Do you know where Zeke is?”
“No. I—” She frowns. “This whole thing with Zeke—and Liberio, and everything that’s happening right now, Eren, what’s going on? You’re not the type of person—”
He cuts her off with a terse, “Shut up.”
Mikasa stands, shaking her head. “Eren, this isn’t you. You’re being manipulated by Zeke—”
“I,” he spits, “am free. Everything I do is out of my own free will.”
“That’s not true,” she says, rejecting it. “You’re not the type of person who targets innocent civilians and children, no matter where they’re from. You’ve always cared about us more than anyone—you saved me, and you wrapped this scarf around me because you’re kind, so—”
“You think I’m being manipulated by Zeke?” he says, talking over her. He regards her, blank face starting to show cracks. He looks angry, that same flash of hotheaded temper she used to know so well. She never thought she’d miss it, but she’d prefer his adolescent moodiness to this. He feels miles and miles away from her, unreachable, even as she’s trying to stretch out her hand to him now. Her heart aches. “I spoke to Zeke when I was in Liberio, brother to brother. Learned some interesting things. About history, Titan powers . . . do you want to know what he had to say about you?”
She tilts her head, brows furrowed. What in the world is he talking about? “What do you mean?”
He pushes off the table, standing up to his full height, the movement accentuating the new breadth of his shoulders. “The reason you’re strong, Mikasa, is because you’re a product of centuries of experimentation. The Ackerman clan is a bloodline that can, under certain circumstances, manifest the powers of Titans while retaining human form.”
Mikasa’s mouth parts. That’s—
“Your ancestors were bred to protect the Eldian king. That means those instincts only activate when the Ackerman thinks they have a host to protect.” He looks her up and down again, face shuttering closed off as his eyes linger on the scarf around her throat. “You cling to me because of that night in the cabin. I told you to fight and you obeyed me, in a situation where you faced death. By chance, we met all the requirements, and you convinced yourself I was the host you needed to protect. That’s it,” he snarls.
She’s shaking her head again. The beginnings of a headache pulse at her temples but it’s nothing compared to the pain in her chest. “That’s not true,” she says. Her voice is wobbly and fragile, like it had been in the aftermath of the cabin. She had only settled back into herself when Eren gave her his scarf. “It wasn’t by chance. It was because of you, Eren, that I became strong—”
He steps toward her, face carved from stone. “How’s your head?” He flips his hand out, gesturing to her temple. “Zeke told me about that, too. Ackermans get sudden headaches after they awaken. He said it’s the true self trying to resist being forced to protect the host. Familiar, right?”
A sudden, white-hot spike of pain stabs through her skull, accompanied by a flash of Eren screaming and stabbing, blood flying everywhere, the wet sound of the body being pierced—
“No,” Mikasa says, but she’s drawing into herself. She feels like she’s dissolving, the foundations of her world, of her self, falling away. A new pain joins the throbbing in her head—behind her eyes, the hot pressure of tears. What is he saying?
“What I’m saying,” he goes on, “is that the real Mikasa died in that cabin when she was nine. Leaving only you behind.”
“No,” she says. Her eyes fall away from his face, down to her own hands, clasped and pressed tight against the hollow between her ribs. He’s lying. Why is he lying? He—he has to be lying.
He takes another step to her, just barely out of arms’ reach. “Ever faithful to your Ackerman blood. A clan who lost their autonomy, bred to follow orders. Slaves.” His voice is a snarl now, like he’s a wild animal—it’s familiar, but the things he’s saying— “Do you know what I hate, more than anything else in this world? Anyone who isn’t free. That, or cattle. Just looking at you used to make me so mad, and now I know why.”
It feels like a punch to the chest. Mikasa doesn’t want to look back up at him. She feels like a puppet on a string as her head slowly lifts, as her eyes take in the dark fury on his face. She’s seen this look before—when they were kids, it was reserved for Titans, or for the traffickers. She’s never seen this look directed at herself, never, never.
“Mikasa,” he says. “Ever since we were kids, I’ve always hated you.”
The words hit her like a physical blow, a violent wave of anguish that nearly knocks her to the ground. The tears spill from her eyes. A choked sound escapes her lips, the breath before a sob. Ten years of habit make her hands rise to her throat, but they freeze before they can clutch at the fabric of her scarf.
“Take that fucking thing off,” Eren says. He’s spitting out every word, now, nostrils flaring, hands clenching into fists. Mikasa doesn’t move, and he crosses the final few steps between them and says, “Take it off!”
He grabs the knot of her scarf and undoes it. Mikasa watches, breath coming in shallow, gasping hitches, as his hands rip it off of her, bunch it into a ball and throw it to the side, and then Eren kisses her.
His hands wrap around the back of her exposed neck, fingertips sliding into her short hair. His mouth is hard, less a kiss than a bite, teeth and all, and his body crashes into hers as he backs her up to the table and pins her against it. His lips part her own and he swallows her sobs.
She feels her face crumple even further, her eyes squeezing shut. Like she’s trying to block out what’s happening, but there’s no blocking out the way that his hands slide down her neck to her back, gripping her hips and lifting her onto the table. She’s still crying—how could she not be crying, this is only making her cry more—but her hands fist in the fabric of Eren’s long jacket. She doesn’t pull him closer, but she doesn’t push him away either, and shouldn’t she? She absolutely should, he just—he just—but she doesn’t, and does that mean—is he right? The thought sets off a new wave of tears.
Eren doesn’t pull away a fraction of an inch when he stops kissing her, keeping his lips pressed to hers when he growls, “Tell me to stop.” He kisses her once, twice, hard pecks with soft lips. “Do it. If you want me to stop, tell me.” His fingers dig into her skin, hard enough to bruise, as he ducks his head, kissing her jaw, her throat, her jackrabbit-quick pulse. “I don’t want to stop,” he says, mouth dragging against her neck. “Tell me to stop.”
She can’t make herself speak, isn’t even sure what she’d say if she could, and she doesn’t stop him when his fingers fumble with the belt on her overcoat. He bites at the skin over her vein as he pulls it off and throws it away, and Mikasa sobs hard, body hunching forward, closer to him, her fingers tightening in his jacket. His mouth is back on hers as rips open her formal tunic, hands sliding around her back to crush her against him—and just as quickly sliding back out again, trailing over her stomach and breasts to her collar, pushing the coat down her arms. It gets caught on her bent elbows. Her hands need to let go of his jacket if it’s going to come all the way off.
“Tell me to stop,” he whispers, “or let me take this off of you.”
And Mikasa lets her hands drop to the table so he can push her sleeves the rest of the way down her shoulders. Obedient.
He sighs and kisses her again; finally, she starts to kiss him back. It’s easier than sitting here passively with her broken heart. She lets him work his tongue into her mouth as he begins to unbutton her shirt. His hands, she registers distantly, are shaking. So are hers.
She lifts them to his face and shifts closer to him, tilting her head to slant their mouths together. She can’t fathom why he’s doing this, but being with Eren has always been a comfort. She just wants to be close to him right now. He has her shirt undone; he smooths his hands up over her shoulders so that it’s hanging off her. He doesn’t ask her to let go of him to pull it off of her.
He seems to forget about her clothes for a moment. His mouth strays from hers to plant hard kisses all over her face. The corner of her lips, the side of her nose, her eyelid, just below her temple. She can feel her heartbeat all through her body, heat beginning to throb between her legs. His breath is hot against her ear when he says, “You have to tell me if you want to stop.” His voice is wrecked. “Be honest with me.”
Mikasa trembles and shakes her head, curling closer to him and pressing her face into the juncture of his neck and shoulder. She’s not going to tell him. He must know that. He said he doesn’t want to, she thinks, and it terrifies her how much weight that has. Like his desires are more important to her than her own—like she exists just to please him, just to keep him safe, like she really is nothing but a puppet of his—She doesn’t want Eren to stop. He’s kissing her almost like he loves her.
He leans his forehead on her temple as he drops one hand from her waist, shaking his arm to shrug half out of his jacket. He does the same with his other hand, letting it fall to the floor, and when he comes back to her, his shaking fingers are undoing the buckle of her belt, the button of her pants. He’s kissing her again, messy and desperate; Mikasa bunches her hands into the back of his shirt and pulls herself closer to him. Her heart feels like it’s splitting in half; it hurts, and she can’t even tell if it’s a good pain or not. She doesn’t know what she’s feeling, just that there’s too much of it. Eren has always made her feel like that—she loves him so much that sometimes it robs her of the ability to breathe, so much that it hurts, but it’s a tender kind of pain, like bruising. Something that wells from inside of her and presses against her skin, trying to lift her straight into the sky. Loving him is like the ache in her muscles after a workout. Loving him makes her feel strong. Loving him makes her feel like she could do anything.
This really is not that feeling. And now she has to wonder—
“Spread your legs, Mikasa,” he says against her lips, and she finds herself doing it without question. He yanks her closer and slots himself between her thighs. The steady heat throbbing there already makes her whimper for entirely different reasons than the burning, painful pressure in her chest. He wraps one arm across her back and crushes her against him, heaving her up so that he can pull her pants down over her ass, working them down her thighs one handed. She wraps her arms over his shoulders to help him get leverage, holding herself against him, and then both of his hands are working her pants down her legs. One of her shoes goes with the bunched fabric, but he has to force the other off so that he can drop it all down to the floor with his jacket. A thrill shoots through her veins, a stab of desire spikes through her core.
He sets her heavily back on the table, his hands gripping the smooth skin of her thighs, stroking up and down a few times before he leans forward, slides his hands down to her ankles and hooks her feet around his waist. With an impatient-sounding grunt, he pulls her socks off, too. She squeezes his sides with her knees, trying to pull her closer so she can grind against him, alleviate the ache in her. One of them.
At the first brush of his hardness against her, Mikasa sucks in a sharp gasp, turning her head away and clutching Eren tighter against her. He immediately rocks forward again, rolling his hips into hers. His hands move to her face as he presses his mouth to her cheek and says, “You like that, right?” She nods, and she feels his lips curl into a smile. “Thought you would,” he snarls, driving into her again. That coldness is back in his voice, but it doesn’t chase the fire in her veins away. Mikasa moans.
“I figured you’d let me do this, even after everything,” he continues. He kisses her cheek over and over, slow kisses in time with his rolling hips. One hand falls from the back of her head down to her breast and he pinches her hard through her bra. She chokes, jerking against him, her head falling back to expose her neck. Eren leans down to drag his teeth over the skin there when he says, “You really are a fucking slave to me, aren’t you?”
He lifts her head back up. He scatters kisses across her other cheek, her nose, her brow, her forehead, before he finds her lips again and says, “Or maybe you’re my whore.”
Mikasa freezes, and so does Eren.
There is a long moment where she’s not here at all. She’s back on the floor of that cabin, men standing over her talking about things she doesn’t understand but will. She remembers piecing it together when she was eleven: what little Carla had told her, all the awful things she’d heard whispered about herself, seeing women do things they didn’t want to in order to survive, seeing wasting-thin and deathly ill women come to the Jaegers’ back door and Carla sending her and Eren upstairs. The ghost of the thought but Eren saved me from that can’t even fully take shape before did Eren make me that takes its place, and she starts to shake again, the icy pain in her chest cracking through her. A new type of terror takes her, terror like she hasn’t felt since she was nine years old. She thinks is it true is that all I am did he even save me at all does he really think that does he really mean it because he’s not wrong I’m letting him I’m letting him I shouldn’t be letting him—
And then Eren takes her cheeks in his hands again and kisses her with a fresh desperation.
His teeth clack against hers, their chests bumping as he crashes into her, forcing her to lean back. Her hands are shaking again—her whole arms, her whole body. When Eren tears his lips from hers, he rips a sob out of her.
“Don’t cry,” he snaps. He moves her bangs out of the way and kisses her forehead. “Don’t cry—”
She shakes her head as Eren ducks his, kissing along her jaw, the column of her throat and lower, between her breasts and down the hard ridges of her stomach. His lips trail fire, but even as heat curls tighter in her gut, she thinks of a red-hot cattle brand. She thinks how if she were a—if she’d made it to the capital, back when she was nine, she’d probably be softer. If she’d been sold, she’d have been—
That train of thought veers abruptly as Eren presses the flat of his tongue against her underwear. A gasp turns into a breathy moan that turns into his name.
Talking so fast his words run together, he asks, “Do you need me to stop?”
“No,” she says. “No, don’t—”
“Then tell me if I’m doing this right.” He grabs her hips and pulls her over to the very edge of the table, hooking his fingers under her underwear and pulling them down her legs in one motion. He’s kneeling on the floor, and when she wipes her tears and looks down at him, his eyes are hazed over. The look on his face is . . . lost, somehow, but when she tries to touch him, he catches her hand, presses a kiss to her palm, and says, harsh, “If you’re not going to stop me, then just sit back and take it.”
And then he licks a long stripe up her cunt, and Mikasa’s eyes slam closed and her back arches, her hips rolling forward, her hands flying to dig into his hair. Eren’s hands skim up her thighs, over her stomach and under her dangling shirt to her sides, his fingers splayed, thumbs pressed to the sides of her breasts. He squeezes her tight; at the same time his lips latch on to the bundle of nerves at the crest of her thighs and she whimpers. One hand flies to cover her mouth—his men are just outside, and if they hear—if they hear, what in the world will they say about her, will they, too, call her a—call her his—
Eren kisses her up and down before thrusting his tongue inside her. She cries out, then, muffled into her hand, and Eren’s fingers tighten on her, sliding around to her back and tugging her closer, his mouth working faster. He’s listening for her responses, she realizes distantly. When he makes her breathing hitch he presses harder, goes faster; when she’s quiet he goes back to something she’d liked. A hard, probing lick finds a spot that makes her go limp and fall against the table, her thighs tightening around his head, and he drives hard there, like he’s trying to carve a permanent gouge into her. She can feel his fast, hot breath against her as he flicks his tongue up and down, making her whine like an animal in heat—like something to be—
He kisses her clit, filthy and open-mouthed with the barest hint of teeth, and Mikasa arches up, biting her hand to keep from screaming. She can feel herself winding up, tensing and coiling, her limbs freezing as the delicious heat spreads from her belly all through her body. Eren’s hands ghost down to her hips, helping her to grind onto his face. His thumbs rub gentle circles on the tops of her thighs. He moves his mouth down, then kisses the way up again, those same messy almost-bites before he latches onto her clit and sucks, hard, flicking his tongue over her whip-fast. The twisting coil inside her snaps; everything goes white and glorious. Her mind goes blessedly blank.
When she fades back into herself, it’s so quiet except for her frantic breathing. She’s still half-sobbing, lingering tears on her cheeks and new ones gathered in her eyes. All she knows is pleasure and heaviness, until she feels Eren’s hands on her again.
He pulls her hand off her mouth as he hauls her upright. When he kisses her, the whole of his lower face is wet with her. Mikasa whimpers, slumping against his shoulder as he maneuvers her so that she’s sitting on the table in whatever way—however he likes best, she guesses, hiding her face in his neck, twisting her fingers into the fabric of his shirt.
“That was good, right, Mikasa?” he whispers, one hand stroking up her back gently. “You wanted that?”
“I did,” she says wetly. “You know that I did.”
He kisses her hair. “I know. C’mon, c’mere, I wanna—”
He pulls her out of his neck and kisses her again, regaining his frantic energy within seconds. His other hand moves from under her knee, slowly tracing up the inside of her thigh. His fingertips content themselves with drawing idle patterns her adductor muscles for all of about eight seconds before Eren slips one finger inside her, just to the second knuckle. The sensation makes her groan—his fingers are thick and hot, and even if she knows them as well as her own, she doesn’t know them like this.
What do I really know about him at all, anymore? she wonders, wanting to cry all over again. What is he doing?
He slips a second finger into her, scissors them, and she yelps against his mouth. His free hand is cupping the back of her neck, and she feels him tense as she does, feels him close his mouth as he swallows.
Mikasa unbunches her hands from his shirt and throws her arms around his neck. That sweet heat is coiling inside her again, faster than she could’ve imagined. His long fingers work inside her, thrusting back and forth in little movements. Mikasa’s almost afraid of what he’ll say to her if she asks, but he’d told her to tell him—he wants her to enjoy this, so she swallows and says, “Faster, please.”
“Okay,” he says, obeying instantly. Mikasa lets her head loll to the side, eyes fluttering open, and Eren presses his lips against her neck to just mouth at the skin there. “And,” he says. “Do you want—like this, Mikasa, is this right?” and he curls his fingers inside of her, pressing up against a wall inside of her that makes white fire spike through her. She nods frantically; he twists to smack a kiss against the corner of her jaw and then slips a third finger inside of her and crooks them, pressing into that same spot. It’s good, it’s good, it’s so good, and he keeps rubbing. Her vision blurs, her legs twine themselves around his sides and lock. She twists her face to kiss him as she comes again, mouth clumsy as she’s gasping.
Eren huffs. He leans his forehead against hers while he lets her catch her breath, their noses sliding together. She can feel him pressed against her thigh, straining against his pants. Her hands tremble for a moment as she lifts them and lets them fall down to the hem of his shirt. They still when she slides them under the worn, soft cloth; over his burning hot stomach and chest. This much is unfamiliar. The ridges of his muscles, the perfect, scarless smoothness of his skin. When did he get this big and strong? For so long, he’d barely changed from the boy he’d been in the cabin.
Maybe he’d never been that boy, though. Maybe that boy she’d seen had never really existed at all.
Why did he really save me?
He makes a frustrated noise and pulls back from her, reaching a hand back to grab his shirt and yanking it over his head. He tosses it on the floor with the rest and hauls her back. Mikasa hooks her arms over his shoulders and grips to the muscle of his shoulders while he kisses her. After just a few moments, his hands fall down between their bodies, to the buckle of his belt.
Mikasa clutches him tight, eyes squinched shut while he unbuckles his belt, shoves aside the only fabric left between them. Where they brush against her stomach, she can feel how badly his hands are shaking.
She turns her head away, hiding her face in his shoulder when he thrusts himself inside her.
Mikasa whines out a stuttering cry and buries her face further, breath hitching at the sweet burn of the stretch. It’s different from his fingers. It’s good, though. He’d made sure she was well ready. (A favor, a voice in the back of her head says, not often afforded to whores.) Cheek pressed against the crown of her head, Eren chokes out, “Fuck.” He swallows and wraps his arms around her waist. “Mikasa, you’re so good. You feel so, so—”
He pulls back and rolls his hips forward again, filling her back up. Mikasa moans loudly, and then claps a hand over her mouth.
“Don’t do that,” Eren commands, tugging her face out of his chest, grabbing her wrist and putting her hand back on his shoulder. He thrusts into her again, harsh, and her pinched lips don’t entirely muffle the sound she makes.
“But,” she gasps on her next breath, again remembering his men, “they’re going to hear—”
“Like I care,” he snarls. “I want—”
He tilts head down to catch her mouth, all the sweetness gone from him now. He yanks her against him; one hand comes up to grab her hair, the other palming at her breast. She jolts, fingernails digging into his shoulders and dragging down his spine. That makes him groan, makes him thrust into her hard enough that she completely forgets about any reservations.
“Please,” she says, wrapping her legs tighter around his waist, digging her feet into his ass. “Please, Eren, please—”
He growls like a wild animal, fucks her hard. “Say my name again,” he begs. He inhales like he wants to say more but gives up, busying his mouth with her throat instead.
“Please,” she murmurs again. “Eren, Eren, Eren please . . .”
He squeezes her breast, thumb digging into her nipple. She cries out and arches into him. She’s throbbing all through her body; she wants him so much it’s almost agony. Eren keeps going at that pace, moving like he’s trying to split her open. Break her body, maybe, like he’d broken her heart. Her breath is ragged and matching his; when she grips his hair and pulls his mouth back to hers, their foreheads leaned together, it’s not so much that they’re kissing as it is that they’re gasping each other’s breath. Mikasa wants to. She wants to have his air inside her lungs, his saliva in her mouth, his—
She rakes five fingers down his back again, remembering the reaction that’d gotten. He groans again, leans against her hard, pressing her half against the table. He’s fucking into her with a fury now, desperate for something. The hand in her hair skims down her back and across her stomach, down between her legs. He’s finishing them off, she realizes, and under the dizzying haze of her lust, she feels a small swirl of fear, of what’s going to happen the minute the spell breaks.
“I,” she says, but then he pinches her clit and she shatters into glittering glass fragments, coming with a cry. She surges forward, lips brushing his in a gentle not-kiss, and a few moments later she feels Eren shudder as he finishes inside of her, warming her deep inside.
Her chest feels cracked in half. Her limbs feel weak. Her mouth feels swollen, obvious. She can feel bruises on her throat, can feel a mess between her legs, worsening when, after a long, long moment, Eren pulls out.
He stays leaned against her, inhaling deeply. She thinks she can feel the coldness seeping back into him, without her body to keep him warm.
Mikasa drops her hands into her lap, clenching them into fists to ward off tremors.
When Eren pulls away, it’s with a reluctance that she can feel. He prolongs the moment as much as he can, slowly trailing his hands from her hips to her knees, pulling his chest away from hers, and then finally their faces.
It’s over, she thinks, grieving.
He swallows hard. “I think,” he says, his voice thin and shaky, “that we’re done here, then.”
He steps away from her, and all she feels is cold.
Eren bends down and grabs at the pile of their clothes, tossing it all onto the table next to her. His back is still covered in scratches. They should’ve healed over by now.
They dress in silence. When they’re presentable, Eren grabs her by the wrist and guides her out of the dining room, into the hall. His Jaegerists cast no sly glances, make no comments, but Mikasa feels icy dread and prickling fear, and can’t make herself look at them.
Her scarf lays on the table, left behind.