Chapter Text
The witch is laughing at him.
She sits at the edge of the bed, the ends of her hair brushing her knees. He can see a sliver of her pale leg—which he knows from last night is smooth and soft—peaking through the gap in the furs. Her fingers are pressed to her lips, trying to hide back a smile. Her gray eyes glitter like sword hilts in the sun. She says, “I’m not laughing. Nothing you do is amusing enough.”
Eren scowls. He’s sure he looks ridiculous—this basin would be a snug fit for a toddler, and he’s a man taller than most. He doesn’t appreciate the witch’s obvious delight at seeing him like this. He growls through gritted teeth, “Then why are you smiling?”
Her shoulders curve upwards, the brown reindeer fur shifting under the thick curtain of her hair. “I’m not—” She cuts herself off and folds her fingers down, leaning over the edge of the bed. Her hair sways with the movement, as do the dull red tails of the scarf he’d wrapped around her. Her small bare feet touch the rough wood of the floor. “Are you not going to wash your hair?”
He narrows his eyes. “I did.”
She frowns at him, lips pressing into the beginning of a pout. “It’s barely wet.”
“I ran my fingers through it.”
“With soap?”
Eren tries to take a steadying breath. She’s not his fucking mother. “With water.”
The witch pulls a face and stands, hugging her furs tighter around her. Why exactly she’s bothering, he’s not sure—she’d spent the night pressed naked against him like a bride. “You have long hair and don’t know how to wash it?” she asks.
“I know how to wash it!” he snaps. “I just don’t want to sleep with it wet.”
“Well,” she says, “I refuse to sleep next to you if you go to sleep with it dirty.”
Eren clenches his jaw and grabs the lump of soap. “Fine!” He viciously rubs it between his hands until it’s in a later and plunges his hands into his hair. “Is this what you want?” He can already feel how goddamn cold it’ll be as it dries. This cabin is made to withstand the worst of winter, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be a cheerful fucking evening while his hair dries. The wind is howling outside. There’s a reason the witch had used her magic to keep them warm. There’s a reason he needs her alive.
He glares at her as he works his fingers into his hair. The witch has the audacity to press her lips together against another smile. “That wasn’t what I meant,” she says warmly.
I am not, he thinks angrily, your fucking child.
She crosses the short distance between them and kneels down behind him. She ducks her hands into the lukewarm water—that will turn frigid before he dries, he knows and resents—and then puts them in his hair.
Instantly, his temper gentles. He doesn’t know if anyone has touched him like this since his mother died a decade ago. His eyes close without his violation, and he relaxes into her. Her thumbs—soft and small—rub circles into his temples. He remembers his father doing that, when he was stressed. Maybe his mother used to do it for him, too. He tilts his head into the movement.
Mikasa—her name is Mikasa Alexeyevna, her given name as foreign as his—scratches at his scalp. Her hands pulse with warmth again, seeping into his bones, and Eren is unable to hold back a low sound of appreciation, almost a purr. Her hands slide down to his neck, working through the hair there before kneading into his nape, the knotted, tense muscle where his neck joins his shoulders. The tension melts away in hard tugs, leaving him feeling light and loose. Relaxed. He doesn’t trust it.
He leans further into her touch as asks, an edge to his voice, “Is this your attempt to beguile me, vedma?”
Her hands falter, and then resume their work harder. Eren cracks his eyes open; her face, above his, is flushed red and scowling. “No,” she snaps. She jerks her hands away and dips her hands into the bath, cups water in her hands, and dumps it on his head, clearing away the last of the suds in his hair. He glares at her.
She pulls her knees away and looks at the fire. Eren watches her face go through a series of emotions he can’t place before settling on an abashed sort of detachment, shining eyes fixed on her bare knees.
Eren gets out of the washbasin. Never letting her out of his sight—he doesn’t trust the girl as far as he could throw her—he dries and dresses. She just sits by the fire, burying herself into her furs and that frayed red scarf. She must be cold. She’s barefoot and shivering, so Eren grabs the tub by the handles and steps outside to fill it with snow.
He has to admit, he feels a great deal better, freshly bathed and in clean clothes. He hasn’t had a proper bath in longer than he’d care to admit. The Scouts wash as best they can, but they’ve been camping these past months, and soldiers’ standards of cleanliness aren’t up to the little witch’s. When he comes back in and sets the basin over the hearth, she’s beginning to shake in earnest. His jaw works. “Are you cold?”
She shudders when he tugs the pelts closer across her. “A l-little.”
He throws another pelt over her shoulders. She lets out a startled mmph when the weight hits her, but it’s clean, too—she’d waged war on anything she could get her hands, and more notably, her precious soap, on. Eren reaches his ungloved hand out and cups her scarred cheek. He hisses. “You’re freezing,” he says. “Is the fire too low?”
“No,” she says. He glares at it accusingly, and then at her bath. It’s not sweltering in here, but it’s not cold enough for her to be freezing, either. Reluctantly, she stammers out, “It’s my magic.”
“What is?” Are witches more susceptible to the cold? He’s never heard of such a thing, but they are supposed to be powered by Hell—
“T-to draw warmth to my palms, I have to take it from m-my own b-body heat. It means I’m c-colder for a few hours until my body r-returns to normal.”
He spins to her, gaping. “Is that why you were so cold when I came back from hunting?”
She nods, blushing pink. The firelight turns her pale skin into a sunrise. Eren scowls and takes the basin off of the fire. Staring hard at it, he says, “I wish you wouldn’t do that then.”
“I h-have to. We need each other, remember? I c-can’t survive if you’re crippled with hypothermia.”
His temper flares. “I won’t—” He cuts himself off, jaw clenching. “That’s not going to be an issue, Mikasa.”
She shrugs. “Well, i-it could be. So until then I need you to be healthy.”
“And I,” he grits out, “Need you to be warm.”
The witch doesn’t say anything to that, just stares at him for a long moment and then turns away, eyes falling to the floor. He exhales heavily. “Your bath is ready, ptashka. Hurry up so that we can go to bed. It’s getting late.”
She makes him turn away while she bathes. He shucks off his shirt and lays on the bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the small sounds of ripples and splashes while the witch scrubs their days in the wild off of her soft skin. He hears several long gushes and trickles that must be her washing her long hair. When she’s done, she sits at the edge of the bed in her nightgown and stockings and combs through her hair with her fingers. He watches idly, watching the damp waves lie flat again, thinking that it’s taking quite some time. Or maybe I just don’t brush my hair well enough for her standards.
“Are you coming to bed or not, vedma?” he asks.
“I am,” she says haltingly. “I’m just—are—are you really so tired?”
“No,” he says. “But the day is done. Come here. Let’s try to sleep.”
She swallows and shifts forward, crawling up to the pillow and settling onto her side. She’s backlit by the hearth, and the dying firelight clings to her face the same way that strands of her overlong bangs do. Her dark eyes seem to glow. They’re fixed on him with a surprising intensity, and he can see conflict in them. She better not ask me to sleep on the floor, he thinks, narrowing his eyes. The fire is going to die down in the night, and he’d rather not wake up with hypothermia. They still need each other’s bodies.
She still hasn’t looked away. She always looks away first. Eren certainly refuses to cede this exchange to her, keeping his eyes on hers. The turmoil in her gaze is even more rampant as her eyes dart over his face, and then abruptly her resolve hardens. Eren has half a mind to ask what the hell has gotten into her when she lifts one small, trembling hand to his cheek and surges forward to kiss him on the mouth.
His brain screeches to a halt. For one long second, all he registers is the hard, unyielding press of her soft lips, the warmth of her fingers on his cheek. He hears a sort of buzzing in his head, and then a roar as his blood begins to beat through him with a fury.
The witch pulls back, pressing her lips together, snatching back her hand and pressing it to her chest. Her shoulders curl in. Her breath comes fast. Her eyes flicker between his own and down to his bare chest.
Temptress, he thinks over the roaring in his head. Temptress, witch, devil’s bride, whore— he’d always been told of their trickery and wickedness—he hadn’t particularly seen it coming from his little witch, but she is just the same as all the rest, isn’t she?
Eren grabs the hand pressed against her chest and snatches the other from where it rests on her waist, crushing her wrists as he shoves them above her head. He rolls over, pinning her in place with his knees on either side of her, and growls, “What do you think you’re doing, ptashka?”
The witch’s mouth parts, her eyes shining, her eyebrows pitching up. Her chest is heaving. He can see an answer try to form on her tongue; he leans in and takes it from her before she can even try.
She gasps into his mouth—startled maybe, or afraid. He couldn’t say and doesn’t particularly care. She started this, he thinks, mouth twisting into a snarl even as he presses his weight onto her and grips her wrists tighter. That the witch had the nerve to try and seduce him and yet freeze under his touch—as if he wants her, either. He doesn’t. His skin crawls. But she doesn’t get to win— he can’t just push her off to let her work magic on him; he can’t just let her work her soft little hands and soft little mouth on him, either.
And then she does begin to use her mouth. She arches up slightly and kisses back, clumsy, slow. Eren’s never kissed anyone before, and from the uncertainty of her movements, he’d say the same of her, but he doesn’t care. This isn’t about pleasure, it’s about the ocean of blood that divides them—
—Though there is pleasure. She’s unfairly, unnaturally lovely, and she smells like the biting clean of lye soap and the biting cold of the snow, and her body is soft and strong under his. The warm, wet heat of her mouth is the sweetest thing he’s felt in God knows how long, and when he slides his tongue behind her teeth and brushes hers, he shudders. He feels her breath leave her in a hot gasp and she turns her head, sucking in a gulp of the cold air. Eren takes the moment to breathe, too, staring down at her.
Her long hair is fanned out beneath her, the waves catching the firelight. She’s redder than she’s ever been, her mouth parted, eyes wide. She looks, more than anything, confused. Eren’s sure he’s wearing a similar expression. When he leans down to kiss her again, she arches up to meet him.
I need her alive, he reminds himself hazily. He can’t kill her—not unless she forces his hand, not unless she tries to kill him. If she puts both her hands on him, he might just take that like she’s drawing a blade. This wicked thing under him might look like a girl around his own age, pretty enough to turn his head if he’d seen her in Viek (something that admittedly has never happened before), but she’s revealed her true nature. Every act of kindness was an attempt to beguile him; every time she leaned into him or touched him was a deliberate temptation. Who’s to say that she ever really had hypothermia and needed him to warm her up and carry her around—maybe she just wanted to daze him with her body. She’s a witch, an evil thing with a twisted, blackened heart and no capacity for honesty or remorse or decency, entirely motivated by her own survival and whims.
Her wrists shift under his hands. Eren tightens his grip, so hard he’s sure he’ll leave bruises, and says, “None of that, vedma.” He bears down against her, eliciting a shaky gasp, and she chases after his mouth. He falls back into her with a punched-out grunt, licking back into her mouth. She tastes like salt and snowmelt. Her high-pitched sigh is like the opening note from a flutist. Little bird, he recalls, running his tongue against the roof of her mouth. She writhes under him, arching up, her legs shifting. Searching. Eren pulls up one knee and drives it between her thighs and the witch squeezes it, her breath coming out in a tiny, helpless keen.
Lightning races through him when it hits him that she wants this. Or at least doing a very convincing job of pretending so. He’s unable to tamp down a smug, victorious grin. The little witch is losing her own game.
Then she cants her hips against him and the ground becomes much more level. Desire swoops in his gut and Eren swallows hard, pulling back from her mouth to kiss her chin, her jaw, to bite down hard on the skin above her collarbone. She cries out and jolts against him; when he soothes the spot with his tongue her exclamation falters into a stuttering whimper. Good, he thinks, shifting her wrists to one hand and using his newly free one to tilt her head to the side and mouth along her neck. Her breath hitches into that high-pitched falter again, and Eren smiles into her skin—then she fully rocks her against his and he’s unable to choke back a gasp. The fire in his gut burns dangerously hot, and he’s sure she can feel the effect she’s having on him. He can’t let her.
Eren shoves her skirt up to her waist and sticks his hand between her legs, cupping her cunt and finding her wet already.
She moans and clamps her legs around his sides, head falling back. Eren bites at her throat again, scraping his teeth over where her pulse is racing. For me, he thinks, and that curl of pride burrows deeper into his chest. He’s done this to her, when she sought out to weaken him. He pulls his lips off her, fingers flexing against her cunt, and hisses into her neck, “Do you have anything to say for yourself, ptashka?”
He feels her tense up under him, her elbows pressing together, her breath faltering. When he looks up to her face, he can see that same anxiety has taken root. That’s right, he thinks. You haven’t bested me, temptress. She sucks in gulps of air and stares at him—grey eyes holding the firelight like the sea holds the sunset—trying to muster up words. She swallows and says, “I’m s—” and Eren pushes a finger under her undergarments and inside her. Her words are lost to a hiccuping moan; legs falling open wider. She wants him. She’s losing.
Eren hums, breathing hard, the reality of her lust getting under his skin, into his bones. He wants her to—he wants this witch to break, he wants her to beg. He pulls his finger out of her and gets up on his knees, pulls off her underwear with one hand and flings them against the wall. “I think,” he says. He brings her wrists down to her stomach, shifting his grip to keep them bound, sliding down her body and pulling her warm thigh onto his shoulder. “That my little bird shouldn’t be making any noise unless she’s singing a sweet little song for me.”
He shoves his face in her cunt, and the witch mewls and trembles.
Eren doesn’t—have any experience in the way of these things, only knows acts like this exist because his degenerate brother used to tell him things he did not want to hear, but he’s grateful for them now. He finds her clit and circles it, kisses down and licks into her entrance, grinning into her when she bucks her hips against him. He takes his free hand and spreads her open, licking into folds, finding the spots that make his witch shake and shriek. When he kisses her clit and flicks his tongue over it, she shivers and uses the leg on his shoulder to lever herself closer, her stockinged foot digging into the muscle of his back. He slips his finger into her again and crooks it hard. He recalls her neck; lightly scrapes the edge of his teeth against the little bundle, and she screams.
Better than the pyre, he thinks, marveling at the gush of her wetness. He pulls his hand away and ducks down to lick her through it, harsh and thorough. When he’s gotten the worst of the mess away, she’s shaking still, her head tilted back against the pillow, her breath coming in wet, gasping sobs. A jolt of alarm goes up his spine— ”Did I hurt you?” he asks, frowning.
“Mm-mm,” she says, shaking her head. Her hands, still pinned against her stomach, are curled into white-knuckled fists. “It just,” she hiccups, “feels so good—”
“Fuck,” Eren spits, and puts his mouth back on her. He wants her to scream for him again, wants her to tell him that again right now. He flattens his tongue and pushes her against him, squeezing his free hand around her hip and licking up in a stripe. She sobs and rocks against him, the muscles on the insides of her thighs tightening. He feels her wrists shift, but when he looks up she’s just clasped her hands together, gripping her own fingers.
“Please don’t stop,” she gasps. “Please, please—” Eren blows out a hot breath and briefly considers not indulging her—throwing her off the bed and turning over, letting her be weak and wanton. Then she says, “Eren, please please—” and he shoves two fingers inside her and curls them, pressing hard. He kisses her clit again, licks up and over it, twisting his fingers, and—there. Her sweet scream, that gush of wetness. Her grins, victorious, and thinks of diving in again before she lifts her leg off his shoulder—he picks up his elbow to let her close her legs—and curls into herself, still gasping weakly.
“Is that what you wanted, you wicked thing?” he rasps, finally releasing her wrists so that he can crawl up to her. He flops down next to her and pulls her onto his chest, ignoring the way his erection throbs uncomfortably with her closeness. He shoves her face into his neck. Her tears dampen his skin; her little sobs warm against his collarbone. She clutches at him with one hand and Eren takes her wrists and holds it gently to the bed. An animal part of his brain purrs. “Hush,” he croons, almost pitying. “Go to sleep, woman.”
They speak no more that night.
***
Mikasa wakes up cold.
Not hypothermic again, not even freezing. But she’s cold. She turns her face into the softness of the sheets, inhaling their sharp, clean scent, and frowns when she feels a pressure tug at her temple. She opens her eyes and sees the hunter propped on his elbow facing her. A section of her hair is wrapped around his other hand. He’s staring at it coldly, rubbing his thumb over the black strands over his knuckles.
The hot spike in her stomach wakes her up fully—fear, shame, desire, a tangle of emotions that she doesn’t know how to begin to sort. Jäger’s green eyes flit to her face. His expression is flat, blank: none of the fire she’s so used to seeing from him. Last night, he’d—well, she hadn’t entirely known what to expect. She’d remembered her sister Peick, before she married and left the village, once telling her that she’d escaped a witchhunter by seducing him, and when he’d brought it up as she washed his hair . . .
She still doesn’t know entirely why she’d done it. Because—it had saved her sister. Because he’d looked at her softly as she washed his hair. Because he’s really, truly, breathtakingly handsome. Because if he was going to kill her for being a demonic whore, he’d have done it already, and kissing him had seemed like a good way to ensure her survival. Now that they’ve found shelter, he’s not half as dependant on her magic to keep him alive. It had been the only thing she could think to do.
And it . . . had . . . worked? Not—exactly, certainly not the hazy image she’d had, but. Well, he’d kissed her back eagerly enough. And then he’d—well, he’d—she—she would do it again, even if she’d been afraid.
“Good morning,” she whispers, and it comes out too close to a question.
Jäger huffs, gives her hair another gentle tug, and leans down to kiss her.
She receives him eagerly, opening her mouth and turning onto her back. She raises one hand to his shoulder to pull him down, but his free hand sneaks out whip-fast and grabs her wrist. His fingers dig into the fresh bruises and she hisses, but he merely releases her hair and takes her other wrist too, pinning them above her head. Right, she thinks, remembering the way he’d turned her head with his sword the night of the attack, the deep cut under her eye that’s only now beginning to turn into a scar. He knows better than to trust my hands.
Not that she would kill him, not now. She needs him. But she finds she can’t begrudge him the precaution. Not when he’s kissing her like this.
He settles his weight onto her and shifts her wrists into one hand again, the other sliding down to rest over her throat. Just lightly. Not applying any pressure. But it’s a threat as clear as any. His hands are weapons, too.
This isn’t lovemaking, she thinks abruptly. This isn’t seduction. This is a fight.
Mikasa hooks one leg over his waist and pulls him down against her.
He groans and breaks away from her lips to kiss her cheek, her jaw, the spot beneath her ear. Mikasa arches against him and hums, pressing her breasts into his bare chest. He shivers and rocks into her, already hard. She turns her head to catch his lips again, seeking the heat and the dance, the equal ground, and thinks, this is easy. He shifts and grinds into her again, nudging into the spot between her thighs that makes her moan, and she thinks, and wonderful.
He doesn’t spend half as long kissing her as he did last night before he releases her, just long enough to get her dress off over her head and shove his pants down, kicking them off—she helps, pushing them down with her feet, which he strips the stockings from—and falling back against her.
He’s warm, and she delights at the loss of the starchy fabric of his pants as he grinds into her, his hardness knocking against her bare cunt with every movement. He fixes her wrists back in place and lets his hand fall back to her throat, mouthing down to her bare breasts. His breathing has gotten labored; she quickly matches his pace when he licks the underside of her breast before taking the nipple into his mouth. The fire in her blood is whipping hot; coiling in her belly. She gasps and arches into him; feels his mouth curve into a smile. “Please do that again,” she whispers, tightening her legs around his waist. “Please.”
“You,” he says, strained, “are awfully polite, considering.” Considering what, she wonders—then he switches sides and repeats the action and she forgets. She gasps again and hums agreement, nodding frantically. He bites the skin above her heart, a starburst of pain, but runs his tongue over the spot immediately. She sighs and wriggles against him, remembering what had happened last night. She wants that again. His mouth, his fingers; more.
After a long minute, he pulls off of her chest and leans up to her face again, lips pressed against the corner of her mouth. Breathing hard, he says, “You’re good if I fuck you, right?”
“Mmhm,” she says, nodding again, her eyes squeezed shut. “Please—please do, I want you to.”
“God,” he exhales. He kisses her cheek, her jaw, mouths down and back up the side of her neck, then lines himself up and pushes into her.
Mikasa inhales sharply, but—it doesn’t hurt. There’s a twinge of discomfort, a giving way as she adjusts to the alien sensation, but not the burning pain her sisters had described. She whimpers against him, turning her face into his neck.
Through gritted teeth, he growls, “Am—I hurting you?”
She shakes her head. “No, no.” She pants into his bronze skin for a moment, getting used to the heat, the stretch, the fullness. He stays still, which she appreciates. She wishes she could grab something. Mikasa adjusts her hips, hooking her feet behind his ass, and says, “Please—move, you can move—”
He groans and rocks all the way into her. She chokes on a little moan, feels her breath flutter under his hand. He’s hit something inside her, something wonderful, she needs— “Please do that again,” she says, frantic. “Please—”
“You’re a needy thing, aren’t you?” He levers himself up higher, pressing her wrists further into the mattress, draws nearly out of her and then presses in again. Mikasa keens and kisses him.
There are a few moments of fumbling—she’s never done this before and would guess he hasn’t either—but they soon settle into a rhythm that has her gasping for air. Jäger pulls his mouth off of hers and drops his head down to her breasts, latching onto her nipple and sucking. She moans loudly and he redoubles his efforts, using his teeth—deliriously, she thinks that he does that a lot, and she likes it—switching sides, sucking bruises into her skin. Mikasa sobs when, at the same time, he knocks into that spot inside of her as he takes as much of her breast into her mouth as he can. Jäger’s pace falters when she does, and then picks but up harsher. “Gonna make you cry again,” he mumbles, flexing his fingers around her wrists, grip tight enough to hurt.
“Okay,” she babbles, arching into him. He’s speeding up, stoking the fire burning inside her with every stroke. If he could just—she’s almost there, if he would just—
He takes his hand off of her throat and presses his thumb against her clit, circling it roughly. Mikasa screws her face up and locks her legs around him as they begin to shake. “Please,” she gasps, “please please please oh gods please Eren—”
He pushes just underneath her clit with another finger as he fucks deep inside her, and Mikasa comes on a broken scream. He groans and bears down hard onto her, shoving all the way in before he comes, twitching inside her.
Mikasa opens her eyes, vision blurry, and stares at the shadowy ceiling. The hunter gasps for breath, head between her breasts, for long moments before releasing her and rolling off. He recovers on his back for a few seconds, running his fingers through his long hair, and then sits up. He slides off the bed and grabs his trousers, stepping into them. Mikasa watches, not quite understanding, until he turns back to her and says, voice cold, “I have to go hunt.” His green eyes rove over her bare form, darkening. He leans forward and brushes a tear off her cheek, thumb pressing into her scar. Lowly, he adds, “Don’t go anywhere.”
When he comes back in a few hours later and finds her still naked in their bed, he swears loudly and shucks his cloak off, wrestling with his layers of shirts as he stumbles toward her. Mikasa reaches for him, and he pins her hands above her head.
So it goes.
***
The witch is, regrettably, back in her nightgown and stockings, the stupid red scarf wrapped around her throat again. Eren watches her as she fusses over the hearth, muttering her incantations as she tries turn years-old crumbs into bread. He won’t be complaining if she manages it, but he’d be complaining even less if she’d deign to take her dress off.
She’s sinfully pretty, really. The firelight gleams in her hair, warms her skin. She’s the only thing in this place worth looking at. Worth doing. In the past forty-eight hours, he’s had her over half a dozen times. She’s infinitely better than stomping around in the woods.
Unfortunately, they do have to eat. And she’s gotten it into her pretty little head that they can’t subsist on game alone. Hence why she’s knelt by the fire, trying to magic crumbs into actual bread. His eyes on her are half suspicious and half impatient. Can’t she figure this out tomorrow?
But then her face lights in a delighted smile, and the crumbs cupped in her little hands begin to bloom and swell, rising exceptionally fast. In seconds, she’s cradling a loaf of bread.
“Son of a bitch,” Eren says, sitting up.
She scrambles to her feet, skirt fluttering around her calves, and holds it out proudly. “I told you,” she says, shooting him a smile that’s too sweet to really be called smug.
He nods, willing to be wrong. “So you did. Do you want me to fuck you about it?”
She turns bright red. “Don’t be crass,” she mutters, like he didn’t have his face between her legs an hour ago. He rolls his eyes.
She crosses over and settles onto the bed with him. Her hair sways; he grabs a strand and wraps it around his fist, urging her closer. She obliges, holding out the loaf. “Are you hungry? For something besides meat?”
“Sure,” he says, raising his eyebrows. His free hand raises to her scarf and tugs it off, but she bats his hand away before he can do anything else.
“Stop it,” she says weakly. “I’m serious.”
“So am I, ptashka.”
She frowns at him. “I exhausted myself for this bread, and you don’t even want it? You’re a savage.”
Another ‘crass’ remark comes to his tongue, but he gets caught on the first thing she said. He peers at her, considering, and sees that she looks paler than usual, purple shadows under her eyes, a slump to her shoulders he hasn’t seen since they found the cabin. “How did it make you tired?”
“It was so little to work with,” she says, glum. “It was like I had to make the flour myself, and the yeast, and then knead and bake the bread. But it should have turned out well. Do you really not want any? You can’t survive off meat alone, you know. And you’ll ruin your teeth.”
She’s like a housewife. And—Eren isn’t stupid, he knows that’s more or less the situation they’ve found themselves in. In function if not feeling. He sighs and says, “Of course.”
She smiles prettily and breaks the bread in half, the light brown crust cracking to reveal a spongey interior. It looks fresh from a bakery. He rubs his thumb over her hair and takes the half she offers. With an appreciative sniff, he bites in. Somehow, it’s warm.
He hums with pleasant surprise, and Mikasa beams. She takes her own first bite and sighs happily. Eren can’t deny; it’s nice to eat something other than smokey quail and rabbit, and even before the wolves, he hadn’t had bread other than hardtack in . . . a while. The nutty flavor of buckwheat is refreshing, and the texture is softy and chewy, the crust adding a pleasant crunch.
“This is very good, ptashka,” he says when he’s wolfed his down. “Are you too tired to let me fuck you as thanks?”
She turns bright red again, and sets her remaining few bites on the table at the corner of the bed. “No,” she says, and he reaches for the hem of her nightgown.
Later, after a deep, exhausted, and satisfying sleep, Eren wakes with dawn to build up the fire, and then crawls back into bed with the witch. Her warmth and softness are too lovely to not wrap himself around. And now her hair smells like fresh bread. As his body reacts to her closeness, Eren stares at the ceiling and realizes in the eight times he’s fucked her—not including when he’s eaten her cunt—not once has either of them done anything at all to prevent pregnancy.
Nor will I, he thinks flatly, surprising himself.
But really, there’s not much they can do. His father was a doctor, and Zeke had been something of a degenerate. Eren knows a few herbs that could be of use, but couldn’t for love or money find them in the dead of winter, half into the tundra. The only other option is to never come inside her, and that’s not even reliable. Or, he thinks disdainfully, worth it.
At that moment, she begins to shuffle around, making tiny whining sounds. He grins and presses it into the back of her neck, turning it into an open-mouthed kiss. Her breath hitches and she tilts into the pillow. One of his hands slides around her waist, the other around her neck. She allows him to nudge her hair out of the way and kiss her languidly for a few minutes, until her breathing is shaky, and then she turns her head back to face him, kissing him sloppily. Smile fading with the laziness, he gathers her wrists to put them above her head. She hisses and Eren loosens his grip slightly—tight enough that he could stop her if she made a sudden move, but not digging into the bruises that darken her fair skin.
Mikasa turns her head to kiss the corner of his mouth, his cheek, his jaw, whatever she can reach. Eren lets her, sighing contentedly, inhaling her hair. She smells homey, like smoke and fresh bread and lye, still. And sweat. And him.
He twists his head to taste her mouth again, slotting his thigh between hers, giving her something to grind back against while he pushes his erection against her ass. She does, shameless, the little temptress forgetting all her propriety the moment she’s under him. He wouldn’t have it any other way. The heat gathered low in his gut is spreading through his veins, setting his heart pounding. He’s bored with the teasing.
He presses her down into the mattress using his own weight and takes his hand out from under her throat to take himself in hand and slick himself up. The witch moans, her face turned to the side, face pinched as if in pain. Her red lips part when he slides inside her; Eren falls back down to kiss them. She’s so goddamned beautiful, he thinks savagely, pulling back and then thrusting into her, meaning every word. Damned, damned, damned— maybe him, too, for lying with her, but Eren doesn’t believe in God—and if he did, any concerns he’d had would disappear the second she pushes up on her knees to take him deeper.
Eren groans and scatters kisses across the side of her face; pressing even closer to her, going even deeper inside her until he hits her womb. Mikasa makes a startled little scream and jolts under him, her hands grabbing at the sheet.
“Fuck,” he pants. “Did that—”
“Do that again oh please please do that again Eren,” she says in a rush, and his blood thunders through his ears as pulls back to oblige her. He drives hard into her, hits that spot again and makes her scream. She turns her head to try to muffle it into the pillow, and red hazes over his vision.
“Don’t do that, ptashka,” he pants, tugging her hair to one side to jerk her head back. He fixes his mouth to her cheek and whispers, “You know I like your little songs.”
Mikasa rocks back against him and his eyes slam shut. He releases her hair to bind his arm across her stomach, hand sliding up to grope her breast. He squeezes hard and buries his face in the curve of her neck, setting a punishing rhythm that has her gasping out sobs. “That’s it, kukolka, there you go.” He drags his teeth across her shoulder; delights in her strangled little cry. He digs his fingers into her breast again, closing his eyes as he and his little witch move together. Something needles at the back of his brain, but the sounds of their breathing and their bodies prevent it from taking shape.
When he lifts his head to kiss the side of her face, blindly searching for her face, he tastes salt on her skin. She’s so close. He moves his hand to push his fingers down to where they’re joined, slicking them up. She does her best to grind against the heel of his hand and Eren bites her shoulder; brings his fingers up to rub tight circles over her clit. She breaks; coming with a wavering scream, and the tight squeeze of her fluttering walls and the absolutely wrecked sound of her voice is enough to make the coil in his gut snap, and glory courses over him. He shoves as deep inside her and comes.
Eventually, the white haze clears. He kisses the nape of her neck and rolls off of her, staring at the ceiling. The witch turns over, his arm now caught under her back. He doesn’t mind.
When she has her breath back, she says, “Good morning,” and Eren’s mouth crooks into a smile.