A/N: Prompt: "things you said when you thought I was asleep." Written for wordmelody on Tumblr.

I need more Eren-sided Eremika in my life, because while I heart and fangirl and adore Mikasa, girl wears her heart and all her vital organs on her sleeve. Precious babiesssssss.


The Jaegers' house in Shiganshina is good-sized, warm and well-kept, with a high ceiling and a stone floor that's been scrubbed almost to a shine. There are jars of herbs on the counter, flowers at the dining table, four chairs ringed around it as though they were expecting her.

Dr. Jaeger and his wife are careful and kind, calling her gently by name—sit at the table, this is her chair, have some soup, get some sleep, poor dear. She is cocooned now in a nest they've made for her at the corner of the sleeping room they all share, out of every spare blanket and every spare pillow in the house, bundled up until only the crown of her head and her eyes show above the cloth. What a nice place, she thinks. So like her house, but also so unlike.

Such nice people, so like her family, but not her family. Not yet.

She can't sleep, but she pretends for their sake, closes her eyes against their good intentions and their worry, slows her breathing, listens.

"We're going to keep her, aren't we?"

Eren, though. Eren is unlike anything in this world.

Nothing about him is quiet, for starters. She can hear him where he stands next to his mother, drying the dishes roughly and all but tossing them onto the drying rack-clatter of porcelain and thump of wood, the persistent, skidding sound of the rag in his hands.

"Shh, Eren, Mikasa's asleep." Mrs. Jaeger is much quieter, slightly scolding, but without an edge—there's a lightness on the ends of her words, almost a repressed giggle. "And what do you mean by keep her? She's not an animal."

"I don't care what she is." There is fire in his voice. It always sounds like he's spoiling for a fight, but from where she lies she thinks it's the warmest sound she's ever heard. "She's ours now."

"Eren—"

"She's mine. I'm gonna take care of her forever."

Mikasa curls closer into herself at that. The only response is a soft laugh, the squeak of the faucet, the silence of the water.

"Of course, dear. Now dry your hands and get to bed."

Then he is climbing in next to her, burrowing out a space for himself in the bed they will likely share forever, however long that is.

The last sound she hears before she finally falls asleep is the loud rasp of his breath as he snores.