Work Text:
"Got you mounted on a wall in the back of my mind"
He said, "I just can't forget, try as I might
I've got this photo I've tried to burn, but it don't light
I stay on the drink and you stay on my mind
- “Moonlite” by Nicole Dollanganger
Even before the Jaeger boy arrived, Mikasa had been warned against getting involved with him. “He’s one of those boys who’s just trouble,” her mother had murmured, low so her father couldn’t hear the secrets that women shared with each other while they washed dishes – the warnings and intimacies that could be hidden underneath the sound of running water. Her father would’ve disagreed if he’d heard; he claimed that Grisha’s kid was good deep down, just misunderstood.
“You gotta understand, Kikyo,” he said, his words slightly whisky-slurred as they were most nights. “Not everyone’s lucky enough to be born into a good family like ours. Where there’s enough love to go around.” He was a warm drunk, a kind one, prone to effusive speeches about what a lucky man he was to live in the wilds of Shigansina with these good people he was lucky enough to call his wife, daughter, and son. Makoto was in his high chair, making designs out of the berries he’d been given to snack on while the more grown members of his family were tending to their after dinner concerns.
“What do you mean, Daddy?” Mikasa asked, refilling his glass for him. It was an early summer night and there was a slight chill clinging to the air. Even though it was almost nine, the sun hadn’t quite gone down yet and the golden orb of the sun still clung to the curvature of the sky. Only a couple nights ago her father let the family know that in a week or so’s time, the Ackermans would be hosting a guest. The son of one of Daddy's old army buddies, a Marley-born Eldian named Grisha Jaeger whose patriotism compelled him to serve in the Eldian military as a doctor.
He had to return to Marley once his term was over on account of his wife and child. But he and Daddy had kept in touch, in part because Grisha dreamed one day of coming back to the Paradis backcountry and making a home. Grisha believed there was something special about these parts, Daddy explained, using his father voice that indicated that his words weren’t to be questioned.
So when he said Grisha Jaeger’s son was coming to stay with them for the summer on account of some trouble he’d gotten into in Liberio, there was nothing Mikasa or her mother could’ve said to change his mind. It was, as he said, a done deal, and nothing women said could change that. Still, that didn’t mean that Mikasa’s mother couldn’t tell her that the Jaeger boy was bad news. Nothing like the good farm boys that she’d grown up with, Jean Kirstein or Connie Springer, who’d never try anything on her. “You better keep your wits about you around that Jaeger boy,” her mother told her as soon as Daddy left to go get him from the train station. “He’s no good.”
Mikasa didn’t think of herself as disobedient, but she was sure that her mama would disagree. “Willful child,” she used to say like it was a curse, before bringing her hand down on Mikasa’s behind for another spanking. It wasn’t that she wanted to disobey, just that she didn’t see the point in a lot of rules. She’d been homeschooled for the most part, only sent to the local schoolhouse once her baby brother was born because her mama didn’t have time to mind her anymore.
Whatever passed for discipline in her home was mostly delivered at times when it was most convenient for her parents. It was hard to see much truth in anything her parents said when she knew there was a whole world out there that they had decided to have nothing to do with, that they wanted her to have nothing to do with as well.
“You know, we’ve saved you a lot of work, living somewhere like this. You don’t need to go anywhere to find paradise. You’re already here,” her father drawled to her on one whiskey-soaked evening while she helped him to bed. He was too drunk to reason or argue with so she deposited him against the mattress.
In the next room, she could hear her mother singing lullabies in a foreign tongue to her brother. She wondered idly if her mother ever sang the same songs to her or if it was something only reserved for boys, first-born sons, who seemed to be worth more than girl-children in every culture Mikasa could think of. Perhaps, that was why her father’s words sat so sour with her, a creeping unease that seeped through her days until Eren Jaeger showed up.
He arrived on a Thursday, sometime in the mid-morning. Since it was summer, Mikasa was helping her mother. Even though she was seventeen, she still didn’t have anything better to do. Today, they were making bread, and when she heard the thump of his feet on their cottage’s hardwood floor, her hands were buried in dough.
“Kikyo! Mikasa!” Daddy called as he walked into the room. Like always, he was wearing a cowboy hat and an apologetically sheepish grin. The boy who must be Eren Jaeger was behind him. Though, as soon as Mikasa laid eyes on him, she realized that, perhaps, the more accurate description was “man.” “Come meet Grisha’s boy. Eren.”
He was a couple inches taller than Mikasa’s father and broader too, the large duffel bag that was cast over his shoulder emphasizing his strength. His face, or the parts she could see that was not covered by his ragged shoulder-length hair, was angular and harsh – the edges of his cheekbones catching on something tender and precious inside of her.
But nothing compared to the savagery held in his eyes and the way it felt when his gaze scraped over her, sharp and quick. At Daddy’s nudge, he held out his hand to Mikasa’s mother but didn’t seem particularly happy about it, murmuring a few barely intelligible words of thanks.
“What’s wrong with him?” Mama asked Daddy, tilting her head.
Daddy just laughed. “Sorry, he speaks the Marley dialect. Kind of hard to understand, if you don’t got the ear for it. But don’t worry, Kiki, I’ll translate. Eren’s awfully glad to be here. Isn’t that right?”
Mikasa didn’t know what she was expecting. Perhaps, she’d gotten so used to thinking about the Jaeger boy in her mama’s terms, determined to see him as the refuse of a foolish husband. Sometimes, she wondered if growing up this way was making her dull – seeing the same things all the time. Like a knife that had nothing fresh to sharpen it against.
And maybe that was why looking into his eyes, even just for a moment, felt like sliding the flat of her palm against a blade, the hurt biting into her the moment his gaze flicked from her to her father. He answered Daddy with a curt nod, hands in his pockets. “He’s not a man of many words,” Daddy added with a cajoling grin. And with that, he took the Jaeger boy away as easily as he’d brought him here. Mama seemed glad for it, turning back to the sink and letting out a long whistling sigh.
“Remember what I told you, Mikasa,” she said, returning to kneading bread with practiced hands. “Some people just got the devil in them. All you gotta do is be smart enough to know what it looks like.”
Unlike the things her Mama usually told her, Mikasa didn’t like the sound of those words. The weight they held, the judgment – they didn’t sit right with her. And over the weeks that the Jaeger boy spent sleeping in their barn, eating at their table, working on their land, this sense of “not-right” just grew worse and worse. Until there was nothing that could be done about it other than seeing where it might lead.
The Jaeger boy didn’t seem to understand much of what was happening around him. Before he arrived, Daddy said that he was from the big city and that was part of the reason he’d ended up in so much trouble. “Nothing good happens in places like that, Mimi,” he explained, sagely. “That’s why your mama and me decided to raise you and brother far away from all of that.”
He didn’t know how to get water from a well or that the rooster would wake you up every morning whether you wanted it to or not. His hair was long and she wondered if it bothered him on the long summer days he and Daddy spent outside. He couldn’t understand a word anyone other than her daddy said, which Mikasa knew her mama must be thankful for.
Sometimes, Mikasa eavesdropped on the few words that he’d share with her father. It wasn’t another language but it was close – she only was able to catch every third word and to do that, she had to listen hard enough that her Mama might notice and tell her to stay out of men’s business.
The few times Mikasa had made it to the schoolhouse, she’d picked up some scant facts about Eldian history. Something about how the whole world seemed to want them dead but no one had the guts to do anything about it. Her family had come to Paradis Island many generations ago, seeking a better life, but some Eldians stayed put and tried to make the best out of a shitty situation.
The cultural schism had grown wide in the intervening years. The Eldian that Eren spoke had an almost childish twang to it, hanging in the air even after he was gone. At first, he barely spoke to her, rarely acknowledging her with something more than a nod. He was quiet and perhaps, the only clear sign that he was a delinquent came in the form of the cigarette smoke that would drift through Mikasa’s open bedroom window at night when he thought everyone was asleep.
Whatever he’d gotten in trouble for in Liberio, it wasn’t a refusal to do hard work. He and Daddy worked long hours beneath the sun. Not long after Eren arrived, they’d slipped into the dog days of summer. They started early in order to avoid the heat but it still beat down on their heads all day. It was hard work, turning over the fields that had finished giving up their spring harvest and managing the still fruiting plants.
The air stunk of warm citrus, the lemons and oranges that had fallen from the trees before they could be harvested. Mama kept Mikasa busy, working around the house, taking care of the chickens, cleaning whatever creatures Daddy might’ve killed. Before Eren came, she used to help Daddy with farm chores sometimes, but now that he had a real, muscled boy at his disposal, he told her to mind her mama instead. Whatever the reason, it gave Mikasa an excess of free time and the only thing her mind could think to fill it with was trying to make sense of the strange boy from Liberio.
Sometimes, she could see him from the kitchen window when she stood at the sink. Whenever Mama left the room to tend to Makoto, Mikasa found herself drifting there. The kitchen looked out onto the orange grove. The sunlight that came through it was dappled with tangerine and when he emerged from the rows of trees, it danced across his tan skin. Making him luminous. She knew it was wrong to stare, knew that if Mama or Daddy caught her, she would be in big trouble.
But there was something about the Jaeger boy that pulled Mikasa's attention like a petulant child might tug at a hand. That must’ve been why she found herself at the window when, on a particularly warm day, Eren emerged from the grove, his chest naked and golden in the afternoon sun.
She had been washing a dish, or at least, trying to appear as if that was what she was doing. However, the second she caught a glimpse of the way sweat trickled through the grooves of his musculature, the light sticking to the places that were the most defined: the armorlike musculature of his abs, the defined “v” that lead Mikasa’s gaze to the waistband of his jeans, hanging perilously from his hips – all chores were forgotten.
Her breath stuck in her throat like a jagged stone. She watched with wide eyes as he drank from the water bottle that she washed for him the previous evening. Transfixed by the bob of his throat and the careless way he wiped the excess water from his mouth once he was done. Mikasa’s insides pulsed in time with her heartbeat. Even if Mama and Daddy and Makoto and everyone else in town came running at her, screaming her name, she still wouldn’t be able to look away from the sight in front of her.
Just when she thought she couldn’t feel any more strange, he poured the bottle of water over his head. His hair grew dark beneath the wet, clinging to his skin as he shook his head like a dog. She should’ve looked away then, when his eyes were still closed. She should’ve known better. But her parents had hid her from so much of life that she felt raw to everything. Defenseless like one of the fawns that her father brought home every once in a while, their baby necks slick and stained with blood. Knobby-kneed and clumsy, not even standing a chance.
Because when he found her looking at him, she was powerless underneath the gravity of his stare. And for the first time in her limited life, Mikasa was a coward. Turning away from the sink and what she had done, acting grateful for her mother’s presence when she drifted back into the room because it allowed her to pretend that it had never happened. But there was no denying it; from that point on, Mikasa was haunted and, somehow, she felt certain that there was no escape.
People who lived in places like Mikasa tended to lead lives that were carefully plotted and devised. Stringing together different families’ advantages for the greater good of the community. Country people tended to stick together almost like they were tied to the land they came from. She’d never minded being homeschooled, if only because her life had come with friends built in – the kids from the neighboring land.
There was Sasha Blouse, who lived in the tree-heavy hills and was descended from great hunters who provided the majority of the meat for their small valley. Then, the Springers and their bows of wheat and sweet son Connie. Most importantly, there was the Kirstein dairy farm and all the good it had attracted, making their son Jean the closest thing Shigansina had to a prince.
All the other mamas were jealous of the way Jean Kirstein looked at Mikasa. Especially since she rarely paid him much mind. He didn’t care; if anything, her distance, her withholding nature seemed to him a challenge, a battleground upon which to prove his manhood. Mikasa couldn’t deny that part of her was charmed by it. Not much happened to her and seeing Jean Kirstein puffing his chest out while he talked to her daddy was something to look at if nothing else.
Besides, she’d be lying if she said that she didn’t find the Kirstein boy attractive. He had nice hair, pretty eyes, an easy, wide smile. He was the tallest boy she knew and she couldn’t deny it felt nice in the shade of his body while she leaned against one of the orange trees, listening to some silly story he’d prepared for her enjoyment. Some would say that they were courting but Mikasa hadn’t agreed to anything yet.
Or at least, that’s what she kept reminding herself while Jean bent her ear while the Jaeger boy watched. They were on her porch, which was across from the barn that Eren slept in. It was just after dinner, the sun dipping below the hills, and Eren was outside, smoking his after dinner cigarette. Ever since he caught her, she’d been doing her best to avoid his gaze. But it was impossible to do that now, not when he’s staring right at her.
Jean hadn’t noticed, his back was to the barn, his eyes fixed on Mikasa. She imagined herself through Eren’s eyes, praying that it was a pretty view: her body lit up by the warm glow of the Ackerman cabin. From the blush dusting Jean’s cheeks, she thought it was safe to bet that she might look a little pretty.
“Say, Mikasa, would you wanna come with me to the bonfire tonight?” Jean asked, his eyes flicking away from her once the words left his mouth. It wasn’t the first time he asked her, she’d been turning him down mostly because her mama told her men give up on women who give them what they want as soon as they ask for it. But she’d been thinking about saying yes to him sometime soon.
Taunted by the itch of instinct, she peeked over her shoulder into the house. From what she could tell, her mama, daddy, and little brother were upstairs. Reminding her that she was no longer her parents’ first priority. That they might’ve even liked it if Jean and the Kirsteins took her off their hands.
She looked back at Jean. There was hope in his eyes, wet and glittering like the insides of a peach. She swallowed. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, like she had the other times he’d asked, but it felt different this time.
This time, she actually wondered if Jean Kirstein was what she wanted. If a life like the one she’d lived the past seventeen years was the sort of future she’d enjoy or if it would be the sort of thing that she’d just tolerate. Her hesitance must’ve shown on her face because Jean tilted his head closer.
“Are you sure? You know, your daddy said it’s okay for me to take you out as long as I get you home before midnight.”
As if on cue, the lights upstairs went out, leaving only the yellow glow of the porchlight. She glanced over Jean’s shoulder, looking for Eren, but he seemed to have disappeared. The disappointment and hurt she felt at his absence lasted only a moment because right when Jean seemed ready to take her silence as agreement, the Jaeger boy appeared at his side.
His eyes looked like a cat’s in the gauzy light, narrow and threatening. “Leave,” he said to Jean, but his pronunciation wasn’t quite right. Still, the golden-haired boy was caught off guard by Eren’s sudden appearance and whipped right around to face him.
“Who the fuck are you?” Jean asked and Mikasa could see him going into his pocket. He was too young to carry a gun yet but that didn’t mean he didn’t carry around something at least half as dangerous, maybe a knife or worse. She moved quickly and thoughtlessly, maneuvering her body so she found her way between them.
“Stop!” she yelled, poking her finger into Jean’s chest. He casted his gaze down so he could look her in the eye and for perhaps the first time, he looked grown to her, filled with a man’s anger. “This is Eren. He’s working for my dad, he’s not dangerous.”
Even though her back was facing him, she could feel the weight of the Jaeger’s boy menace. Making her wonder if the words she just said were true. He’d gotten real close to her, the heat of his chest warming her back. Even facing Jean, she could tell that he was bigger than her, broader too, and it sent a thrill down her back to know that she was towering over her, looking at Jean over her shoulder. It made her feel like she could do anything.
“Mikasa-” Jean started and she could tell an invitation was on the tip of his tongue, this time perhaps geared with her safety in mind or at least, getting her away from Eren. But before it could fully leave the golden boy’s mouth, she cut in, placing her hand flat on his chest to stop him then taking her touch away before he could get too attached to it.
“It’s getting late, Jean. You should probably head home.”
She knew for a fact that he was a boy who rarely heard “no.” Not because he was particularly spoiled but because no one really saw a good reason to deny him anything. Besides, he was good at being convincing. Some say he got the silver tongue from his daddy. Others said it came with his good looks. Whatever the reason, his eyes widened at Mikasa’s words, almost like she didn’t believe them.
“Are you sure?” He took a step back hesitantly, casting his gaze over in Eren’s direction one more time. The air between the two boys crackled, reminding her of how her daddy’s dogs acted when a bitch on a nearby farm was in heat. It scared her, but it invigorated her too, giving her the push to get Jean Kirstein to go once and for all.
“Yeah, m’feeling tired,” she said, with a feigned yawn. Then, to her shock, Eren’s hand fell on her shoulder. She was wearing one of her thinner dresses, the kind she could only don around the house, because of how flimsy the fabric was. His callouses rasped against her soft skin, making her breath catch in her throat.
“Leave,” he said again. There was a threat in his voice, a promise of violence. Before the other boy could retort, Eren wrapped his arm around her shoulder, bringing her underneath his care. Then, he guided her away from her house and toward the barn where he slept. Leaving Jean with his impotent rage and the cold dark of her parents’ house.
He didn’t say anything to her while he escorted her. Nor did he reveal, through expression or gesture, what might’ve made him come to her, interrupt whatever Jean was trying to drag her into. No, he was silent, his jaw clenched. He smelled like cigarettes, citrus, and straw. She never liked the way her father smelled after smoking, it reminded her that he was a man just like all the ones who leered at her and her mother in town, soaked in whisky and past wars.
But she liked how Eren smelled. She liked how it felt to be kept close to him so much that once they reached the barn and he freed her from his grasp, she felt lost somehow. Adrift in the dark sea of the night. “Thank you,” she said, peeking up at him from underneath her eyelashes.
He didn’t react to her gratitude. He ducked inside the clumsy door that her father had fixed to the barn to make it look more like a place that a person could live. Unthinking, she followed him. For one terrible moment, she was reminded of her mother’s words, her insistence that nothing good could come of spending time with the Jaeger boy.
But her mother was asleep now. So was her father. And Mikasa was awake, in the world that they had left her to, with no one but this strange boy for company. She crossed the threshold holding her breath, only to find him, stretched out across a mattress that marked the most habitable corner of the barn – floored and cordoned off from the rest of it. Since her family took care of orchards, the barn was just where they kept some equipment, and the stench of motor oil hung in the air.
Next to his bed was a suitcase with clothes spilling out of it like the innards of a gutted animal, shoes strewn across the floor. Perhaps, the only sign that he gave that he wanted her there was how he moved to make room for her on the mercifully sheeted mattress, watching her settle into her spot out of the corner of his eye like a wary cat might.
There was no way to describe him apart from the fact that he was beautiful – defined cheekbones and angular features, the sort of man who might’ve been worshiped as a god or reviled as a harbinger of doom in another world. But here, he was just a boy, and she let herself look at him.
“Why did you bring me here?”
It was clear from the furrow of his brow that it took him a moment to understand what she was saying to him, something about the clumsy transition of words between the two dialects that they spoke. She’d been listening to her father when he spoke to him, trying to learn some words, but she’d never been good at languages. Eren frowned, coming up on his elbows as he tried to work out what to say. When he finally spoke, she felt the vibration of his voice – deep and low – in her chest and told herself it was just because of how close they were to each other.
“Protection.” The word was clumsy and not accented quite right but she made it out all the same. It seemed that their inability to communicate frustrated him, and, at a loss for words, he reached for her hands, as if to keep her fixed to this place until he could figure out the right thing to say. It should’ve scared her, especially after the way it had felt to be caught between him and Jean, but it didn’t. Instead, she found herself drawn to the way the light from the sole bulb that hung above both of their heads danced in his eyes.
Maybe looking at him like that gave him the wrong idea. Or maybe it was the right one. Mikasa couldn’t tell anymore, because the moment the Jaeger boy pressed his lips to hers, she lost all good sense. Leaning into his touch, melting into his mouth, but then, she caught the smell of gasoline and realized where she was, what she was doing, and who she was doing it with.
With a yelp, she threw her fists against his chest, pushing him away. Almost on instinct, he fought her initially, maybe thinking she was playing hard to get, but the second he saw real fear in her eyes, he backed off. Still, there was a startled, hurt way about him when he held up his hands in mock surrender. .
“Sorry! I…” she trailed off, blushing, stammering, feeling every inch a silly, reckless girl in her nightgown, having gotten herself into the exact sort of situation her mama had always warned her about. She leapt to her feet gracelessly, almost stumbling. He wasn’t kind enough to hide his amusement at her clumsiness, the way her hands shook as she smoothed down her dress. It was pride that finally pushed the words out of her mouth. “I should be going.”
Disappointment burned at the back of her throat when he didn’t follow her or make any move to stop her. It was a familiar feeling, but something about its connection to the Jaeger boy made it touch unexpected places inside of her. When she finally made it to her bed – still damp from the shower, mourning the loss of his smell – it grew even stronger, almost as if it had been waiting for this moment, this possibility and all that it might open for her.
She’d touched herself before. Not with any great frequency; there was little in her world that made her think of such things. Her mama told her that they weren’t the sort of thoughts good girls, pure girls like her were supposed to have. That had never sat right with Mikasa, though she’d never be able to make sense of why. Maybe it was that pride of hers, getting her into trouble. Or maybe it was some deeper, secret knowledge. The kind that lived in the body, essential to the propagation of the human race. Reminding her that there were just some things she was made for.
When her hand found its way into her underwear, she let out a startled gasp at the wetness she found waiting for her. The relief she felt at pinching her swollen clit between her fingers made her keen. Her other hand found its way to her mouth, pressing against her lips. Remembering what Eren’s mouth felt like. What his lips tasted like. The way he slid his tongue against her teeth like there was no part of her he didn’t want to know the taste of.
She wondered what he was thinking about now that she was gone. Before she’d left, she’d cast a sideways glance at the crotch of his work pants and was sure she saw new tension in the fabric. Her mother hadn’t been able to hide everything from her and she knew what that meant, what it could mean he was doing right now. What his cock might look like in the cradle of his hand, thick and long. How he had to be thinking about her while he did it.
She felt even more arousal drip from her center as she pictured it, accompanied by a bitter ache. Unable to help herself, she slotted a finger inside herself, biting into her fist to keep her moan from leaving her mouth. She’d never let herself go this far before, an invisible line that she’d decided she’d betray her mother, her father, her good name, by crossing.
But want was burning her up. Turning her into a more brutal sort of girl, willing to do whatever was needed to take the edge off. And as she imagined Eren – shirtless, incandescent with sweat, his hair hanging around his face like a curtain, bent over her, pressing one of his long, calloused fingers into her – a pleasure more shamefully good than anything she’d ever experienced swallowed her whole and she came with a broken cry.
Sometimes, all she wanted was for him to look at her again. Other times, she dreaded it, certain that such attention would strike her dead. In the time since the Jaeger boy kissed her, Mikasa’s body felt possessed, as if darkness had taken up residence where her soul used to be. Making her think and act in despicable ways.
In the hopes it’d cool her desire, she asked her mother why exactly Grisha Jaeger’s son was unable to stay in Liberio. As if she’d been waiting for this very moment, her mother pitched her voice low and secret, glancing over her shoulder at some imaginary enemy who she wanted to keep this secret from.
“Your daddy said he’d been in fights. With boys his ages and some older too. Kept getting caught, no matter what Dr. Jaeger did to him or how much trouble he got into with the law. Before he got sent here, he almost killed another boy just for looking at him wrong. It’s like I told you, Mikasa. Some people are just born wrong.”
She wished that her mother’s words had the intended effect. Instead, they plagued her in a new and twisted way, sitting at the edges of Mikasa’s subconscious, tormenting her with images that made her insides feel tight and tender, as if they were being poked with hot iron. Reminding her of what it felt like to be caught between him and Jean a couple of nights ago. Making her wonder what he might’ve done if Jean didn’t leave them alone.
Even though the Kirstein boy was taller, maybe even a little broader, she had a feeling Eren would win. He didn’t seem like the type he could tolerate losing, at least. It surprised her how much the thought thrilled her – seeing Jean crumpled up in a bloody heap at her feet, Eren asking her to lick his fist clean with her tongue. Using just his eyes because they didn’t need words, not with something as strong as violence tying them together.
That night at dinner, she kept sneaking looks at him out of the corner of her eye. Hoping that he might meet one of them, show some acknowledgement of the fact that he now knew what her mouth tasted like.
But the Jaeger boy remained as stoic as ever, grunting responses to her daddy’s questions. She was starting to get the hang of his garbled dialect, the way all the words were a little wrong, but she made sure to not look like she was paying too close attention, knowing that was the sort of thing her mama would mind.
Mikasa had made dinner tonight – chicken pot pie with gravy. She’d killed the chicken herself that morning, plucked the feathers from its neck with skillful fingers. She’d liked thinking about Eren eating food she made. It made her put more effort into it than she usually did – normally, she preferred butchery to more domestic housecraft, preferring to go hunting with her daddy than doing house chores with her mother. But ever since she turned fifteen, her daddy said it wasn’t right for her to go hunting anymore. Killing a chicken every once in a while was the only blood she got to see.
She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, only that it wasn’t what happened. After they were done eating, she cleared everyone’s plates like she always did. Taking her time while she drifted past the men’s corner of the table, to hear what Eren and Daddy might’ve been talking about. But they were talking in low tones, almost as if they didn’t want to be heard.
Eren must’ve said something Daddy liked. At one point, he laughed raucously and clapped Eren on the back, saying something that Mikasa could just barely recognize about the trouble he and Grisha used to get into when they were boys. After that, Eren left without another word, even though he often took dessert with them, or at least a couple swallows of whisky with her father.
“Where’s he off to in such a rush?” Mama asked with a raised eyebrow, the graveness of her expression minimized by the way Makoto was carrying on, pulling on her hair. Daddy let out a low whistle and finished his glass of whisky.
“Seems he’s in need of some company. I sent him to the bar in town.”
Mikasa always dropped the pie she was carrying to the table. “Oi, Mimi! Watch where you’re goin’!” her daddy teased, before taking the plate from her. She did her best to regain her composure, accepting the slice of berry pie that her mama served her. But even though it was her favorite, she didn’t enjoy one bite and excused herself as soon as she was done.
When Eren returned, he wasn’t alone. She shouldn’t have been surprised by this; the bar in town was known for being filled with women, the city kind, who might be charmed by a man with rough hands and a job that involved waking up at the crack of dawn. Ever since she was old enough to know about the things grown-ups do at night, she’s heard whispers of the things that go down there, how city women are more laid back than country girls in all the right ways.
But even though she should’ve expected it, the hurt that bloomed in her chest, seeing it happen was an undoing thing. At first, she’d tried to sleep, but it was impossible to do so when she kept jumping straight out of bed at the smallest hint of noise, peering out the window. Eventually, she gave up on any pretense of normalcy and took up residence alongside it.
The moon was high in the sky and full too, casting its light across the farm like spilled milk. Bright enough that she was able to see them as soon as they scaled the hill that led to the house – the Jaeger boy’s impossibly tall frame with someone smaller and more delicate beside him. They were talking to each other, but she couldn’t make out the content of their words, only that they were suggestive.
Once they got closer, Mikasa’s breath caught in her throat. Eren had his arm wrapped around the woman, like he’d done to her the previous night. Directing her body where he wanted it to go. She was small, no more than five feet tall, with dark hair and a pale face. Even from a distance, Mikasa could tell that she was beautiful, or at least eye-catching – something doll-like about the proportion of her body, the brightness of her eyes.
They were laughing together, flirting, drifting closer to Mikasa’s window, drawn by some force she didn’t understand. She watched with bated breath as Eren threw the woman against the oak tree that had been her favorite tree to climb when she was small. Held it in her mouth when he advanced toward her, his body towering over her as he bent his mouth to the woman’s.
She was close enough that she could see almost everything. She knew that meant that she should turn away. But, suddenly, Eren did something – his hands disappearing somewhere beneath the woman’s short dress – that made her cry out with something too sweet to be pain. Eren laughed before clapping his free hand over her mouth, murmuring something in the woman’s ear that must’ve been scolding because her cheeks turned bright pink. He then set to work on her, the flexing and tightening of the tendons of his arms just barely visible as he touched the other woman.
Mikasa dreamed of him touching her instead.
Eventually, he must’ve grown impatient and chivalry was forgotten in the interest of something more brutal, quick. As if a new evil possessed him, he suddenly pulled his fingers out from underneath the woman’s dress and spun her around. She let out a surprised squeak when he pressed his body against hers but didn’t fight him.
Mikasa had seen animals fuck before. Graceless and primitive, seeking out an evolutionarily determined pleasure then springing apart from each other as soon as it was done. She’d found nothing appealing in it. When she was told that she too was expected to participate in such an undignified series of movements and actions, she expressed her disgust with the bold innocence of childhood, unable to imagine a world where she’d want to take part in such a thing.
But she wanted whatever was happening outside her window to happen to her. She felt it in her body first – the same secret knowledge that had possessed her after their kiss. Meeting new parts of herself as she watched Eren undo his jeans, brandish his cock like one might tend to a weapon, before thrusting it inside the woman before him.
She was so small and at the intrusion, her face became pinched, making Mikasa worry that he wouldn’t be able to fit inside her. But Eren was determined, forcing it deeper with rhythmic, fluid movements of his hips. Mikasa’s mouth fell open when he finally found his way all the way inside of he,.
Because try as she might, it was difficult for the woman to stay quiet, especially since Eren began to fuck her in earnest. Mikasa couldn’t tell if the sounds were born of pain or pleasure or both. All she knew was what her body responded to them, her cunt twinging in time to his thrusts, the sound of the woman’s body thudding against the bark of the tree.
It didn’t last long. At one point, in need of perhaps a deeper angle, he lifted the woman like she was nothing. As if following some choreography that both of them learned from other people, she immediately moved in kind, snaking her legs around his waist. When she did it, he seemed to have found some new heaven inside of her and he let out a sound closer to a growl than anything human.
Whatever good he felt, the woman experienced it too, and suddenly, she buried her face in his neck in order to muffle her cry. This seemed to inspire a new brutality in Eren and, suddenly, he was driving his hips into her with new abandon. Mikasa was transfixed by the way his muscles rippled beneath the sweat-logged cotton of his t-shirt. She imagined she could see the flex of his ass through his jeans – hard muscle, sharp lines.
More than anything, she wished that it was her he was pressing against the tree. It was the sort of wish that warped something fundamental inside her, at least half of her terrified of what might happen next. But she’d always been foolish when it came to what scared her. So desperate to prove that it had no hold over her that she’d charge into the dark of her fear with no forethought of what might happen next.
That night, she dreamed of the rasp of bark against soft skin.
In the fecund dark of her dreams, a plan began to take form. To call it a plan was perhaps her thinking too much of herself again, bending like always to the fatal sin of pride. But it took shape inside her, making her body move in fated ways. By the time she ended up where she’d intended – sitting in the Jaeger boy’s lap, hands perched on his bare chest – she told herself that this was how everything between them was always going to end.
She sealed her fate in small ways. Spending a terrible day in the irritable company of her mother who spent the whole day talking about the whore that had slipped out of the barn early in the morning, her dress barely covering her ass, her dark hair resembling a rat’s nest. “City girls like that, they grow up thinking sex is the only way to win a man’s heart,” Mama said, shaking her head. “It’s just sad. You should be thankful we raised you better than that.”
Mama’s diatribes were easier to stomach now that she had such vivid fantasies to escape to. Ones where she did things even worse than what Mama could even dream of Mikasa doing. Thankfully, Makoto was fussy all day, which kept her distracted. Mikasa was able to drift, time contracting until she got to the point where she could put her plan into action.
It was a hot summer night, which was in her favor. Daddy didn’t need a drink after dinner and Makoto was fussy, so her family ended up turning in early. Daddy did linger for a moment, placing his hand on her shoulder in a fatherly way. “You know, if Jean comes by, maybe you should spend some time with him. He’s a nice boy, Mimi,” he said. She realized then what she was about to do was outside the bounds of what her parents thought she was capable of. The thought sent a thrill down her spine, giving her the adrenaline needed to find her way to the barn once everyone else was asleep.
She’d been so eager she’d walked over barefoot and she felt silly now that her dirt-clad heels were catching on the wood floor. He was looking at her like he saw this coming from a million miles away. Maybe he did. It didn’t bother her to be a cliche, not if she got what she wanted.
Besides, it was all worth it to see him like this. Shirtless, with yellow light pooling in the divots of his abdominal muscles. There was intrigue in his eyes when he raised his head to look at her. He’d been lying on his side, pretending to read some magazine sitting in front of him.
As soon as he saw her, his posture shifted, sitting up a little bit straighter. Somehow almost boyish about the way he clambered into the position like it was something he just thought of. But he had to have known what might happen when he saw that all that she was wearing was a nightgown, her nipples catching on the plasticky, cheap satin.
He didn’t need words to tell her to come to him. He motioned her over with a wave of his hand, splaying his legs open so there was room for her to sit. When she got to the edge of the mattress, she almost lost her nerve, teetering at the edge.
The Jaeger boy put a quick end to that, reaching out and yanking hard on her wrist. She fell into him with a squeak, hands falling uselessly against his chest. When she righted herself and looked up at him, she realized he was laughing at her. It made her insides feel funny, especially when she shifted her position and realized she could feel him, hardening beneath her.
He was staring at her in a new way. It reminded her of how predators tracked their prey, an alarming glint to his eye that should’ve made her see sense. Instead, she threw her legs around his waist so they were pressed even closer together. “Eren,” she said, testing his name on her tongue.
“Mikasa,” he replied. In his mouth, her name sounded like a woman’s. Not a silly girl who no one expected anything from. Her face flushed and, suddenly, she felt shy. But he must’ve sensed that she was about to hide from him so he reached out to her, catching her face in the wide span of his palm. Forcing her gaze to his once more.
“I…I saw you. Last night…” she said. His brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of what she was saying. Blushing, she pointed outside, in the general direction of the tree. Recognition dawned on his face, his confusion morphing into something ravenous. His hands fell from her face and landed tentatively on her hips. Now, there was no denying the hardness of his cock. How it felt, pressing against her as she shifted in his lap.
“Careful,” he managed. From the way he pronounced it, it was clear he knew the shape of this word because her father had yelled it at him. Daddy had complained that the boy was reckless, that sometimes he wondered if he had any good sense. The remembrance made Mikasa’s breath catch in her throat, reminding her of what she was about to do.
His hold on her hips was gentle, tentative. But beneath it, she could sense the power in his fingers, the intention. She shifted in his lap once more and this time, she found herself unable to avoid settling directly against his cock. The sound that she made at the sudden friction surprised her, desperate and girlish, leaving her mouth in something even less dignified than a whine.
Eren snapped to attention, his grasp on her hips suddenly bruising, kneading his fingers into her tender flesh like he was trying to impress something upon her. When he spoke to her, she realized that there seemed to be some words that remained largely the same across their two dialects; all of them were crude. “You want to be fucked?” His voice was low and gravelly, catching on her soft skin. Blushing, she nodded. He reached out, squeezing her face in his hand. “Words,” he commanded, and when he removed his hand, she knew exactly what to do, even if it made her face burn with shame.
“I want you to fuck me, Eren.”
He tilted his head, the same vile grin on his lips, looking every inch a predator who had caught particularly foolish prey, a defenseless little creature he could do anything to. She knew from experience; much of her childhood had been spent in the forest, hunting with her father or wandering on her own.
She’d seen enough to know that nothing good came from being looked at like this. But he’d awaken something in her, stupid and brash, and with a trembling hand, she reached out for his hand. “Please,” she said, looking up at him with wet eyes. Even though she knew he couldn’t really understand her, she found herself talking. “I don’t know what you’ve done to me. But ever since you showed up…it hurts so bad. Here.”
She guided his hand between his legs and pressed his fingertips to the place she touched when she was thinking about him. At her boldness, he startled, cursing when he must’ve felt how wet she was. His eyes flicked back to hers and with a wild look in his eye, he bent his lips to hers.
To call it a kiss was generous, it appeared that he wanted to map out every inch of her mouth with his tongue and teeth. Like everything he did, there was a violence to it, made even worse by how much she liked it. She couldn’t help but clamber for more, rising up on her knees a little so she can chase his mouth.
Eren’s hands fell to her hips again and yanked her back down. He broke their kiss for a moment, looking down at her with more want than she knew what to do with. “Stay with me,” he said, and before she could ask him what he meant, he started to roll his hips into hers. He kept his grasp on her hips, directed her movements so her pussy had no choice but to press against the hard length of his cock.
Her heart dropped into her stomach at the feeling. How big he was, how small she felt in comparison. The amusement he held in his face as he watched her realize these things, his smile crooked and teasing. He gripped her tighter, forcing her to move her hips in a way that grinded her clit directly against him.
It was a strange feeling, something less pleasurable than how it felt when she touched herself thinking about him, but somehow so much more. Because it was his body that was providing the friction, and how hard he was for her was a truth she was unable to deny, especially when he started to buck his hips up against hers, cursing whenever he dug a little into the wet of her cunt.
He was saying things and she couldn’t quite make the true meaning out, but she could tell that it was filthy and all of it was about her. Before she could ask what he meant, his fingers found their way up her thigh. Mikasa’s breath stuttered, her eyes going wide, as Eren pulled the crotch of her underwear to the side.
“Up,” he said, gesturing to her nightgown and it became clear that he wanted her to debase himself on his behalf. Still, even though she believed this to be his aim, she still did what he said, albeit with shaking hands. He watched her, grinning like the cat that had gotten caught in the cream. An expression that became even worse once he’d fully divested her of her nightgown and she was naked in his clothed lap.
“Messy,” he said, drawing his fingers through the wetness her pussy had leaked onto his jeans. Mikasa blushed, wanting so desperately to hide from him, but there was nowhere to go, all possible shelter taken from her.
He kept his eyes fixed on hers as he licked her shine away from his fingers. He groaned at the taste and the texture of the sound, the gravel of it, made her even wetter. She’d never felt want like this before, seemingly reasonless, driven to this point by the basest desires.
Without another word, he lifted Mikasa from her perch on his lap. He said something gruff and direct in his language. Even though she didn’t know what it meant, she could tell from the way his lips twitched up after he said it, it was about what he wanted to do to her.
When he realized his words weren’t having the intended impact, he let out a huff of frustration. He looked almost impish in that moment, freckles dotting the bridge of his nose, his hair shaggy and askew. But it only lasted for a moment before he was hauling her hips up his chest until her legs were thrown over his shoulders.
Mikasa yelped, bracing her hands on the pillows underneath the two of them. “What’re you doing?” she cried out as she tried to make sense of the position he’d pulled her into. The wet curls of her cunt were only a few inches away from his face. She tried to lean away, a flush spreading like wildfire up her whole chest. To say she was humiliated was an understatement, never had she felt so revealed, but he soon showed her the reward for this sort of vulnerability.
Gripping her hips in his hands, he brought her hips closer to her face. Until she could feel his breath, catching on where she was wet and wanting. “What’re you doing?” she asked again, even more confused as he stared between her thighs like whatever laid between them was sacred to him, something to be looked at open-mouthed. She squirmed underneath his stare, its intensity almost like a physical touch.
But it was nothing compared to the actual feeling of his tongue against her clit. Gentle and teasing at first, like he’s warming her up. Mikasa trembled in his grasp, doing her best to keep herself upright. But it soon became impossible, not with the way he’s sucking at her clit, making her whole body spasm and choke with pleasure. When she finally collapsed, Eren groaned into her like it was exactly what he wanted and canted her hips forward even more.
She couldn’t imagine what she must look like. Naked as the day she was born, grinding her hips against the Jaeger boy’s mouth as he lapped at her like a thirsty dog. She could feel the same flush from before, taking over her body, burning her up. Worst was what she sounded like, all the shapes pleasure took in her mouth. First, it was just whimpers and whines, but it’s clear that he knew what he was doing, that he took pride in his work, because before long, she’s louder than she’s ever been before, making desperate sounds somewhere between a moan and a sob.
“Eren,” she said, not knowing what she was asking for. Thankfully, he did and she felt the press of his tongue against her entrance, drinking her slick directly from the source. Her eyes snapped open in surprise when she felt him breach her, a strange tease of fullness that made her let go with what few inhibitions she had left. With a broken cry, she fell under the swell of ecstasy that had been threatening to swallow her whole. A feeling so much bigger than anything she’d done to herself, she had no idea what to do with it.
But Eren did. He soothed her through it, giving her clit flat licks. Digging his fingers hard into the meat of her thighs to anchor her as she came down from it. Murmuring words that sounded like praise even though she couldn’t quite make them out. And just when she felt herself become docile and pliant, he made his move.
Mikasa didn’t know how it happened, only that moment she was on top of the Jaeger boy, and in the next, she was pinned underneath his body. She let out a yelp of surprise but any other noises she might make were smothered with his kiss. His mouth tasted like musk but sweet and it was with horror-tinged arousal that she realized she was tasting herself. The sort of perversion that must only fly in the city, the place her parents had always said they were keeping her safe from.
And as she watched Eren’s eyes crawl over her body, his lust adhering to her skin like a film, she finally understood why. Because even though she knew she should leave, that this had gone on too far, that she wasn’t ready for whatever happened next, she still let him move her body into whatever shape he wanted, even letting her thighs fall open once more so he could thrust a finger inside her. Possessed by the madness he had nurtured inside her until there was no part of her that wasn’t tainted by it.
Though, experienced as he was, it didn’t seem that the Jaeger boy was unaffected. No, there was something unhinged and swooning about the way his mouth found its way to her neck, muttering dirty words. Even the bit she understood was enough to stoke the most fledgling flame into a roaring fire – something about the sweetness of her cunt, how badly he wanted to be buried inside her.
“Baby,” he pressed into the downy skin above her jugular, scraping against it with his teeth. “Sweet girl.” A distraction, she realized, for the stretch of the second finger he fit inside her. Her eyes snapped open, awash with pain. He licked at her tender skin as a comfort, in time with the way his thumb was teasing her clit. It was like he was all around her, the smell of him, the warmth, the taste, consuming her completely as he worked her open with his fingers.
“More of this?” he asked, his tone more than a little mean as he thrusted his fingers deep inside her, grazing somewhere that made her whole body tense up. “Or this?” his other hand dropped to the crotch of his jeans, palming his hard cock while smirking at her.
She hated him for what he’d done to her, how she reached out desperate hands, seeking to undo his pants. Her eagerness was a surprise even to him. He let out a barking laugh before pushing her hands away so he could do it quicker.
Once his dick was free, he took her hand. The span of her fingers didn’t meet when he wrapped her grasp around him. Something worse than wonder possessed Mikasa at the sight and it must’ve shown on her face, because his grin grew even more wolfish. “All for you,” he said, and it almost sounded like a threat.
He instructed her how to move her body for him using his eyes and his hands. Not stopping his arranging of her limbs until she had her legs spread and pulled against her chest, her fingers tensed in the bends of her knees. She knew she must look ridiculous, she half-expected Eren to laugh at her as he bent over her overly exposed form.
But for the first time, there was no mocking in his eyes. Only awe. He draped his gaze over her like fine silk, catching right on all of her sensitive skin. “Beautiful,” he said, dragging his cock through the mess he’d made of her. She was so wet that when he pressed the blunt head to her entrance, it glistened in the low light of the barn.
She’d never been the sort of girl to shirk away from pain. Growing up in the mountains, crying had never done her much good. Instead, she’d learned to make her pain into a door that she could walk through into something else. Something better. Maybe that was what made her whine out his name in a desperate way, followed by a plea for more.
Eren gave her his shoulder to bite down on as he carved his way inside her. The way he had her folded over made every thrust a savage thing that knocked the breath from her lungs. But he’d gotten her so wet that it was almost bearable. That, and he kept whispering praises in his dialect, all the sweeter for how ignorant she is of their true meanings. The only time he stopped muttering them is when he sought out her mouth for a kiss, not seeming to care that her mouth was metallic with his blood.
She knew this wasn’t the fate that she had been meant for, that her parents had imagined for her. No, the Mikasa they believed her to be would never be capable of something like this: losing her virginity in her daddy’s barn to a no good boy who hadn’t said more than ten words that she’d understood.
But maybe they didn’t need words. Maybe there were things that could be communicated just through their bodies. Truths that could only be accessed through reaching inside of each other’s chests just to see what they might’ve been able to yank out. From the passionate, thorough way that he fucked her, she could tell that he was a man of determination and grit, the sort who didn’t do anything halfway. He kept his eyes fixed on her face – attentive to every sound she made, every whimper, and rewarding all of them – showing her that he was generous with those that he thought worthy of it. Contrasting starkly to the merciless way he drove his cock into her, not giving her a moment to catch her breath.
He never made her wonder long if he thought the sounds she made were pretty, if she was doing a good job. “Mikasa,” he groaned against her neck, a sharp thrum of pleasure beginning to take the place of pain. “So fuckin’ good.” Making her clench around his cock so hard he stuttered, fingers biting into her arm. His eyes met hers, flashing dangerously. He began to set a new pace, driving his cock into the place that made her pussy hug him tight and refuse to let him go.
“Shit, like that, baby, like that,” he babbled and something about his words, the way he was fucking her, the new kind of good he was teaching her to feel unlocked something deep inside Mikasa. Making a torrent of words fall from her mouth, some of which she was conscious of saying and some of which she wasn’t, but all of them were things that he had taught her how to say. All she knew is that she needed to say them again, needed to feel these things again at his hand.
She welcomed every new sensation he taught her, what it felt like to come with a hard cock inside her, how it made her mind go lovely and blank. So much so that when he came inside her, her name leaving his mouth in a snarl, she only barely registered that it was something that shouldn’t have happened. Or at least, maybe the version of her that existed before he did this to her wouldn’t have wanted it too.
But the new version of Mikasa that the Jaeger boy brought into existence stared at the mess he’d left between her legs with innocent interest. Running her fingers through it, wondering at what might come of it. She felt his eyes on her fingers and somehow, she knew he was thinking the same.
As if to test him, she moved to get out of his bed. Just like she hoped, he wrapped his arm around her middle, pulling her to his chest. “Stay with me,” he murmured into her hair. She looked up at him and was surprised by the earnestness of his request.
So he kept her in his arms. As she fell asleep, Mikasa told herself that she’d make sure to wake up early in the morning And if she ended up oversleeping and her parents were forced to confront the truth of who she was now, maybe that wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Besides, her daddy had always said he’d treat whoever put her in the family way to a shotgun wedding.