A window was left propped open, and from window ledge to window ledge, crack to crevice she had inched, crawled, and skulked, the sweatpants and tank top drenched in that relentless downpour.
With adeptness to secrecy and silence, it was an almost nightly routine – the blonde's own paranoia clawing, carving aching pains into her ribcage as the night drawled on.
What was she doing? What was her purpose? Seeking was its own duty, the purpose, blood thrumming in her ears louder than the rain pattering the barracks. Her feet scraped and sloshed through gravel and puddles and finally grass
The moon caught those raven strands in place of sunlight. Annie could see the paleness of her skin even from her distance, basking in that glow. How her clothes, drenched, outfitted her form so traitorously.
Spotting Ackerman was not a nightly routine.
Such a woman held her head high, facing the sobbing skies without so much as a flinch to the chill, the bone-seeping wetness. The glimmering dark strands of her hair hung, clinging to the pronounced edges of her face, her jaw, her cheeks. Mikasa relished the atmosphere, the quiet, the opportunity to debate.
"Hey."
The surprise etched onto her fellow comrade's face was priceless as she announced her presence.
Annie stood to admire that rare shock.
Having snapped her neck in the blonde's direction so quickly, it stung, and yet Mikasa's eyes shone bewilderment in place of a wince. Somewhere along the line, Leonhardt purchased a grip on the other's sleeve. It was grounding to the one whose head was above the clouds.
"You're heading to the forest, aren't you?"
No, she was not. Mikasa was content on standing there in the midst of the chill and the lulling silence.
But she would be, if it would prove to be a desirable answer for the other.
"I was." Annie continued from her previous statement. Eyes that countered the luminous glow of the moon challenged the other for a response.
The challenge was not met immediately. Mikasa stared on, almost as if looking past the other.
When Annie motioned to speak again, she was interrupted.
"I know."
So quickly was she caught into wordlessness. For how long Mikasa had been aware of her nighttime ventures was beyond her. The corners of her lips tugged into a slightly more pronounced frown.
The sky was bruised and thundering, and for a few moments, they shared the solace of company. The muted dark around them was confining – isolating. Yet not entirely uncomfortable. Not like the chill that spread through their bodies. Annie shuttered and shivered despite efforts of repressing and being discreet about it, strong foundations of spirit shaken in their raw state. She could not help but notice the absence of the red scarf around the other's neck. Of course she would not want to get it wet. For flittering moments, Annie's hopes boiled. Was the other finally taking her word – finally becoming less strictly dependent?
Among those things, she noticed how Mikasa's posture changed. How her eyes no longer looked slightly past her in thought, but more directly at her. How she bit at her lower lip.
She felt remotely sick inside as the features of the comrade became more pronounced; how locked on those eyes she became. Annie came to the fortunate misfortune of experiencing the cluttered mess of contact many would dub as affection. She was none the wiser as to why, nor was the participant.
Before Mikasa had the opportunity of tracing boundaries on her own accord, icy fingers traced up the line of her jaw before a palm followed. The chill was lost in the drops that ran down shuddering skin and warm breath warned of quivering lips with uncharacteristic hesitance.
The breath, it seemed, gave way to the stark hesitance as the contact became firm and slightly uncoordinated. Unfamiliar.
Mikasa, frozen and aching melted against the blonde. A tilting head followed into fierceness against another pair of lips. One hand rested to an arm, the other strapped around another's shoulders. Tentative action was irrelevant to progression.
They became breathless all too quickly, and when they parted it was leisured.
The thrumming within the blonde's ribcage was no longer tribute to the rush gained from sneaking about at night, chancing discovery with every step she took. If possible, Mikasa was even more shaken.
The stars were theirs under the stained landscape. They remained within the tight grip that the closeness had established, scrutinizing, avoiding direct means of eye contact, searching every bit of one another's expression that would reveal anything to them and yet avoiding showcasing themselves.
They had kissed. Not once in their lives, but for the second time, and it was just as unwarranted as the first. Unspoken. They sought explanation where it was striven to be concealed. It was a rush.
"You taste like mud."
A blatant effort on Leonhardt's behalf to push things by. Mikasa's lips quirked lightly in some distilled form of a smile, and Annie dipped her attentions down to the jacket the other wore. Hands had long since dropped from the contours of the other's face, and fingers began to run along the fabric of the jacket, and article that the blonde prominently lacked.
Mikasa seemed to note this, tugging her zipper down, and pulling Annie closer. Only then did it seem vivid just how soaked she was. Annie gave little to no protests, turning her head, and leaning into the other.
To reach the recesses of the forest no longer seemed to be an objective for either. They stood at the line of trees, shielded from the view of any night-prowling officials by the outliers of trees that sparsely decorated the field.
It was there that they stood, interlocked and ignorant to the troubles of their cluttered and chaotic world for even those fleeting moments without protest to unforeseen company.