A/N: Drabble I finally got around to posting. Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy, let me know what you thought~

Worth It

By: Euregatto

There are a few things Eren Jaeger knows for certain about his life, almost like he's drawn a line into his world between what he has and what he wants, and he balances himself evenly, teetering sometimes too far to the right or the left, but never once crossing the boundaries. He has friends, a sister, Armin, his dream of joining the trainee squad. He wants to join the Scouting Legion, to eradicate every last Titan from the face of the planet, and he especially wants that girl with the golden hair like a halo around her head, and eyes that drown him in the ocean waters he can only ever dream of.

But that's the problem. He wants her a little too much.

He notices lately he's been watching her, and feels a little uncomfortable in his stomach when she's being her usual self (anger point of a rabid dog and fists strong as steel).But it's been especially hard to keep his hands to himself when she has this sway in her hips and he can't stop looking down there, when she sometimes lets her angelic hair down he wants to run his fingers through the locks, when they get too close during training her chest brushes his and he wonders if she would let him touch –

What the fuck is wrong with me?

Shit, this problem started long before he took notice, but the first time he realized what was happening was when she was pinning him down to the dirt during the weekly training session – right after she had had some kind of argument with Reiner and Bertholdt because they were in the corner during breakfast, and Annie slammed Reiner's head into the table before storming out.

And because I'm an idiot, I just had to push her into this…

The blunt edge of the personal knife she has been using slides along the length of his throat with a metallic hiss, cool aluminate gliding harmlessly over his sunbaked skin. "Everything you're fighting for is worthless, you fucking dolt." She's seething with the intensity of a snake but Eren can only focus on how close her lips are to his, how her chest is pressed against his, how the curve of her hips fits in place with his like connecting puzzle pieces. A trail of sweat glides down the curve of her neck, disappearing into the valley of her shirt; his gaze follows it the whole way down and then some. "Everyone is going to die and there is nothing you can do to stop it."

"I can try," he returns, too distracted by the smell of berries on her breath to realize his remark came out as a whisper.

She notices though, and she merely grunts. "You're an ass."

"I know."

And, for some reason that is beyond his understanding, he decides to lean up, inching his fingers along the plane of her neck, and pulls her flush against him, disregarding the fact she could slit his throat if she wanted to. If she really wanted to. She really wants to right now. She should.

The outermost lining of their lips brush together, heated breaths melding into the tight atmosphere between them as he draws too close for the set boundaries of her personal comfort zone, but she concludes – somewhere in the fractured back of her mind – that he's still too far away for her liking, yet way too damn close, his hands aren't in the right place but need to be removed before she broke them, please, please don't do this now.

"It's all about trying," he continues undeterred, "because you never know what the outcome could be if you don't make the attempt…"

And his lips lock with hers, like two stray puzzle pieces connecting their perfect edges, meant to fit, designed to exist together –

.

.

.

Eren hisses as pain flares up along his face, reeling back out of Mikasa's touch when she moves the ice pack to his black eye. His hands come up reflexively to grab her wrists but she slaps them away. "Hold still," she orders, pressing it up against his injury again, "the swelling won't go down otherwise."

"What were you thinking?" Armin asks empathetically. "Getting enough respect out of Annie to approach her without getting hit is one thing, but you kissed her!"

He shrugs passively. "Didn't think she'd – ow! – react like that."

"You deserved it then," Mikasa dead-pans.

His gaze snaps across the infirmary ward to where Annie is getting her hand carefully bandaged by the nurse. She's watching him in return, a gentle, victorious smile settled on her face. And he knows for certain, just like everything else in his life, that it's okay to cross his line.

"I'm gonna be honest with you guys… it was totally worth it."