冷たい手 - Tsumetai Te

The buckle clattered against itself, the strap swinging out of her grasp for the umpteenth time. The horse pawed the earth, dragging up clumps of wet, red and yellow leaves. Impatient. She mumbled a curse under her breath and bent beneath the beast's belly to retrieve the strap.

She hated Autumn most; it was the slow descent before the quietus, when everything withered and moldered and the ground was damp with rot and old things. She hated it more than winter, that barren lacuna of time before the world woke again; in that regard it was easy to put one's head down and get through the months. A hibernation. Even the Titans were slow then. Winter was death. Autumn was dying.

Still, Mikasa never remembered taking to the season quite this poorly. The weather had turned a month ago, followed by the leaves, and now it seemed she could never keep warm. Her hands were numb, cold-kissed and stiff like ice. It helped to move, and military work kept her moving, but her hands…

Poor circulation, Hanji had said. Even when she managed to get the rest of her person warm, her fingers remained frozen. Eren would laugh every time she cupped her mouth to breathe hot air onto her chilled flesh. Armin would join in, and she knew it was all in jest, but the feeling of dead hands left her disconcerted.

The saddle was set. The horse whickered. She was falling behind.

"Slow today, Ackerman."

She ignored her captain, ignored his penetrating gaze as she swung herself onto the horse's back. She shivered.

A man died that day. A boy, really. Not much older than she. He'd passed slowly, gasping on the cold ground, eyes seeking and reeling, and she'd sat beside him and held his hand. That had been all she could do, anyway. If he'd asked her to kill him, she probably would have, though. When he went, so did his warmth. She'd held his hand even after, and it hadn't felt much different from her own.

"Mikasa?" Armin. He was worried. "You haven't eaten."

"I'm fine, really. Not too hungry."

He didn't press, but she could feel his eyes on her back. She held her hands to the fire, the warmth delicious. Bone-warming. She thought of the dead boy, of the gold and red leaves in his hair.

Sasha made a pie. She had a few bites to be polite—though it really was a good pie, and the ingredients were a luxury their station was rarely afforded. Even Captain Levi had a slice. She caught him staring at her from across the table, his thin brows drawn. He was perceptive, but the number of people inquiring to her mental health was starting to become concerning. She needed to pull it together.

She wore gloves the next day. An old pair of Sasha's. They were too short in the fingers, but the material was nice—quality leather with some kind of fur lining.

The leather was supple, but she found it difficult to pull the triggers of her gear. To be fair, it was more likely due to her senseless digits than the gloves themeselves. Nonetheless, she packed them away after only an hour.

"Any week now, Ackerman."

This was becoming familiar.

Everyone had already loaded up their gear and refilled their gas. Mikasa was lagging, fumbling with the gas cylinders, her stiff fingers making the mundane task far more complicated than it needed to be. It was an hour before go, and the third day in a row where the teams had all returned without a casualty. The term "lucky streak" was bandied. The desire to maintain said streak added a new layer of anxiety to the group, especially the squad leaders.

"I'm sorry, sir." She brandished a pallid hand. "It's the weather." Never mind if it were true, it was a weak excuse, and she regretted it as soon as she said it. "This time of year...the weather..."

A thin, dark eyebrow inched up the captain's forehead. "The weather."

She swallowed.

"Well, there's one you don't hear everyday." He turned and left then, left her to her shame and her gas bottles. She could have screamed.

The streak was broken that day. Five people in rapid succession. She would never admit it, and she wondered what kind of monster it made her for even thinking it, but a small piece of Mikasa was actually relieved. A tension had been lifted.

"Gah—fuck, Mikasa!" Eren yanked his arm out of her reach, rubbing the spot on his forearm where she'd placed her hand.

Armin was laughing, swallowing his dinner hurriedly to keep from choking. "Did she get you with her icicles?" He fluttered his fingers at Eren, taunting.

Mikasa grimaced, forcing mirth in a show of contrition. Eren quickly got over his flesh wound, carrying the conversation to a new topic that had Armin laughing anew. She caught the words "Kirschtein" and "horseface." Her eyes glazed, drifted, and landed on a clever pair of blue-gray. The captain regarded her for a moment, unblinking, before his gaze lowered to her untouched dinner. They both looked away.

Throwing knives had become a hobby; knives held no value in a fight against a Titan, but the skill wasn't completely useless. And she was really good at it.

However, it seemed that, more often than not, the blades were meeting the ground instead of a target all thanks to her wretched fingers. So, her hobby had been put on hiatus.

It was Saturday. An off-day. Not that they really got those, but that's what this day turned out to be. She was standing in a barren field, a knife in her hand and a target dead ahead. She'd thrown the other five, and they'd all met the dirt or some shameful proximity of the target. Her hands were trembling now, the fingers numb from cold despite the sweat on her brow and neck.

She heard him approach, knew who it was without looking, which she found odd. He paused a few yards behind her, waiting. Now that she had an audience, the slim odds of her landing the final knife evaporated.

"I'm afraid I'll only make a fool of myself if you decide to stay and watch."

The captain didn't reply, his tread virtually silent upon the soft earth as he approached. He stopped at her shoulder, gazing at the crude target carved into the dead oak six meters ahead. He lifted his palm, a wordless request for the knife. An old anger sparked in her belly at the thought of him crowing over her failures.

He surprised her, however; he turned the blade over in his hands, feeling its weight, making no move to throw it. When he finished his perusal, he passed the weapon back to her.

"That's a good knife."

She didn't know what to say, so only nodded. It was a good knife.

"So, it's not the knives, then. And it's not your skill, because I don't remember you being quite this shitty."

Ah, anomaly over. She bit her tongue, refused to glare, letting the knife in her hand have all her attention. He waited in silence. She didn't answer. Wouldn't.

"You need to eat more."

A laugh escaped her unbidden, and only then did she let him see just a hint of her pique. "I really don't think food is going to—"

He cornered his gaze to her, that one brow arching. She hated the authority he commanded with just a look. "It's of no business of mine what you do or don't do. That is, until it affects your performance. You don't eat, you run out of fuel. And when you run out of fuel," he reached between them and captured her hand, the one that held the knife, and she all but gasped at his brazenness, "you don't function."

The urge to whip her hand free, to fire back a riposte, was tempered only by the feeling of his very, very warm hand. She was reminded of sitting before the fire a few nights prior, of planting her numb palms against the flags of the hearth and soaking up their heat.

Levi plucked the knife from her grip and speared it into the earth with a flick of his wrist. He reached for her other hand and sandwiched it and its mate between his own, massaging her chilled fingers between his palms.

It was strange to view Captain Levi this closely, this intimately. He had strong hands, with long fingers and healthy, blue veins that sparked down his forearms and across the back of his hands like lightning. His skin was marble-pale and rugged from manual labor and years working ODM gear. She doubted he took to the sun as well as even she did; he more than likely followed the constitution of Armin, who burned while Eren browned. She'd always fallen somewhere in the middle.

"It's a burden, I know, and it's probably not fair, but the truth is that you're better than most and that means you have a greater responsibility." He wasn't looking at her, gray eyes fixed to the movement of their hands. "You can't afford to trip up."

The friction of his calloused palms and fingers was slowly beginning to bring sensation back into her frozen flesh. Her skin tingled, turning ruddy around the knuckles as he worked the blood back into her digits.

He slowed his ministrations then, rubbing her hands with more care, taking his time. The unusual closeness was augmented by the now sedate speed of his movements, forcing a new level of intimacy that had Mikasa tucking her nose into the safety of her scarf to hide the girlish blush that inflamed her cheeks.

She couldn't look up at his face completely, even if he was too preoccupied with her hands, and so settled with staring at his hairline. "I'm not usually this cold," she mumbled, annoyed by the diffidence in her voice.

He looked up then, at the same moment she cast another furtive look across his face, and their eyes locked. He nodded at her words, taking in her features with the same forward praxis as when he'd taken her hands in his. She felt undressed by his gaze, invigorated in a way she didn't know one could be under the eyes of another. His thumb passed across the back of her knuckles, a deliberate motion that served no purpose to warm her, and she shivered for an entirely new reason.

"It doesn't stay cold forever," he murmured before releasing her hands back to her sides. They were clammy and hot now.

Coming from anyone else it would have sounded like hollow comfort—ridiculous, even. But the captain's gray eyes were sincere, voice uncharacteristically soft, and the sentiment felt somehow profound. Mikasa felt a piece of herself relax.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it." He jerked his chin at the knife protruding from the dirt, and then scratched the back of his neck. It was a rather boyish gesture and reminded her of Eren.

She stooped and retrieved the knife, thrilled by the newfound dexterity in her fingers. She twirled the knife along her knuckles just to feel the mobility, turning slightly away so the captain wouldn't think she was posturing. She readied her stance and worked her grip to the end of the blade.

The knife sailed home, landing with a satisfactory thud smack center of the target.

"There she is," he breathed, and it was perhaps the closest thing to praise she'd ever heard from her captain. It made her feet feel light, made her head spin. It made her feel downright, giddy.

She managed to curb the stupid grin that wanted to overtake her face and give him a curt nod, her second thank you. He returned it, expression equally phlegmatic, though the crease in his brow had noticeably lessened. He sent one last glance to the oak tree before peeling away from her side and walking back the way he'd come.

"Stay warm, brat."

A/N: This was written for the RivaMika Weekend event on Tumblr with the theme "Autumn," and was originally titled, "Stay Warm, Brat." Kept forgetting to post it here! A bit somber for the theme, perhaps, but I wanted to show the different sides to Mikasa's and Levi's personalities; vulnerability and tenderness, respectively. You can find it on Tumblr, but this version is edited. The title is Japanese for "cold hands."