Kisses
After the pervious mission's success, everyone had high hopes. This mission wasn't a failure—not many soldiers had been lost and there hadn't been a high amount of major injuries, besides Eren.
That brat, Rivaille sighed to himself.
No one was really sure what had happened. After Eren had turned into a titan, they'd lost track of him. Four hours later, when the area was mostly clear of titans, they'd found his titan. There wasn't much left to it; it was obvious he'd taken much more damage without any fellow soldiers around to protect him.
But it wasn't only his titan that had taken damage, Eren himself was a mess. Because most of his titan was gone already, getting him out in one piece wasn't much of an issue, but there were deep cuts and gashes everywhere, along with a fever so high it actually hurt to touch him for more than a moment or two.
Rivaille was absolutely furious that they'd let Eren out of their sight. The anger only got worse as the week went on. Eren hadn't woken up yet, and the deepest of his gashes wasn't fully healed. The bandages had to be changed often, as the bleeding wouldn't cease.
It was Saturday morning when Eren finally slipped into consciousness. Rivaille had been changing his bandages when the boy's green eyes slowly began to open. They met Rivaille's for a long moment.
"Tch, it's about time you woke up." Rivaille broke the eye contact to tie the fresh bandage.
Eren flinched, groaning. Even though Rivaille's voice was quite when he spoke, it made the pounding headache worse. And his side hurt too much for him to feel like he could properly form words. He eventually did under Rivaille's expectant glare. "H-how long was I out, sir?" His voice was raspy and he was desperate for some water.
"A little over a week," Rivaille replied. He moved to the bathroom and came back with a large glass of water for him. He helped the teen into a sitting position, being careful of his side, and handed him the glass of water. Eren almost dropped it, being incredibly weak, but Rivaille steadied it for him.
In a normal situation, Eren would have been completely embarrassed, but the help the Corporal was giving him was very much needed for the time being. When the water was gone, Rivaille set the empty glass on the side table, pressing his hand to Eren's forehead. His temperature was definitely better than before, but was still too high.
"Sir?"
"What is it, Jaeger?"
"What happened out there? Why hasn't that closed up yet?"
The Corporal knew he was referring to the gash in his side.
"Your titan form took too much damage."
Eren looked away from the Corporal, trying to remember anything past even turning into a titan. He could recall killing titans for what seemed like hours, though it was blurry.
"Eren."
"Yes sir?" His eyes met the Corporal's again.
"I'm going to get Hanji. She's been impatient waiting for you to wake up. Try and remember as much as you can, she'll probably have quite a few questions."
Eren's brows furrowed after Rivaille was out of the room. He didn't seem as cold or as distant as usual. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he'd nearly died?
Hanji had stayed with him for quite a while, trying to get him to remember as much of the mission as he could. Afterwards, she idly chatted with him about this and that, mostly telling him some new theories she'd come up with about the titans since the mission.
Mikasa and Armin came in after dinner time.
"How are you feeling?" Mikasa asked, giving him a careful hug.
"Um, okay, I guess." His headache was getting worse throughout the day rather than better.
He was almost asleep when he heard the door open. He couldn't bring himself to open his eyes to see who it was. Besides, he could tell it was the Corporal from how light the footsteps were.
He felt the hand on his forehead again. Rivaille's hand lingered there before he ran it through Eren's hair, pushing it back and leaning down to press a soft kiss to the boy's forehead.
He listened to the retreating footsteps of the Corporal, and then his door opening. "Brat," he whispered, but Eren was sure he could hear the smile in Rivaille's voice.
Another drabble/ficlet, this time with my otp! I've had this idea in my head for a few weeks now and I've been struggling to write it. It didn't turn out how I'd like, but I think it's good enough. I'm not sure if I'm going to write more or not. I have ideas for possibilities of future chapters, but I don't know.
I hope this was IC enough. I've only written both Rivaille and Eren once before this, so I'm still not used to writing them at all.
