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For the first day of her journey to Marley, Mikasa had been blindfolded. They’d used her scarf to do it, an act to her that felt unthinkably cruel. But what else was she supposed to expect from the people who had used the tragedy of her best friend’s death to capture her and take her away from everything she knew?
It had all happened so fast. The journey to Shiganshina. The battle. The loss of the near entirety of the scout regiment. Then, for a few precious moments, victory. Hanji emerged from the shadows, felling Reiner like gods rained thunderbolts down on ill-fated mortals in books. The ground had reverberated with the fall of the Colossal Titan’s body, letting her know that Armin and Eren had accomplished the impossible. But any elation was annihilated when she saw what Armin had sacrificed to ensure their victory.
She fell to her knees when she saw him. Eren was fighting with Levi with a child’s determination, refusing to acknowledge the truth at hand. Because it wasn’t just Armin that needed saving. Next to him laid the body of Erwin Smith, just barely alive. The syringe of Titan serum was in Levi’s hand. Even if she wanted to fight this outcome at first, there was always only one way this story was going to end.
Maybe it was that feeling of fate that allowed her to be caught unaware. As she watched Eren hurl himself at Levi, knowing nothing good would come of it but moving to join him anyway, she hadn’t thought to check behind her. What happened next was a blur. Almost as if whoever attacked her knew to take advantage of the reckless way she threw herself into action whenever Eren was in danger. They knocked her unconscious with something. She fought it as best she could, especially when she could hear Eren's screams of horror as he was forced to watch Armin die.
But then, she was being taken somewhere, the movement rhythmic and strange, not unlike riding a clumsy horse. By the time she came to consciousness, her neck was bare and her beloved scarf was tied around her eyes. When she moved to yank it off of her face, she learned the true extent of her unfortunate circumstances: she was chained to a wall somewhere, her hands and legs bound separately with some type of material that seemed to account for her supernatural strength.
“You can struggle all you want. You’re just tiring yourself out. Besides, we’re already a couple hours away from the coast of Paradis. There’s no way for you to get home.”
She only knew the voice that spoke to her from the last day. At first, she’d thought it’d been Reiner but it soon became clear that the enemy she knew was otherwise indisposed as his body restored its strength. Instead, she was questioned by an unknown man with a vocal timbre that was deep and low in a way that she found almost familiar. If it was, it wasn’t in a way she liked.
“You’re still not talking? You know, you aren’t doing yourself any favors, Mikasa,” the voice drawled, making anger rear up in her throat, burning like bile. She hated that he knew her name. No doubt, Reiner had told him. But he said it with more knowing than that, like they’d met before or had something important in common. “We’re probably going to have to know each other for a while. You don’t want to get off on a bad foot with someone important, do you?”
Her muscles ached. Her stomach churned. Armin was gone; she heard Eren’s cry of anguish when he drew his last breath. Thankfully, she was knocked out before she could hear his agony when he realized she was gone too. But it was like getting a limb slowly sawed off, being away from him when she knew he was in pain. It made her stupid with hurt. When she spat at her captor’s feet, it was an impulse that felt impossible to resist.
“Mikasa! That’s not very ladylike of you! Especially for a young lady of such distinguished lineage. You know, in another life, we might’ve met in very different circumstances.”
“Because I’m an Ackerman?”
The words sprung from her lips before she could stop them. Family had always been a sore spot for her and after the loss of one of its last members, she felt raw in a new way. Desperate, even. Through the fabric of her scarf, she could see the outline of a man’s body.
“Ah, so you know that much,” the voice replied. His tone was patronizing enough that she felt herself fighting the restraints that kept her bound once again.
“Where are you taking me?” she said, her voice breaking from disuse.
“Somewhere you’ll be kept safe,” was all the voice said. “It’s for your own good, Mikasa.” Then, before she could ask what he could possibly mean by that, she heard the even rhythm of his footsteps retreating out of the dungeon where she was being held.
Apart from these strange visits, she was left to her own devices. She didn’t mind if only because it gave her more time to think about how much she hated their enemies. The ones who had been responsible for the death of Armin too. She only vaguely heard what Eren had been saying to Levi; how Armin had promised him that they would still find the sea together. Was that where she was now without them?
She’d never wanted to see the world. All she wanted was home. To be somewhere comfortable and safe with Eren and Armin too. She tried her best not to cry when such thoughts crept up on her but with all the time she had to think and sway in the dark, she came to every wretched thought eventually. Like how she’d never told Eren how she felt. Not in a real way, one that mattered. There had been what happened between them outside the walls. When he’d punched a titan for her while proclaiming to stay by her side for forever or however long she wanted, whichever came first. The almost kiss they’d shared and how there were times when she felt him staring at her lips like he was thinking with the determination that belonged to things left unfinished. She was no better but they hadn’t had much time, not with the chaos of the world churning around them.
Deep down, she felt that they had shared an unspoken understanding. That whatever they realized that day on the edge of certain death would have to wait. At least until they reclaimed Shiganshina. They were practical people. So they both knew without saying so that love was the sort of thing that would have to wait. But sometimes, she caught him looking at her and there was an electric intensity in his eyes that said “soon, soon.”
Had she been a fool for believing him? It was hard not to feel that way now. Hours slipped away from her like they were nothing. By the time the ship shuddered to a stop, she’d felt as though she’d been there forever. When she was led outside, handcuffed and held tight between Reiner and another man, the sun was high in the sky and beating down on her.
The man who was not Reiner gripped her elbow tight. “Don’t think of trying anything,” he said after she’d swallowed her first gulp of fresh air in what felt like weeks. “You’re at least two days or so away from home. And that’s by boat. Do they even teach you how to swim on that backwards island?”
For the first time since she’d been taken captive, fear threatened to undo her. Two days away from home? Wherever that had brought her, the air was different there. Thicker and hotter too, it made sweat erupt on her brow almost immediately. There was something wet about it when she breathed it in, making it settle in her chest in a strange, not-enough way. She didn’t like it, and to think that she was in this terrible place and she had no way to get back? It made her knees weak.
A hand – for one horrible moment, she wondered if it was Reiners, if he was somehow capable of mercy – steadied her. They directed her toward the gangplank and then down a set of stairs. For a moment, she thought about clenching her knees and refusing to move but she could feel the strength in their bodies now, their solidity and weight. They’d put her hands behind her back in handcuffs. She could tell that unlike other men she’d dealt with, both of them knew what she was capable of and were treating her accordingly.
Mikasa’s nose itched at the unfamiliar smells on the air. Salt, but stronger and more murky, the sort of smell that threatened to turn her stomach. But before she had the chance to make sense of it or any other aspect of her surroundings, she was being shunted into some type of small room. Another unfamiliar smell tickled her nose, bad enough to make her cough and then Reiner and the other man who was with him joined her.
Suddenly, the room began to move. Mikasa let out a yelp, uncentered by the sudden movement. “I think we can talk your blindfold off now. It’s not like you’ll know what anything is. Do it, Reiner,” the other man said and, then, she was blinded with light. When the space she was in finally came into focus, she didn’t know how to make sense of what she found there.
Somehow, the room they were in was moving, like a carriage. But it was faster than any carriage she’d ever been in, moving at a sure, steady pace that would be impossible for a horse to maintain. All around them was a cacophony of noise, windows with scenes flashing past them, becoming a whirl of color. She could feel Reiner next to her,but immediately, her eyes were drawn to the man in front of her. Familiar and not all at once, an uncanniness to how her heart clenched with recognition just as much as it twisted with hatred.
He was tall and broad, with thick muscled arms that spoke to his strength. His hair was blond and hung around his face. It was his facial features that were the most familiar, stirring a warm feeling in her chest for reasons she couldn’t even begin to understand.
“I guess I look more like him than I realize,” he said, looking at her with a cold smile. He wore glasses, round lenses that accentuated his eyes’ intensity. And as soon as that thought crossed her mind, she realized why the man in front of her felt so familiar. “Do I remind you of someone?”
Her mind flitted through every possibility as her heart hammered in her chest. “Who are you?”
He smirked. “I’ll answer your question if you answer mine.”
She wanted to wring his neck. She wanted to scream. She wanted to rip his glasses off his face and smash them against his forehead, seeing how much she could make his head bleed. He was smug and he was abhorrent and his tone was even worse accompanied by the smugness he wore so easily on his puzzle of a face. But something else inside her throbbed with knowing. A shadow of the safety she’d felt whenever Dr. Jaeger placed his hand on his shoulder, took care to look her directly in the eye to ask her how she was doing.
But this man couldn’t have anything to do with him. Not in the way her mind assumed – pooling together the similarities between this man, Dr. Jaeger, Eren – and coming to one horrifying conclusion. There was a shocking coldness about him so at odds with who Dr. Jaeger had been to her, and Eren too. Warm, devoted people who had taken into her lives so easily. But there was none of that same generosity about this man, especially as he looked down at her with unfeeling, empty eyes.
“It can’t be,” she managed, hating how tiny her voice got with disbelief.
“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, Mikasa, but your adoptive father wasn’t the man you thought he was.”
His words were like a slap across the face, harsh and biting. Sending her reeling as she tried to make sense of them and what they could mean.
“Zeke-” Reiner started to say but before he could finish whatever it was, the car came to a sudden stop.
“Put the blindfold back on her, Reiner. We’re here.”
That was all the warning she got before she was plunged into darkness again. It was a terrible place to be as all of these terrible thoughts swirled in her head. Especially once Reiner’s hands took hold of her again, directing her out of the car and into the outside air that smelled of rotten sea. “Take her into the lab,” she heard that man – Zeke, she realized – call out to Reiner, then the footsteps of someone retreating away.
It made her almost want to scream, him dangling these perverse secrets in front of her only to disappear. But Reiner seemed to sense the tension in her body and she felt his hand on the soft spot between her neck and her shoulder. His grip threatened a sleeper hold. “It’s for your own good,” was the last thing she heard before she was plunged into the dark.
Wherever she’d been taken, it was full of unknown and strange smells and sensations. They tickled her consciousness as she drifted beneath the surface of waking, only vaguely aware of being lifted and then carried to a room. Then, she was set down on a bed more comfortable than anything she’s slept on in a long time. Calling back the memory of a time when she lived in a real house with real things. Fluffed pillows, quilts knitted with love.
But no matter how comfortable her bedding is, she still woke in a panic. Her breath was hot and sticky in her throat and her eyes bloodshot as she shot straight up. All of it was made worse by whatever contraption kept her tied to the bed, something able to handle her strange, otherworldly strength. As the world came into focus – its dull, sterile whiteness making it even harder to make sense of – she heard a man’s voice, beamed into the small room she’s found herself in by a speaker.
“Good morning, Mikasa.”
Sardonic and infuriating, she immediately recognized the voice as Zeke’s. She twisted and turned, trying to make a sense of her surroundings. The room she was in was only a smidge smaller than a cell and decorated in a similar way. The bed she was strapped to, a toilet, sink, and desk were the only furniture. Perhaps, the only thing that set it apart was the strange clear material that functioned almost as a window. However, the space that it offered perspective into was nothing close to outside.
Instead, Zeke sat there. Smiling smugly at her. It seemed that in their time apart, he seemed to have the time to take a bath and make himself presentable. Now, he’s wearing a military uniform that belongs to a nation whose flag she had never seen before. Perhaps what drew her eyes the most was the band that was wrapped under his forearm and how close it was to the color of blood. But unfortunately, that wasn’t too far from his face and it was there that she found what disturbed her the most.
He was handsome. In a way that her body couldn’t help to respond to, reminding her of the way she felt when Eren looked at her sometimes, his eyes focused on her so utterly that it had to mean something.
“I know you understand, Miii-ka-saaaa. You have to talk to me eventually. Especially since I know you must have so many questions.”
She couldn’t help but glare at him then. Even though he knew it counted as an acknowledgement. In front of him sat some type of device that seemed to make it possible for him to take to her. Bulbous and unattractive, she hated it immediately. “If you talk to me, I’ll take the handcuffs off. So you’re able to move around more freely. I don’t think that’s too unfair of an exchange, is it?”
What would Eren do in this situation? It felt unlike him to do what this man said. He wasn’t one to follow rules nor participate in quid pro quo such as what this “Zeke” was suggesting. But she knew that he also would always endeavor toward anything that got him closer to freedom. In that moment, she missed him with so much longing that it hurt like a physical ache. It was through the lens of that almost-pain that she looked at her captor again and was struck how much he reminded her of the doctor who had saved her life.
“How are you related to Dr. Jaeger?”
Zeke smiled in a cold way. Nothing like the grins Eren’s father would give her when she brought him his tea late at night. Incandescent and sure enough to light up her insides, just as much as Carla’s bone-crushing hugs or Eren tugging on her sleeve to tell her what direction he was going. But there was some flicker of them – Grisha especially – in the way he turned his attention toward her, like he’d take genuine enjoyment in any reaction she might have to what he said next.
“I’m his son. The one he saw fit to leave behind. I doubt he ever mentioned me, did he? I guess, given what happened, it would make sense that he’d want to forget. I was surprised to hear that he took you in as well. Even referred to you as his daughter on official documents. So, I guess that would make us something like siblings, wouldn’t it?”
A storm of emotion – most of them terrible – reared up to her chest. But before it could swallow her completely, he pressed a button and suddenly, she was free. It was shock-inducing after how much time she’d spent caged.
She realized now that she was wearing something different. A long-sleeved shirt made out of a scratchy fabric, along with pants that were easy to move around in. All of it felt different to some significant degree to the clothing she’d grown up with. She found herself pulling at it, trying to tease out what these differences might be. Then, it dawned on her how these clothes might’ve gotten on her body.
Her furious humiliation must’ve shown on her face when she looked up at Zeke again. So much so that he threw up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, hey. Even though we’re family, I’d never do something like that. Some of the female scientists here helped you into those clothes.”
“We’re not family!” Mikasa spat with a surprising amount of venom. And for one brief moment, shock seemed to register on the face of the man who claimed to be Dr. Jaeger’s son. Reminding her so much of the way Eren’s father looked when he found them covered in the blood of her kidnappers’, angry and desperate and scared all at once. But it vanished so quickly, it barely seemed real. “What do you mean, he left you behind? Where’s this place? Where have you taken me?”
Whatever raw emotion she saw in him a few moments again felt unthinkable now. There was an almost regal quality to his face and the way it stole vulnerability away, like he’d been asked by the gods to aspire to something better. Its smug superiority made her sick. How could this man be Eren’s brother?
“Now, Mikasa, I know that we haven’t exactly met under ideal circumstances. But that doesn’t mean you need to be so hostile. Especially when I’m here only to answer your questions. I don’t expect much but if you could stop looking at me like you want to wring my neck, I’d greatly appreciate it.”
She sighed, trying to push all of her anger out of her mouth by brute force. It was hard to do it because she knew if she did it successfully, all she’d be left with was fear. So she did her best to squirrel away a bit of anger, just for herself, deep in a dark corner where she’d be able to find it when she needed it to get back to Eren. Only then was she able to make her face into something Zeke approved of. However, nothing prepared her for the way he communicated that approval.
“God, you really are beautiful, though.”
Mikasa felt her whole body lit up with a flurry of feeling she didn’t even want to begin to make sense of yet. Though a significant current of it came from disgust, she unfortunately could tell there was more to it than that. The longer she looked at him, the more he reminded her of them. That had to be the reason for the residual tenderness she felt. Though that didn’t fully explain why it throbbed in her in the same way it did when Eren and her gaze met for too long over a moment too meaningful to deny.
“Answer my questions,” she said, averting her eyes because she knew otherwise, her voice would tremble. She could feel him looking at her still, noticing the high flush that had spread from beneath her tunic to the high points of her face.
After a few blistering moments, he finally saw fit to take pity on her, though there was a new thick quality to his voice as he explained her circumstances to her. She was in Marley. It was a country across the ocean from Paradis Island. Paradis Island was the name for the place where she had thought all life existed. The name for people who were from where she was from were Eldians. Eldians were allowed to be citizens of Marley in very limited circumstances. One of the conditions of that was the harnessing of the Power of the Titans.
“Eldians are the only ones who can use it,” he explained, watching for her reaction. Her thoughts were swimming as she processed each new piece of information. Everything she knew became a lie, totally and utterly. She didn’t want to believe him but it was terrible, how much everything he said made perfect sense. If it was a conspiracy, it was a very good one with eerie connections with the mysteries the Survey Corps and Eren had begun to unravel before she’d been ripped away from them.
“So I’m an Eldian?” she asked, hating how small her voice sounded.
“Well, partly. Does the name Azumabito mean anything to you?”
She frowned, not enjoying the uncomfortable chord that name struck in her. Her hand went to the bandage that covered her wrist, struck by the urge to make sure it kept her scar covered. “You don’t need to show me what’s under there. But I have an idea of what it looks like.”
Why was this the thing that shook her the most? This man who already shattered her world with such ease knowing about this secret part of her, one of the only intimacies she’d given Eren, to such a degree that he could draw a facsimile of it and hold it up against the glass. Unable to fight the overwhelm any longer, she fell back against the bed. For one terrible moment, she wished she made a different decision – to stay silent and bound, ignorant but not plagued with this new and wretched knowledge.
“I know this is a lot, but there is one more question of yours I need to answer. And to do so, I have to ask you…Have you ever felt struck with unimaginable strength and power?”
She hated that she was so tired that it was impossible for her to hide her recognition of his words. Worse was the way he smiled at her approvingly, like betraying herself was something praiseworthy. “I knew you had. You know that has to do with you being an Ackerman, right?”
She nodded dumbly, happy that for once she wasn’t dealing with shock at new information. “Ackermans were an invention of the Eldian Royal Family. A way of splicing the human body with the strength of Titans. It was done in a place like this. Or at least, the ancient version of it. A Titan Science laboratory.”
“What’re you saying? I’m some kind of science experiment? What’re you going to do to me?”
Was that pity flickering across his face? Or something worse? She looked around herself wildly, once again taking in the fact that these accommodations were made with someone with her strength in mind. There was no obvious escape apparent yet. But that didn’t mean that one wasn’t possible.
“Mikasa, please. Don’t worry. What I’m trying to tell you is you’re important. Nothing bad is going to happen to you while you’re here. You’re just going to be under observation. By me, specifically. But nothing will befall you as part of these tests.” Then, he added without one bit of irony. “The only thing you’ll have to suffer is my company.”
Though it was shaped like a joke, it didn’t sound like one. But his expression was impassive, as withholding as the thick skin of ice that formed on lakes in the mountains during the winter. It unsettled her to see a face so emptied of human emotion. Especially while its eyes looked directly at her with an intent and focus that she didn’t know how to read.
“You’ll need to put your handcuffs back on. But after that, I’ll be able to take you on a tour.”
“A tour?” she spat out. The suggestion that any sort of enjoyment could be taken in any activity she did here insulted her on a deep and unfathomable level. Unconsciously, her fists clenched and she found herself drifting toward the clear material that separated them from each other. Wondering how thick it might be. She’d broken through many materials men thought unbreakable if not invincible.
“Now, there’s no need for that. You don’t want to hurt yourself. I know that you’re probably used to being the strongest in the room while no one expects it and using it to your advantage. But we know what you are. This place was designed with people like you and I in mind.” He paused for a moment to let the revulsion she felt at his words – the way he so easily paired them together – wash over her. “Trust me, if you had any chance of escaping this place, you wouldn’t be here.”
She gripped her fists even tighter, letting her nails dig in hard enough to draw blood. What would Eren do? The question repeated in her mind like a mantra. A taunt. The man who claimed to be his brother looked at her, awaiting her acquiescence. “C’mon, Mikasa. You don’t want to stay in this room forever, do you?”
Like he knew exactly what she needed, he dangled a sliver of freedom, glinting in the light like a precious charm. She didn’t need to believe him and his pronouncements. But staying here, enfeebled and ignorant would serve little purpose. With a frown, she put the handcuffs back on her wrists. Through some strange magic, Zeke hit a button and suddenly, she was caged once more.
Mikasa didn’t understand what a laboratory was, even though it was a word that Zeke said with such authority. He told her that was responsible for any strange sounds she might hear as they made their way through the maze-like halls. To her, the only thing it resembled was a labyrinth, the sort of place heroes in storybooks got trapped. Uniform and white in a way that was meant to deceive. Wherever she was housed, it was far away from what he wanted to show her. Perhaps suggesting that her little room was closer to a cell than he let her believe.
The ceilings were higher than she was used to, but she reasoned they had to be, with how tall Zeke was. She hated how her brain couldn’t stop pointing out differences between him and Eren. She knew she should use it for other things, like more closely observing halls they were winding through or trying to prod Zeke into conversation to learn more about her situation and what could be done about it. But instead, she found that every one of her senses seemed only interested in making sense of this strange man in front of her who claimed to be related to the people she loved most in this world.
It felt like a betrayal to notice, even. He was as tall as Dr. Jaeger used to be, she could see that almost immediately, and she hated it made her feel to be caught in familiar shadow. Like some part of her recognized him as kin even though she knew he wasn’t. Worse was the way she couldn’t stop noting the broadness of his shoulders compared to the doctor’s, and Eren’s too. She could tell that underneath his military uniform, he was made of muscle, no doubt like Reiner had been. How Eren was starting to look, the edge of his jaw growing sharper, more defined. Without knowing how she knew it, she could tell that the boy she’d grown up with might not grow to be this substantial, not with his wiry frame. It surprised her that even after realizing it, she still found Zeke’s back to be something to look at with interest as he led her out of the last of the hallways to an ominously large door.
“To get through this door, you’ll need to be with me,” he said, his voice startling her out of the Jaeger feature inventory that she’d been conducting. She expected him to produce a key of some kind but, instead, he did something strange to the door – pressing his fingers against a panel that felt strange against her fingers when she ran them across it. Once they passed through it, they were spit out into some type of corridor, in a similar style to the hallways they’d walked through but with windows and natural light.
Then, when they walked further into the building, she was greeted by the smell of food. Her stomach made a horrible gurgling sound, made all the worse by the way Zeke laughed at her. “Let’s get you something to eat.” Like he had the right to do such a thing, he placed his hand on her back as if to guide her. He must’ve felt her tense up because he added, “remember, Mikasa, it’s important that you stay on your best behavior. You’re a guest of this laboratory. I don’t think you’d like to find out what other accommodations we might have available for you.”
Like any mess hall she’d eaten at in her time in the Survey Corps, it is filled with tables. A handful of people – some of them in bright white coats and The kitchen must’ve been somewhere nearby; in the distance, she could make out the clangings of pots and pans. Places she might be able to find a weapon when the time calls for it. But it was hard to maintain such tactical thinking as Zeke directed her toward the front of the room where the heavenly smells were emanating from.
“I’ll serve you,” he said, with a snide smile directed at her handcuffed wrists. He’d at least had the courtesy to let them hang in front of her, but she still needed him to spoon servings of whatever they ate in this wretched place onto her plate.
It didn’t look or smell like anything she’d seen before. Thick green-gray clumps shot through with cream, slabs of meat that were far too fatty and pink to belong to any animal that Mikasa had seen before, along with some white mush that looked to have butter pooling in it. Her disgust must’ve shown on her face, because once again, he was laughing at her.
“Didn’t your mother tell you it’s rude to turn up your nose at food someone else makes for you?” he said once he deposited her and their food at a table. The few people who were nearby moved almost immediately, proving that perhaps all of the whispering that she’d heard as they made their way to their table was about her or him. She hated to be grouped in with him. It felt wrong, an insult to the family he claimed to be a part of.
“My mother died when I was nine.”
People who were untouched by tragedy were typically thrown by such a proclamation. But Zeke wasn’t. If anything, he just looked intrigued, tilting his gaze toward hers with benign interest. “Mine died when I was seven and she still found time.” Still, he made a gesture that he must’ve believed translated to tenderness, holding a forkful of beige mush in the general direction of her mouth. “Here, I’ll feed you.”
She glared at him, moving her face pointedly out of the way of his utensil. Still, he insisted, following her with an upsetting amount of speed and dexterity. “You need to eat something.”
She dodged him again, though this time, it was a near thing. The smell of butter wafting off of whatever he was waving in front of her face, reminding her of how long it had been since she’d had the luxury of easy fat. “Let me eat with my own hands,” she said, rapping her handcuffed wrists on the table for emphasis.
“Reiner told me that you’re a smart girl. So I’ll let you figure it out. Why would it be a bad idea for us to set you free just so you can eat some mashed potatoes?”
His tone was so snide that for one violent moment, she considered spitting in his face. But then she realized she had more effective tools at her disposal. Wasting his time. In his initial plea to her, he’d betrayed his hand, showing her that he had at least some interest in her staying alive. The best thing she could do was use that to her advantage. She could tell from the way that the room had fallen silent around them that she had made them into a spectacle. Not many men had much of a tolerance for that.
But it seemed that Zeke Jaeger did. Even in the stony silence she made them both sit in as their food grew cold, he didn’t flinch. The smile he was wearing, placid and cool like a lake nestled deep in the mountains where Mikasa grew up. The kind she knew would be freezing cold if she dared to jump in.It was nothing like the crackling fire of Eren’s determined affection. The way it felt to know exactly what he was thinking even if he wasn’t able to say it. A certain filthy purity maintained in the chaste nature of their love no matter what the secret looks he gave might promise her. Or had it all been in her head? Did she really know him as well as she thought she did? It felt like a strange bet to make in a world where so much was still unknown to them. Especially now, right after crossing a sea she hadn’t known existed before she was already on the other side of it. So even if it wasn’t all in her head, would anything come of it in a meaningful enough way to matter?
It was the thought she couldn’t stop thinking. Though that could just be because of the way thinking could grow monotonous in the face of sustained hunger. But now, the food had gone cold enough that the smell wasn’t enough to tempt her. Zeke had adjusted his position, leaning back in his chair with his long legs stretched out in front of him, serving the dual purpose of blocking her path to escape. The rest of the room moved around them, but they both only had eyes for each other.
After an hour or so, hunger became an ache. She realized then that she hadn’t experienced it much since she became a soldier of the Survey Corps. True, rarely did she enjoy what she ate, but there was always enough of it, and she rarely went to bed hungry. The days where she, Armin, and Eren went to sleep with their only lullaby coming from the groaning of their empty bellies were a distant memory. She’d grown spoiled.
Her stomach began to make embarrassing gurgling noises, letting on how empty it really was. Maybe she should’ve been grateful that he didn’t laugh at her openly, but it was easy to find fault in the way he covered his mouth with his hand to hide his snickers. She hated it. She hated him.
But that hatred was only enough to make her hold on for another hour and a half longer, once the kitchen began its preparation of dinner in earnest. Had food ever smelled so tantalizing? So irresistible? It took what little pride she had to keep her drool inside her mouth. All of it was made even worse by the way her head was swimming.
“Mikasa,” he said. “You’re about to pass out. You need to eat something.” At least he didn’t sound too smug about it. Or maybe she didn’t have her wits about her enough to register his tone and what it might mean. Perhaps that was a blessing, because he was right and it was good that he noticed earlier so he could be there to catch her when she swooned.
“You don’t know when to give up, do you?” he said, lifting her up in his arms.
“Where are you taking me?” she said, wishing she had the strength to fight the arrogant confidence of his grip on her. But she was too weak for much to come of it.
“To the kitchen to get you something to eat.”
She didn’t believe it really, not until he set her down in a chair in the steaming, humid room that all of the delicious smells had been coming from. The staff – wearing uniforms of all white – seemed to know him; they didn’t balk at his presence and barely spared her a glance. “The princess is ready for her dinner,” she thought she heard him saying. But at that point, all she could think about was how terribly her mouth was watering as she made sense of the bouquet of aromas surrounding her. Something thick, something vegetal, tang of salt, it hung on the air around her, almost enough that she could taste it.
When Zeke finally appeared in front of her, holding a spoon that was steaming with whatever soup she’d been smelling, she was ashamed of how stupidly she tried to reach for it herself. So much so that she felt herself flushing, a visible sign of weakness. And she braced himself for his mockery, made all the worse by the way her wrists chafed at her restraints.
But it never came. Instead, he said, “let’s try again,” with a careful neutrality. So intentionally scrubbed of emotion that it was almost tender in how little she could take away from it. She clenched her fists as he dipped the spoon closer to her mouth again. Reminding her of the dire nature of her circumstances.
For one terrible moment, Mikasa felt as if she was on the edge of crying. Tears collected at the rims of her eyes. Like a fool, she prayed that Zeke wouldn’t notice. Her pride was all that she had, it always had. It felt unimaginably cruel to have it ripped from her now in a foreign land, staring into the face of a man she only halfway recognized. Already, she’d let it bring her to this point, weak with hunger and farther away from escape than she’d ever been.
Eren would be ashamed of her.
It was with the thought of him that she finally let food enter her mouth by Zeke’s hand. Unable to help herself, a moan left her lips. Soup had never tasted so delicious. With heated cheeks, she turned to face her captor again. But rather than the expected malice, there was something far more confusing. A small, private smile.
He must’ve felt her looking because it disappeared, melting into his mask. “Eat,” he insisted, lifting another spoonful to her mouth. “You’re going to need your strength.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see,” he said.
No matter how many times she went through it, it always surprised her how much the human body was capable of going through. The first time, she’d barely been conscious of it – the small ways her little child brain found to smooth over trauma. Replacing the memory of her parents’ cut open bodies with the bright ferocity of Eren’s green eyes and his plea for her to fight. During their flight from Shiganshina, a strange sort of calm had come over her, almost like floating above her own body as she watched it proceed through the motions. Only Eren had been enough to bring her back to herself again – claiming that he’d wipe the titans from the face of the known world – and it terrified her how deeply she believed him if only because she knew the boy she cared for never did anything halfway if he could help it.
In the military, she was for the most part able to get by on who she’d been in the years leading up to being of conscription age. But Trost and everything that came after it required something more of her. Over the past couple months, she’d become harder. Less giving of herself to others who weren’t those who she held close. She learned how to steel herself without the assurance of Eren by her side, all ways that she could trust her body and what it was capable of. And maybe all of that had been leading to this, finding a way to live through the humiliation of requiring hand feeding by the enemy in order to regain the strength she needed to escape.
Most of all, she hated being at his mercy. Zeke Jaeger and whoever the fuck he worked for – no one told her anything. Wherever they were seemed to be a government building of some sort, going by the flags that she didn’t recognize but carried the saturated color of ceremony. Every day, she noticed something else he did that reminded her of Dr. Jaeger and each time, it was enough to make the food he was feeding her turn to ash in her mouth.
They had the same way of looking over their glasses. An almost eerie quality to the way their brows twisted with thought. So much so that she wished that her captor didn’t spend so much time submerged in the caverns of his mind if only because it made him look like the man she remembered with the adoration that belonged to savior-fathers and other minor deities. He rarely looked like Eren. From the violence with which she reacted to the moments where he bore a resemblance to Dr. Jaeger, she had a feeling this was something she should be grateful for.
Each day, they followed a similar pattern with an explicit focus on her getting enough to eat and spending some time out of her cell. Every couple of days, he took her to a man who had to be a doctor but he never said a word to her or looked her in the eye. Instead, a nurse wearing an armband that was a different color from the one she’d seen on Zeke revealed parts of Mikasa’s body to the doctor’s eyes, and he made notes on a clipboard. Every once in a while, the nurse took measurements but she seemed terrified of getting too close to Mikasa. As if there was something contaminating about her.
The outside world was not a luxury that she was allowed. The building she was being held prisoner in was vast, something new around each corner, and for some reason, Zeke seemed to know it like the back of his hand.. He’d gotten so used to her silence that he started to answer the questions he assumed to be in her eyes. It bothered her how frequently he was right.
“You must be wondering why we care so much about your health,” he drawled as she followed behind him, a twisted parody of an obedient cadet following a superior officer. For some reason, the loose-fitting uniform they gave her was the same color as his, apart from the red band around his forearm. It suggested more of an association between them than she cared for. The only reason she really was in lock-step was because he’d promised her that he’d show her something new today and she was in desperate need of stimulation. “Or your comfort. You know, it would’ve been more efficient to forefeed you.”
This morning, he’d surprised her with a small moment of humanity, so it made sense that he’d vaporize all traces of it in the hours following it.. The glimmer itself had been brief, another flash of quick light that she half thought belonged to a dream. But they were happening often enough that she was beginning to wonder what they meant.
Perhaps in service of that goal, he kept talking as he led her through a corridor she both had never seen before and had, by merit of how it was identical to almost every other place she’d been taken so far. Not caring if she seemed interested in what he had to say or not. “I wish I could say it was only altruistic. But unfortunately, my supervisors are interested in seeing that Ackerman strength of yours.”
Mikasa’s neck bristled at the suggestion in his words. Wherever she was now, it was far away from anything she was remotely familiar with. The handcuffs chafed at her wrists, reminding her of the embarrassment of her imprisonment. Like he was always attempting to but never quite succeeding, he was able to do a crude pantomime of mind- reading. It was only because of overwhelm that he was able to get closer to the truth than he usually did.
She flicked her eyes up, only to find Zeke waiting for her. They’d come to the stop at the end of a hall with a large door made out of a glinting gray material.
“Mikasa, you don’t need to look so scared. I think you’ll like what you find behind this door,” he said. Then, he opened it in the same strange way he’d done the other ones. She tensed, unsure whether she could believe him. Still, she went in after him.
Nothing prepared her for what greeted her. It was a room unlike any she had seen before. The floor bounced underneath her feet, surprisingly pliant. It was an unnatural color that she didn’t expect: dark blue. The walls looked to be covered in something. When she pressed her hand to it, she gasped when she felt its padding. In the corner were implements of some kind, which reminded her of the meager amount of athletic equipment she’d been exposed to while in the Survey Corps.
Zeke watched her with amusement. The hatred she felt in noticing this reminded her of herself and she glared at him with enough renewed vigor that he held up his hands in surrender. “It’s not my fault the island you grew up on is so backwards.”
“What is this place?”
He motioned for her to follow him. Unfortunately, due to her circumstances, she had no choice if she was going to get any answers. With a grimace, she did what he directed. But it was hard to walk when the floor beneath behaved differently from any floor that she’d had underneath her feet before. She came to a stuttering stop, holding her hands out in front of her.
She didn’t like how easily Zeke reached out to steady her. Like it was the sort of thing he’d be allowed to do. She winced away from him. From the surprised hurt on his face, he hadn’t expected it. But like any other emotion his face held, it was gone before she knew it. “It’s a sparring gym. For training,” he said. Then, he held up his fists for emphasis. “See?”
“I know what sparring is,” she said, thankful that Eren – either the boy himself or the thought of him – was the only thing that could make her blush. “What does that have to do with me?”
“Well, what better way to see what you can do? They want to see you in action.”
Mikasa’s shoulder hiked up around her neck. She didn’t like the sounds of this nameless “they” who seemed to pull Zeke’s strings. From the intonation he used, she’d deduced that he didn’t like them either.
She held up her cuffed wrists, looking at him pointedly.
“You’ll be free, of course. Not in a meaningful way but in this room.” He must’ve seen the way hope danced in her eyes for the barest moment because he saw fit to quickly disabuse her of any notion of escape. First, by encroaching on her physical space enough that she almost took a step back. Then, with his words. “But don’t get any ideas. The only reason your handcuffs are coming off is because I’m the one you’ll be sparring with. And you’d be very easy for me to kill.”
Mikasa didn’t have a choice in whether she believed him or not. Like so many things, that had been taken away from her by the threat of Grisha’s forgotten son’s shadow. Looming and dark and emptied of anything resembling love or care. But she was at least able to retain control of her face to betray little else.
“When?”
He grinned in a way that caused her insides to twist into new knots. It would be easier if it was just with fear. She would know what to do with that. It would make sense. But there was a darker current to it. A kind she had never experienced before. But she recognized it, in some distant far-off way. A cousin to whatever desire did to her when Eren was looking at her like all he needed to destroy the world was her permission.
“Tomorrow morning,” he said, and the new, strange feeling in her got even worse.
He came for her early in the morning with new clothes. The top was sleeveless and made out of a thin, supple fabric that felt cool against her skin. The pants were more form fitting than anything Mikasa had worn since she was taken. They made out a dark fabric that contrasts starkly with her pallor. “Oh,” Zeke said, upon seeing her. Then, he cut his eyes away before she could make sense of the look in them. He unlocked the door to her cell then, held out her handcuffs so she had no chance to think that things might be different today. But with a shock of anticipation, she remembered that at least temporarily, she would be freed.
She ate quickly, even though she still had to do it from his hands. It was easier to bear when she knew it was leading to something new. Still, he had to make things worse by talking. “So obedient,” he said, a mean grin on his lips that made him look nothing like Dr. Jaeger. Maybe that was why the urge to bite his finger gripped her so violently. The only thing that kept her at bay was whatever patronizing insult he might toss her way. Besides, at least she knew that after this, she would have the opportunity to kick the living shit out of him.
Zeke smirked. “Someone’s excited.”
She shrugged in response. Still, she didn’t resist when he helped her to stand and began to lead her out of the kitchen.
In all the time that they spent together, she hadn’t learned anything new about him. He didn’t speak much, mostly only to mock her or order her around. Though their first conversations had been full of revelations, he didn’t see fit to expand upon them. She was left with this strange and fractured view of him, refracted through the lies he claimed had shaped her life. It wasn’t as if she wanted to know him better but it bothered her how little she knew what to make of him, how none of the feelings she had about him felt right.
She found herself wondering what exactly Dr. Jaeger had done to beget the hatred that Zeke used when he said his name. It was a dark and thrashing thing that reminded her of whatever gripped Eren when he talked about how he wanted to kill all the titans. She hated that this was the first similarity she marked about them.
While she fully believed that Zeke was Dr. Jaeger’s son, the prospect of him being Eren’s brother was difficult to take seriously. They obviously didn’t share a mother. Zeke’s hair was so gold and glinting it reminded her of Historia’s and his eyes were dark, almost black. He was bigger too, a sturdiness to him that she doubted Eren would ever grow into. She didn’t like what her body did when she noticed this fact. It made the whirlwind of feeling that belonged to him storm through her chest, making it impossible to think straight.
Once they reached the metal door from the previous day, Mikasa did her best to steel herself. Taking an anticipatory breath, she shifted from foot to foot as she waited for Zeke to open the door.
“Impatient, are we?”
She glared at him. “Just open the door.”
Once the door was open, she couldn’t keep herself from practically jogging inside. Being idle never sat right with her and she desperately needed to move. Zeke laughed before locking it. The sound of the lock made was loud and clunking, alerting her to the fact that there must be some greater security measures at play. But that meant he hadn’t been lying that her handcuffs really would be coming up. She lifted up her wrists when he turned around to face her. “Remember?”
His eyes glinted coldly in the bright light. It was different from the lanterns and flame-lit lamps that had illuminated her life. Given the way he reacted when she asked other questions about the strange forces that seemed to govern his world, she was too prideful to ask. But it was difficult not knowing things and she didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to stand it. Especially when he looked at her like he was doing now. Almost in an indulgent way, like he had something resembling a human heart and it had softened for her.
“Of course,” he said, closing the distance between them. He took her wrists in his hands. Her stomach did a flip when she noticed how easily his hands dwarfed hers. Reminding her of the only reason she was being given this small freedom. The previous night, her mind wrestled with the question of whether she should believe his assertion that it would be easy for him to kill her like holy men might wrestle with their gods. She didn’t want to, but now that she’d been presented with the evidence of it, she didn’t know what to do with it and how it made her feel. It had to just be fear, she told herself, as she watched his long, limber fingers insert the key into the lock of her handcuffs. Without a soft pop, they fell to the ground.
Mikasa held her breath as she rotated her wrists in small circles. Rubbing at the places where she was raw and sore. And for one terrible moment, she was struck by the realization that what she planned to do was so much different from what Eren would’ve done. The second he was free, he would’ve leapt for his complete freedom, not tolerating this limbo for another second. And she told herself that meant that she should follow his imaginary example and leap for escape, Zeke be damned.
And like always, whatever flashed over her face was apparent to him. He waited with eyes that gleamed with watchfulness as if all he cared about in the world was her next move. He was also dressed in more form-fitting clothes, and it made it hard to ignore how many muscles he had and how the fabric clung to them. Maybe he could kill her. His hands were big enough to envelop her neck completely. From there, how hard could it be for him to do the rest?
She turned away from him quickly, hoping that whatever gnarled mess of thought that lurked behind her eyes was too twisted for him to make sense of. “Let’s fight,” she said, catching one fist in the other and finding satisfaction in the slapping sound it made.
“Whatever the lady wants,” she heard him say over her shoulder as she walked into the middle of the room. The floor bounced pleasantly underneath her feet as she got used to being able to use her hands. It was an unexpected pleasure to be able to do something she enjoyed this much. When she turned around to face him, fists lifting in anticipation, she had to bite back a smile. Especially when she saw him in his own anticipatory stance.
“Ready?” he asked?
She gave him a nod. And then they began.
He was good but she expected that. His muscles were clearly not for show and whatever entity that trained him required him to be a capable fighter outside the protective skin of his titan. The style he was trained felt related to whatever she had been taught as well, but more complex. Almost like it was a descendent, made more perfect with time.
It was the fourth day that he’d come to wake her and take her to this place. She didn’t know how many days she’d been here in this foreign land, something about the days she’d spent on the water made it difficult to keep track of any definitive contours of her days.
But every day that she fought with Zeke, she had the bruises to prove it. It always started the same. The two of them, circling each other with fists at the ready. Looking for an opening or sign of weakness but, unlike Eren, he didn’t act without thinking. Instead, he watched her watching him, an easy grin on his lips. Then, usually, he’d tease her a little, like that would make her act more recklessly. Usually needling little comments that made her feel patronized but nothing bad enough to actually spark her anger.
Until now.
“Say, Mikasa,” Zeke drawled as they circled each other like predators fighting over the same spit of territory. “Is it true that you’re in love with my brother?”
It was like a bomb had gone off. Her ears rang with his words, and she knew she was blushing and wide-eyed and all the stupid expressions of vulnerability that she never wanted to show him. And clearly, this was exactly what he had wanted, to catch her off guard. His fist came out of nowhere. It collided with her side and almost knocked her off her feet. Mikasa let out a groan of frustration as she managed to steady herself.
“Finally know how to rattle you,” Zeke said, wearing an expression so smug and grating that she immediately imagined ripping it from his face.
“You’re going to pay for that.”
For some reason, this made his smile even wider and the urge to bloody it was impossible to resist. He’d proven to her now that he was not above cheap tricks. Fury pumped through her body at the same rate as blood as she drew near to him.
“Really? You’ve yet to land a real hit on me.”
He was right. But this was only the first real hit he landed on her. She advanced toward him, eyes fixed to his face, He prepared for it, no doubt assuming her to be blinded by anger. Right at the last possible moment, she dropped to the floor and aimed a vicious kick at his left leg. With a sickening snap and a familiar hissing sound, he fell to the ground, cursing and groaning with pain.
“Holy shit, you broke my leg!”
She smiled down at him, enjoying the way it felt to cast his body in shadow. “It’ll heal,” she said.
“If you even think of running away, I’ll turn into a titan and vaporize you.”
“I know,” she said, taking a seat next to him on the floor. Steam clouded the air around the two of them. Maybe if she closed her eyes, she could pretend that she was with Eren instead. But of course, Zeke had to ruin that by talking.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he said, something managing to be obnoxious even when he was in excruciating pain.
“Who told you that?” she said, digging her toe into his side hard enough to make him sore. He groaned, one of his hands flailing out of the cloudy air surrounding his body to grab her ankle. Like always, he quickly proved his hold would be impossible for her to escape at the first sign of her testing it. He came to sit and she was forced to look at him again. She knew that to do otherwise would be an act of cowardice.
“Reiner and Bertholdt. They made a note of it in their reports. Apparently, the ferocity of your devotion made quite the impression on them.”
She didn’t know if she liked the sound of that. It threatened to confirm her worst fear which was that what she felt for Eren was one-sided or uneven in some humiliating way. Zeke must’ve sensed her disquiet because he quickly added, “don’t worry. They were sure to report on the fact that his love for you made him punch a titan over ten times his size.”
Mikasa flushed. “We’re family. That’s all,” she lied. Like a reflex, she reached for her scarf so she could press her face into it for comfort. But ever since she woke up in this wretched place, she’d been without it. She missed it now with a newfound longing. Who knew if she’d ever see it again?
The steam finally started to dissipate. She figured that at this point, Zeke was completely healed. Another opportunity that Eren no doubt would’ve taken squandered. And she knew that retribution was probably waiting for her once the air cleared.
But Zeke was still on the ground. His leg was straight, the only sign that it had been broken at all the hole a shard of bone had made in his paints. Through it, she could see the pale fact of his skin. Blood beating underneath it. Reminding her that he was human, just like her. He was looking at his hands like they held some great question.
“I don’t understand. Why would you keep feelings like that a secret from someone? We only have so much time.”
Mikasa’s mouth fell open at his words. “What do you mean?”
She shouldn’t have been surprised by it; how quickly and violently he turned more unfeeling than a statue. His glasses glinted in the light as he came to stand, hiding his eyes from her. “Nothing. Let’s go again,” he said, and Mikasa threw up her fists so he wouldn’t be able to catch her off-guard.
After they were both panting and sweaty, the score between them not yet unsettled, he clapped her on the shoulder. It caught her off guard, especially after all the time she’d spent dodging his blows. He gave a laughing apology, claiming that she’d jumped at least a foot in the air.
“What was that for?” she grumbled, pressing her hand to the skin he’d just touched.
“Nothing. You’re just better than I expected,” he said, the closest an asshole like him could ever get to a compliment.
It would be wrong to say that she looked forward to it. But in the meager existence that had been carved out for her wherever she was being held captive, she didn’t have much going for her. The food was rich and repetitive and never became familiar to her. Nor did it get less humiliating to be fed by another person.
One day during the second week of sparring, he handed her a golden pastry while they were taking a break. “Figured you might want to eat something with your own hands,” he said but he didn’t look her in the eye when he did it. Despite how much she told herself she hated him, she still gave him a small nod of acknowledgement before devouring the croissant with such fervor she reminded herself of Sasha. It wasn’t a mercy that she could expect every time she saw him but it was enough to matter. When she asked why he was so generous with her, he shrugged. “I’d prefer sparring you to remain a challenge,” he’d said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
It was a strange way to spend her time. Perhaps, the most disturbing thing was how Zeke became the defining measure of her days. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” she asked, one day while they were on their way to the gym.
He didn’t look at her when he answered, his eyes fixed resolutely in front of him. “I’m here because I’m ordered to be,” he said but there was an obscure meaning clinging to his words that she didn’t quite know how to understand. She didn’t like the way that he confused her; it made her wonder after him too much. When she greeted him each morning, she didn’t know the name for the feeling in her chest other than anticipation.
It didn’t help that their bouts were getting more interesting. Zeke had introduced a training regimen of sorts, claiming that whoever was watching her was interested in seeing how much she could lift and other feats of strength. With a frustrating intensity, he insisted on them stretching. Even though that had never been something Mikasa worried about.
“I rarely get injured,” she remarked indignantly as she reached down to touch her toes.
“I know. Your body is a work of art,” he said, offhandedly.
Mikasa came up from touching her toes too fast. It made her dizzy and her face red.
There was, of course, the obvious implication given what he had told her about the origins of her family. But there was a hint of suggestion that clung to his words, making her wonder if it could’ve meant something else. Having that thought was just as bad as wanting it to be true, she knew it immediately from the way her heart twisted in the cage of her chest.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Zeke blinked at her, almost as if he was only just registering what he had done. It seemed to dawn on him violently and he stared at her for a moment, like some great truth had been revealed to him. But then he was all business. “Nothing. Let’s get to it,” he said and before she could question him further, he assumed his initial fighting stance.
It wasn’t in her nature to back down from a challenge. Maybe that was why she chose to take him down with one of her most vicious moves, something she only utilized when she had to spar with Annie or Reiner. Once they were grappling with each other, she dropped to one hand one order to execute a high kick, catching him off guard. When she came down, she caught his leg between her thighs and pulled him to the ground. Before he could turn the tables on her, she reversed their positions. She didn’t realize that given the way their legs had been intertwined, it was going to end with her sitting astride him, her hands holding his wrists to the ground.
She was panting hard. So was he. The fabric of his shirt had ridden up a little, revealing the taut, defined muscles of his stomach. She couldn’t help but look at them, the dusting of gold hair across them. Did this mean Eren would be hairy too?
“Mikasa,” Zeke said, her name sticking in his throat. Warning in his eyes, threatening to be eclipsed with the dark of the desire. It was only when she settled her weight against him that she realized what he was trying to warn her against. The hard fact of his body and its arousal was impossible for her to ignore. It took every ounce of self control in her body to keep her eyes from drifting down so she could see what their bodies looked pressed together. He felt unfathomably big underneath her.
“I win,” she said. The evenness of her voice when she uttered those words were just as much of a victory as the fact of them. But then, the closeness became too much to take and she fell away from him with as much grace as she could muster. She tried to put as much distance as she could between them. As if she needed it to remind her something that her body had forgotten in the moments they’d spent intertwined.
“Good job,” he said, his voice catching in her chest with newfound roughness. They didn’t say another word to each other their whole way back to her room.
After that, it was different. He seemed to think more about where he put his hands on her and what it might mean. Didn’t let the calloused bit of his thumb catch on her lower lip anymore when he fed her dinner. If his face had been inscrutable to her before, it was nothing compared to the abyss of unknowing she was stuck in now. He didn’t even attempt to read her own moods for himself, content for the first time to let her stew in her self-imposed silence.
She should’ve been happy about it. It always bothered her how much he insisted on such warmth between them when he was their captor. She didn’t like it and the familiarity it assumed he had with her, the suggestion that maybe he and this place weren’t the worst thing that had ever happened to her. But like everything in Mikasa’s life, she only learned what it meant to her from its absence.
The worst part was how much easier he went on her when they were sparring. Not letting her win outright but calling uncle whenever it seemed like he’d have to touch her too much. Every night, she touched herself to the memory of what he felt like against her. She didn’t want to, never planned on it. It was like a compulsion, an itch that needed to be scratched in order for her to stay sane.
It started with a dream. One she’d had plenty of times of her and Eren sharing the bed that they did sometimes as children. Except they were older now and had the bodies to match. Usually, she touched him first, maybe because that was what she wanted to do the most. But eventually dream Eren would grow impatient and he’d touch her as well until they were both sticky and messy.
For some reason, it was different this time. Sometime in their kissing, Eren turned into Zeke. And it didn’t make her stop, even though she knew it should. Especially when the version of Zeke that existed in her head was so much more forceful and confident than its version of Eren had been. Leaving her no choice but to touch herself whenever she woke up, trying to recall the way his breath smelled in her nose.
Could he tell that she’d done such a thing? Is that why he was acting so strange? Today, he’d barely said a word to her all morning. She wasn’t exactly one to start conversation but it was depressing, chewing oat mush without the accompaniment of his inane babbling. Not even giving her the option to hate him. Without spite as a motivator, getting through the day was dreadful. She glared at him as they walked to the gym in silence, wondering if he understood what he’d taken from her.
By the time they got to the gym, she was spoiling for a fight. Fury beating underneath her skin at the same rate as blood as twice as powerful. He’d barely even glanced at her since they walked in. Mikasa knew she needed to act quickly. Before he could notice her advance, she closed the distance between them. “Mikasa!” Zeke said, throwing up his hands when she began to rain down a flurry of punches on him. “What’re you doing?”
“Sparring like we’re supposed to,” she said before aiming a high kick directly at his crotch. Zeke dodged it narrowly, cursing. “I thought you were supposed to be capable of killing me,” she added, smirking as he finally got into a fighting stance. Her words seemed to finally pierce the thick cloud of indifference he’d cloaked himself in. A scowl twisted his face and, finally, it seemed that she had gotten them.
“Is that really the sort of thing you need me to prove to you? I thought you were smarter than that.”
Finally, he landed a hit on her if only verbally. But it caught her off guard enough that she almost took a punch to the face before dropping to the floor in a defensive crouch. She went for his legs, like she always did, trying to knock him off balance. This time, he knew to expect it and dodged her.
She didn’t know how long they went at each other like that. Long enough that so much sweat dripped in her eyes that she knew it couldn’t all be hers. At some point, he took off his shirt. She did her best not to look but it was with a sore pleasure that she learned that his body was everything she’d imagined it to be. It wasn’t the simple fact of his muscles, the way his sweat glinted in his body hair, making it look like spun gold.
It was the fact that he was undeniably a man. Broad and solid and powerful in the way that only came with age and experience. And for the first time since he gave her the initial threat, she felt something like fear as he advanced toward her. Maybe that was why she acted so recklessly. As he encroached even more on her personal space, she saw no other option but to try to take him out at the knees again. All she had to do was convince him that wasn’t what she was doing.
She pretended to go for a high kick, straight to his face. It was a move she’d undoubtedly tried before, so he knew what it looked like and she saw the flash of triumph across his face as he prepared his counter. Before he could, Mikasa moved to drop to the floor. But something about the way their bodies lined up made them topple over, limbs intertwined.
Somehow, Zeke ended up on top. Initially, he slammed into her, his weight pushing her into the ground but quickly, he righted himself, pressing a hand to the ground. Like there was more drawing them together, he immediately looked at her face. She knew she must’ve looked quite a sight, red and panting. All she could do was pray that he couldn’t see the arousal she felt, something about the weight of him recalling a dream.
Without speaking, he lifted his hand. For one heart-stopping moment, she thought he was going to use it to do something terrible to her. He must’ve seen the fear in her eyes because, swiftly, he moved to cradle her face in the width of his palm. Mikasa sucked in her next breath, unable to make sense of what he was doing or how he was looking at her. Stop, she willed herself to say. But Eren’s brother’s eyes had gone almost black with desire as he drew his thumb across her bottom lip.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said, almost in a daze. “I don’t understand how he hasn’t done anything about it yet.” Then, before she could respond, he sealed her mouth with a kiss that knocked the breath out of her. Leaving her no choice but to melt against him and the confident way he slipped his tongue into her mouth like he wanted to map out every inch of her by feel alone.
Encouraged by the prickly heat inside her tummy, she rolled her body against his. At the feeling of his hardness against her, Mikasa broke off their kiss with a startled yelp. When she looked up at Zeke, his eyes were even darker, brown irises completely subsumed by black. “Mikasa,” he said, soothing his thumb along her cheekbone. “Is this what you want?” As he spoke, he rolled his hips against her once more, reminding her of what she was signing up for.
She hated the way her body tried to respond for her, making her let out a little moan when he pressed his hardness against the growing damp spot in her leggings. “I think it is,” he said, as if he knew she wouldn’t be able to say the words himself. Then he claimed her mouth again.
It was strange to learn that his room had been near to hers this whole time. That they had always been so close to each other without her even being aware of it, touching herself at night to the twisted thought of him. It was down a different hall and perhaps feigned at not being a prison cell. But the doors looked identical from outside, the only difference was that he had the strange key that was needed to unlock it.
Mikasa watched his hand as he did it. It was shaking. And she thought to herself, this would be the perfect moment to stage her escape. He was distracted. The very act of taking his hands off of her to bring her here had been difficult in and of itself. On their brisk walk here, he’d kept his fists clenched and he told it was because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to keep them to himself. “You have no idea, Mikasa,” he said, his voice breaking in a way that sent a vicious thrill through her.
And she realized then that whatever had been brewing between them was something he had been conscious of the whole time. That he’d thought about her in the time they were apart, imagined her body in the same way that she had been imagining his and that this was the sort of thing she could use to her advantage if she wanted to. Especially with the half-mad look in his eyes as he struggled to get his key into the lock.
It was what Eren would’ve done.
If she managed to escape now, she could pretend that kissing him had been part of her plan. That it hadn’t been a betrayal of any kind, but a means to an end. Eren would have to understand that if she ever saw him again, at least. But if there was anything that being taken by his brother had taught her, it was that there were no guarantees in life, that you never knew what might be taken from you and when.
You’re so beautiful. I don’t understand how he hasn’t done anything about it yet.
Zeke’s words kept repeating in her head on a loop. Taking on a hypnotic quality that lulled her into a trance that kept her still, or at least that was how it felt. And the more they repeated in her mind, the more truth she saw in them. Because hadn’t she been patient and understanding as Eren found his clumsy way into being a man, convinced there was some great feat he needed to accomplish to finally be worthy of her?
She tried to show him this wasn’t true in ways large and small. But he never seemed to believe her or at least didn’t seem to want to, like there was virtue in holding their happiness high on a shelf that he hadn’t yet given himself permission to reach.
And hadn’t she been patient? Understanding? She’d always known she was beautiful, it was absolutely true in the way that curses were, and she knew Eren had noticed. She felt him staring at her and never remarked on it, yet another kindness that she now felt differently about. What if she had? Would it finally break the terrible stasis that they had fallen into? Did he hate himself so much that he’d make her suffer for it, pretending that it was the noble thing to do? Or maybe she’d just die here and he’d die there and their love would be stillborn, a pale, tragic shadow of what it could’ve been?
“Mikasa,” Zeke said, holding the door open for her. There was a totality to the arousal reflected in his eyes that made her wonder if she should be scared. Her stomach clenched. His wanting of her was an undeniable fact and he wasn’t scared to let her know it. “You have to know that if you let this door fall closed behind you, I won’t be able to control what I might do. I’m not a good man. But you know that already, don’t you?”
She saw what he was doing. Reminding her of the truth that might’ve been easy to forget in all the time they’d spent together. But even in the moments when she was toying with her clit to the thought of him, that was something that she’d never let herself forget. He was a bad man and that was why she wanted him. More specifically, she wanted to see what his particular brand of cruelty might make him do to her, to stand up to the challenge he issued to her with his eyes.
“I know what you are,” she said and then she stepped inside his room and pulled the door closed behind him.
He gave her the kind of smile that showed all of his teeth. “Good.” Then, like a switch had been flipped, he was kissing her again, pressing her up against the door. This time, she was ready for him and how he took her in hand like he had something to prove. Only once she was breathless did he let up on her but he kept her pressed against the door.
“Have you ever done this before?” He asked, pressing a sucking kiss to the side of her neck that made her weak-kneed. He seemed to expect it, wedging his knee between her thighs so he could catch her. She was keyed up enough to keen just from that and he rewarded her with another bruising kiss to the side of her neck. “Let someone kiss you like this?”
He paused to press a grazing kiss to her lips and she hated herself for how intently her lips followed his when he pulled away. He finally pressed himself to her so intently that her insides clenched, a little gasp leaving her lips. “Felt a man’s hard cock against you?” The very word he used scandalized her, and he took advantage of her shock, taking her hand in his and drawing it to where he was hard. “Touched one?”
It felt like a dare the way he looked at her. She’d come too far to stand down now. So she met his gaze and held her hand against the large, sizable bulge in his pants. Swallowing at the way it felt in her hand. “Now I have,” she said, meeting his gaze. He grasped her face in his hand like desire had wildly possessed him.
“Am I gonna be the first to fuck you?”
Despite herself, she blushed. Finally, she’d reached the end of her nerve. Her hand fell away from him and she swallowed, trying to collect herself. Zeke didn’t seem put off by it in the slightest. In fact, he used his grip on her chin to pull her into another kiss, this one filthier than all the others.
Living the life she had, her virginity and the matter of losing it had barely been a consideration. She knew some of the cadets had experimented with each other in these ways but she never made a meaningful dent in her own inexperience. If Eren believed that her love was what was waiting for him when he finally won the battle of his life, maybe she’d come to understand that her virginity, or whatever remained of it, would be his to take. And she used to touch herself to the memory of him finally doing it, knowing that he’d kiss her with teeth and not let up until their hips were bruised and battered.
Yet, here she was. Offering it to Zeke Jaeger on a silver platter. “I take that as a yes,” he murmured against her lips and there was no other word for the feeling that filled his voice but hunger. Then, he was lifting her into the air, as if she weighed nothing. Like a primal instinct, her legs wrapped around his waist and she found her way back to his mouth like there was something life-sustaining that came from kissing it.
He walked them through his quarters. She registered the utilitarian nature of them with her peripheral vision, how what he lived in was only a slightly more habitable version of what she lived in. His room was only maybe half a size bigger, the bed just double the size of hers and taking up too much room. In the way of amenities, all he had were a desk and a chair, along with a sink and a mirror, somewhere to brush his teeth. He dropped her onto his bed with little ceremony, immediately covering her body with his again like he was scared she might try to get away.
For a moment, he looked at her. Like he was trying to make sense of what was happening. He looked at her and in his looking, it felt like he was peeling back layers of who she was with surgical precision. Finding the girl who had been raised in Grisha Jaeger’s home, at least for a year, and found home there. “Was my father good to you?” he asked, drawing his thumb along the small bit of collarbone that peeked out of her shirt. “Did he make you feel loved?”
Mikasa swallowed, not knowing what to say. There was a hard edge to his voice that made him think that her answer would mean too much to him. But there was a searching quality to his gaze that let her know that he wanted the truth and would know if she didn’t give it to him.
“Yes,” she said, sucking in a breath as his other hand slipped underneath her loose tunic. Earlier, it was soaked through with sweat but enough time had passed that it was now dry. Zeke maintained eye contact with her as he lifted her shirt. Revealing the toned, chiseled expanse of her tummy. Then, without warning, he drew his tongue across the divots of her abs, no doubt finding the sweat that had collected there.
She cried out, stomach tensing as he drew closer to the hem of her undergarment. “So sensitive,” he murmured against her skin, almost to himself. Then with dexterity that suggested he’d done this before, he undid the garment that kept her breasts secure. Mikasa hissed with discomfort as her nipples were exposed to the cold air.
Her shirt and bra were pushed up around her neck so, technically, she was still clothed. But she’d never felt more naked in her life. Especially as Zeke bent his face to her breasts. Only recently had she begun to fill out in a womanly way, no doubt in part due to the time she was able to spend here, idle and fed. She hadn’t noticed the new swell of them until he took one of them in his hand and it almost came close to filling it. She watched with embarrassed interest as he toyed with each breast with his big hands, pulling unintentional whining sounds from her lips whenever he grazed her nipples.
But it was nothing compared to the noise she made when he took the dark pink tip of her breast between his lips. It made her so wet that she had no choice but to be conscious of it, the insides of her thighs unbearably slick. When she looked down, she was greeted by one of the most profane things she’d ever seen: Eren’s brother pressing sloppy, sucking kisses to her nipple. Making sure to meet her eye as he did it, smirking against her sensitive skin. She didn’t know how long he kept up at that, switching between her breasts, but by the time he finally stopped, Mikasa had bitten her lip bloody trying to keep her whimpers inside her mouth.
Zeke was determined to tease them out of her. With a salacious grin, he finally took his mouth away from her, looking down to admire his handiwork. Mikasa couldn’t help but follow his gaze and was shocked by what she found. Her tits were shiny with his spit, and wore red marks the shape of his handprints.
His hands gripped the waistband of her pants. It was the moment she knew Eren would’ve paused. Looked to her for final confirmation that he was really what she wanted, even though he had no reason to believe otherwise. But Zeke did no such thing, despite actually having reason to. Instead, he met her eyes when pulled down her pants and undergarments in one, swift movement of his wrists.
While Mikasa knew that this probably was going to happen, that didn’t make it anymore bearable. Like a reflex, her knees fell closed as soon as she was bare to him. Zeke seemed to anticipate this, gripping her knees before she could bring them together. “You don’t need to be shy, Mikasa,” he said, holding her at bay. Showing her that he had the ability to force her legs apart if she decided that needed extra coaxing.
But she didn’t. Not when she could see how hungrily he was staring into the small window between her thighs. Like even the hint of her was good enough to lick his lips about. If that didn’t make his interest obvious enough once he sensed her muscles loosening, he helped her the rest of the way. “Ymir’s sake, you have such a beautiful little cunt,” he said, holding her in place in case shyness got the best of her again. It almost did as she registered what his words meant but once she met the resistance of his grip, she relaxed enough that he didn’t have to hold her legs open.
“Stop it,” she said as he continued to look between her legs like there was a work of art between them, something reverrant and wolfish about his gaze.
“No.” He gripped her hips once more and lifted them so her knees were resting on his shoulders. “Does my brother know how pretty you are here?” He reached down and spread her folds for emphasis. At the sensation of air against her swollen clit, Mikasa let out a trembling whine. Then, before she could ask him what he was doing he pressed his lips to her pinkest places in an open-mouthed kiss. Using his grip on her legs to maintain his access to her as she cried out, unable to make sense of the brutal, totaling pleasure that he was inflicting on her. Vaguely, she’d understand that this was something people had done as part of sex. But in her wildest dreams, she’d never imagined that it would be anything like this.
He lifted his mouth from her, shining with her arousal. Then, without warning, he spat directly on her clit. Mikasa cried out at the sensation, hating the way arousal and humiliation twisted around each other in her gut. He didn’t give her a moment to get used to it before he pressed his mouth to her cunt again. Using the wetness he’d given her to suck her clit so tenderly that she had no choice but to come apart.
The feeling he stoked in her made any orgasm she’d given herself paltry in comparison. Especially with how he didn’t let up, not even when she got so wet she thought something had gone wrong. But Zeke just moaned against her, and she could see his hips grinding against his bed. Reminding her of where this was going to end.
Anticipation gripped her insides. Zeke must’ve felt its presence in her body. He slowed his pace, soothing her with little kitten licks as his tongue found its way to her entrance. At the tender pressure of it, Mikasa made a wounded sound, bucking her hips. She couldn’t tell if she wanted to get away from the feeling or closer to it. But he solved the problem by taking the option away from her, tightening his grip so she had no escape. He teased her like that with the tip of his tongue until she was squirming against him. Ashamed of the noises she was making and how little control she had over them and how close they got to sounding like his name.
Need like nothing Mikasa had ever experienced before gripped her insides. She felt muscles she didn’t even know she had pulse and tighten, begging for something to fill the emptiness inside her. “Zeke,” she panted, coming up on her elbows. She knew she had to look a sight, breathless and flushed with pleasure, but she was beyond caring at this point. “Please.”
He lifted his mouth, his bread drenched with her. “Your little hole won’t stop clenching. I think I know what it needs.” Mikasa watched with wide eyes as he leaned back so his hand could get closer to where she was wet and aching. When the tip of one of his fingers grazed her entrance, she whined louder than she ever had before.
The humiliation was worth it for how well he rewarded her. With a mean grin, he fed her bit by bit of his finger. She did her best to take the stretch of it without complaint, not wanting to give him the satisfaction. But he seemed to sense this withholding nature in her and to break her of it, he was less gentle with the second one.
“You have such a needy little cunt,” he said, teasing his thumb against her clit so he could fuck his fingers deeper into her. She gritted her teeth with the stretch, but was surprised to find the small glimmer of pleasure at the end of it, his fingers brushing against a new secret spot inside of her. Without her realizing it, her hand had found its way to his wrist.
“Must’ve been aching for it for a long time, haven’t you? Waiting for a stupid teenage boy to realize what he had in front of him.” His body loomed over her, his hair wild around his face as he dragged his eyes across her body. “It’s a crime the way he’s treated you, Mikasa. If it had been me…” he trailed off, something dark and hidden ghosting across his face before he fixed himself. “If it had been me, I would’ve given it to you as soon as I could tell you wanted it.”
She knew he was being cruel. Unfair to Eren and everything they’d been through. But she couldn’t deny the current of need his words ignited in her, how they felt true to her in the way few things had been. A new eagerness made a home in her body, making her buck against the thrusting of his fingers. Forcing them deeper inside her. “There you go,” he said, looking down at her with a pride that was almost brotherly as she learned how to take him in this small way. “You think you’re ready for me?”
Even though she barely understood what he was asking, she met his dare with defiant determination in her eyes. It made him laugh, but he tweaked her clit as he did it, taking away her ability to say anything about it. Still, when he pulled his fingers from her, she let out a frustrated whine.
In everything that he’d done to her, she’d lost track of the fact that she hadn’t seen him naked yet. She’d seen glimpses of naked men in her life and never believed it to be anything of interest. But she couldn’t deny the way her body responded to the sight of Zeke’s hard cock, fighting its weight as it bobbed between his legs. It was somehow bigger than she expected, dripping and red at the tip in a way that made her insides feel funny.
She’d never admit defeat. Not when she’d gotten this far without losing her nerve. But for a moment, she balked, her lip catching between her teeth as she tried to imagine how that could fit inside her. He reached out and took her face in his hand with a tenderness that was almost comforting. Before she could take too much solace in it, the same hand fell to his cock. Mikasa watched as he used her wetness to slick himself up, even dipping a finger into her cunt to get more of it.
“You should be glad I’m the one doing this for you.” He placed the head of his cock against her clit. Mikasa couldn’t stop the way her whole body tensed up, jittery enough for it to be both anticipation and fear. “You aren’t the first virgin I’ve taken.” Then, before she could do anything about what he said, he notched himself against her entrance. “I know how to do it right.”Mikasa sucked in a breath, surprised by how much she believed him.
Despite everything, she trusted him with this. He looked down at her knowingly, arranging her body into the shape he thought was best. When he spread her legs enough that the head of his cock caught inside her. She made a wounded animal sound, her back bending with the confusing mixture of pleasure and pain, the feeling of wrongness overwhelmed by the certainty with which her body wanted him inside of it.
She felt him place a hand on her stomach. Steadying the muscles that were jumping beneath her skin. “Look at me,” he told her and she could feel the little rebel inside her, rearing up to fight him. Ready to pinch her eyes closed so tight that there was no risk of her doing what she wanted. But she realized with a frightening certainty that she wanted to see what his face looked like as he found his way inside her. She was still drunk off the way he’d stared at her body with such open admiration, the desire in his eyes enough to make her head spin.
Yet, there’s no preparing her for the way he looked at her now. Something terrible and broken open about his face. “Beautiful,” he said, though the word sounded like a curse in his mouth, like it was the thing that was forcing him to do this. He thrust into her then, a sure, brutal stroke of his hips that knocked the breath from her lungs and made her whole body quake with too much feeling.
She felt her eyes fluttering closed again. He must’ve noticed too because his grip on her chin tightened, forcing them up once more. “Don’t you dare,” he said. His hold on her turned almost bruising, matching the hot fury in his eyes. Something about it stoked a forbidden need in her, made worse when she noticed the way his gaze dropped to her lips. “When I’m inside you, you aren’t allowed to pretend that I’m him.” He punctuated his words with another sharp thrust of his lips, this one making her practically sob. The ache was just barely soothed by the thumb he pressed to her clit, rubbing her in slow, sloppy circles as he continued to torture her. “You’ll never be able to forget that the first cock you’ll have taken will be mine.”
As if to prove his point, he finally made her take all of him. Mikasa gritted her teeth with the effort of keeping her eyes open, even as tears collected at the corners of them. It was like being torn apart from the inside. Only with every passing moment, her body became more accepting of it. He petted her clit so stubbornly that she felt her insides slowly becoming gooey, something in her reaching out for more of him.
“There you go,” Eren’s brother praised her as the wet sucking sound of his cock thrusting in and out of her filled the bedroom. “Listen to how good you’re already taking me. You’re a natural,” he said, and when he kissed her with these filthy words on his lips, she was shocked by how much she liked the taste.
Praise had always done something to her, especially when it came from the right person. Carla assured her as a child that when he got older, Eren would learn how to give her a compliment without turning bright red and treating her differently for the rest of the day. But such a change had not truly come to pass and she couldn’t deny that there was part of her that had been left wanting. Making it easy for her to roll her hips up against Zeke’s once more in search of more affirmation.
“Shit, just like that,” Zeke groaned against her lips. The patterns he was drawing on her clit were getting more and more concentrated, making pain and pleasure blend together in an intoxicating haze. His mouth trailed downward, the sharp points of his incisors catching on the sensitive skin of her neck. Mikasa found herself whining with overwhelm, unable to keep her eyes open not because she wanted to think of Eren but because she needed to focus on what was being done to her.
Of course, Zeke noticed and he pulled her back to reality by wrapping her neck in the span of his hand. “Mikasa,” he said, attempting to sound teasing but she could tell from the grit in his voice that he was losing himself too. She forced her eyes open, only to be overwhelmed by the magnitude of feeling in his gaze as he looked down at her.
“T-too much,” she managed, and she placed her hand on top of the one he had on her neck. She needed something to center her, a more concrete pressure. Seeking it out by feel alone, she squeezed his hand tighter around her throat.
“Are you asking me to hold you down so all you have to do is focus on taking my cock?”
How did he know what she wanted without her knowing it? Somehow, her body knew the answer. It was because he was a man and experience had taught him what to do with her. He understood what was happening to her before she did, his thrusts slowing as a strange swooping sensation filled her gut. Unthinking, she reached for him, her hands flying to his chest. “Zeke,” she keened, blinking back tears she didn’t remember shedding.
“That’s it, lovely girl. Let go for me.” Once again, he spoke in a secret language that some primal part of her understood. Unlocking a new kind of feeling in her that made her make sounds she never had before, clinging to him with such intensity that she knew from the steam that filled the air that she’d drawn blood. “Come, Mikasa,” he ordered and she had no choice but to do what he said, unable to retain not even one shred of her dignity. She sobbed with how brutal and good it felt. Made all the sweeter by what Zeke was saying now that his composure had finally shattered. “Fuckin’ christ, your cunt must be from heaven. You’re heaven,” he groaned as he spent himself inside her.
It was a mistake for him to insist upon her looking him in his eyes because it ensured that she’d be looking at him then. And she saw a look so wounded to make her feel anything other than the need to rid him of it. She kissed him then and told herself that she did it because she wanted an excuse to look away.
Still, they kissed for a while after that. Long enough for their bodies to start to come apart as sweat made their skin stick closer together. She’d never thought of being with anyone like this before – naked and covered in them while they explored each other’s mouths – but it surprised her how much she liked it. Unfortunately, for an enemy, Zeke Jaeger had taught Mikasa a great deal about herself.
Eventually, the soreness between her legs was too much to take. She fell away from his mouth with a whimper and, like he promised he would, he knew what she needed before she had to ask for it. “Wait here,” he murmured against her lips and then he got out of bed. Mikasa looked around his room drowsily. It was too mundane to not be real, for this to all be a dream.
She heard the sound of a faucet turning on. The water ran for a while, long enough that he seemed to be waiting for it to get warm. When he returned, her suspicions were confirmed because the wash cloth he soothed between her thighs was pleasantly warm. Part of her resented him for it, believing she deserved the pain as a penance for what she’d done. Still, Zeke insisted on being the kindest he’d ever been to her.
Later on, she’ll reflect upon this moment and think about how cruel he really was. But at the time, she was dumb enough to let herself get lost in the easy relief of what he was doing to her. It contrasted sharply with the terrifying knowledge that she already felt herself wanting him again. He must’ve sensed it in her and in a rare moment of mercy, maybe he finally reached the end of his own depravity. A boundary that even Zeke Jaeger was unwilling to cross.
“You should get dressed. My brother has finally found out where we’ve been keeping you. He’ll be here very soon.”
By the time she comprehended his words, her ears were already ringing. She came to sit in an almost mechanical way. When she opened her mouth to speak, it was almost impossible to hear her own voice over the frenzied beating of her heart.
“Soon?” she said, her voice breaking.
In the time they’d spent together, he’d never taken off his glasses. She thought for time to time that it was so he could do this: tilting his face so any feeling in his eyes was inscrutable to her. “I won’t stop you from leaving,” he said, and then it was like the door in him that he’d previously opened to her fell closed, violently and suddenly. “You’ve seen enough to be able to find your way out.”
Zeke is right. Once she’s dressed, it only takes Mikasa fifteen minutes to find her way out of the labyrinth of the lab. It helps that it is now deserted. She doesn’t have time to wonder how long it’s been this way, not when she’s just barely keeping it together. The soreness between her legs, pulsing with her every step, is a constant reminder of what she’s done wrong.
When she makes it outside, the surreal brightness of it is so blinding she falls to her knees. But she doesn’t need sight to know whose hands reach out to her and lift her back to standing. “Mikasa,” Eren says, his voice creaking like he’s aged an impossible amount in the time they’d been apart. But she knows the smell of him as home and after everything she’s been through, she can’t help but bury her face in his shirt as soon as she’s able to. “Mikasa, he says again, his arms wrapping around her so tight like he’s afraid of her disappearing before his very eyes.
Finally, her vision clears enough so she can make out his face. The sleepless shadows beneath his eyes, the new tanned color of his skin, suggest he's spent all of this time in foreign sun. And his eyes themselves are bloodshot and hopeful enough that she knows all of it was in pursuit of her. His hands find their way to her face, cupping her cheeks with such open tenderness that she should know what it’s about to happen.
But nothing prepares her for the simple fact of Eren Jaeger’s lips on her own. And it’s like coming home in the best way possible, the promise of their love finally being delivered upon. The hungry way he mouths at her lips, begging her to open to him and how easy it is for her to do it, like yielding to him is what she’s always been meant to do.
Until his fingers catch in an unexpected place, where she used to wear her scarf. But she can’t remember the last time she had it. Still, like a phantom limb, she finds herself reaching up to check for it herself. She falls still when her hand makes contact with the familiar fabric. Zeke must’ve left it with her things and she’d put it on automatically, without even noticing.
The reminder of Eren’s brother makes her stiff. Eren notices, leaning away from her with affectionate understanding in his eyes. “I love you, Mikasa. I’m sorry it took me so long to realize it,” he says, and his eyes are filled with adoration so absolute she has no choice but to believe in it. Before she can respond, he kisses her again.