DISCLAIMER: Attack on Titan belongs to Hajime Isayama.
~ I'll Give You Half ~
That fucking potato.
"Here, I'll give you half," she offered, her expression caught somewhere between hopeful and terrified.
She was either the bravest or the stupidest person he'd ever met - he wasn't sure which.
Like hell the commotion he'd heard was from a god damn fart, but - although she looked horrified - Sasha did not speak up in her own defense. Whether out of concern for her friends, or merely to save her own skin from Mikasa's wrath...
The scale tipped a bit more toward bravest.
"You again?" he said with a sigh. "Learn some restraint."
And he left it at that, slamming the door behind him.
"You can sit down, you know."
"No thank you, sir! I prefer to remain standing!"
He wondered if she was thinking of that potato and the laps he'd made her run because of it.
They were the last two people left in the room after the meeting ended. She visibly tensed when he stepped towards her, but he didn't let that deter him.
She flinched when he reached out his hand.
"You've grown up to be a fine soldier," he said, ruffling her hair.
She stared at him in disbelief for a moment, before replying with a shy smile, "Thank you, sir."
Years passed before he saw her again. And when he did, her eyes were dark and haunted.
He found out later that they lost the Springer boy on that mission - the cheerful idiot with the shaved head, all agility and no tactics... the boy that girl loved.
At first he wondered if she'd had the chance and the courage to make her confession to the boy, but the shadows in her eyes told him that she had only realized her own feelings too late.
She sat beside him at the bar but didn't bother to order herself a drink. She could have if she wanted to; she wasn't a child anymore.
She had always been something of a loudmouth, but now it seemed as though she'd forgotten how to talk without her echo there. As she sat there beside him silently, unmoving, he sipped his whiskey and thought back on his own ill-fated love.
"Listen," he finally spoke up. "You lost someone out there. It happens. People are going to tell you that it gets better; it doesn't. They're going to say you'll get over it in time; you won't. They'll tell you that it will get easier, and they'll kind of be right this time because the next one you lose isn't going to be as close to you as this one was. You'll keep them farther and farther away until losing one doesn't hurt anymore because you feel nothing for them anyway. But that first one... It's going to hurt forever, and the pain doesn't change. You might take your mind off it sometimes, but it will always be there. Alcohol can take the edge off, though." He offered his glass to her with a half-smirk, saying, "I'll give you half."
There was barely one sip left in the glass.
She accepted it from him and downed it in one go. He had to grab her elbow to keep her from falling off her barstool in the coughing fit that followed, caused by the hard liquor's strong burn.
"That wasn't half," she choked out, and looked up at him with watery eyes.
"That damn potato wasn't half, either," he deadpanned.
"Nooooooo, why would you bring that up now?" she wailed, hiding her face in her arms. "I can't believe you still remember that!"
They both went on with their lives, because that what was what people did in this world. Meeting up for a drink after an expedition became something of a ritual for the two of them.
I'll give you half quickly became a running joke between them for sharing things unequally.
It took a long time (and one bad joke from Levi about him dying of old age before they would publicly admit to being a couple) for their stupid, stubborn minds to catch up their hearts.
~end~