A/N: I am always amazed at how no matter what's going down in my life, I always find myself coming back to RivaMika. Like today in class, I randomly thought up this line of dialogue, and then next thing you know I'm home, opening up my Blackbirds file, and writing, and writing, and THE LINE ISN'T EVEN IN THIS CHAPTER BUT. WHATEVER. I hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving (if you celebrate) and enjoy!
Keeping up with Levi was a chore in itself.
Mikasa didn't know how he did it — she knew she was fast, she knew she was strong, stronger than almost anyone — but even with a badly hurt leg and a wound on his flank she realized only from the hand he kept clutched around his ribs, he moved like a well-oiled bullet. Begrudgingly, she chalked it up to his smaller, more compact size; maybe that extra inch or two made a difference after all (nevermind that he was leaden with muscle).
But, she thought afterwards, it probably helped that the party of titans pursuing them were a healthy incentive to run.
At least he was alive. And he still checked on her. Every now and then she'd catch him glancing back at her, monitoring her distance from him and the titans from her. Mikasa had no clue how much it pained him to keep her in the back, closest to danger. But it was a necessity that he remained in front, for he had the experience and strategic ability to lead them safely. Mikasa fought like a dog and killed more swiftly than any man he knew, but no one had taught her the defining intricacies that let her truly lead. Yet.
He would see to it, he thought darkly. If anyone deserved to learn, it was her. The potential she had was enough as it were.
It felt like an eternity by the time they reach the massive river.
The heels of her boots came to a grinding halt, and her chest expanded rapidly with strained breaths. Levi looked a million times worse off, and as they make silent, panicked eye-contact, she saw his jaw set hard as he searched for words.
The river is wide, very wide, and the trees across it are too far away for the 3DMG. This is an unspoken fact, and it will remain as such. Levi keeps staring at her, though, his gaze steeled on her face like he's searching for answers — like if he keeps staring at her, they'll come to him.
Again, she'll never know it's true. The urgency in protecting her life stymies his strategic thoughts to life, and he suddenly blurts out, "We'll wade it." Mikasa glances back at the titans, who they have put some distance between, and Levi answers her unspoken question. "We have enough time. Unhook your gear. Can you swim?"
Stupefied, Mikasa replied, "Yes...?", still not understanding what Levi is getting at. But he's already kneeling before her, unbuckling her straps with barely steady hands.
Quickly, Mikasa follows suit, undoing the other leg instead. The titans are making fast progress, but when her gear falls to the ground with a resounding BANG, Levi scoops it up in his arms in a second and shoves her towards the angry waters.
"I don't understand what you're doing!" Mikasa shouted in frustration as her boots splashed in, looking back at Levi with panicked eyes. His forehead was creased with obvious distress, but he took the time to snap out a reply as fast as he could.
"I'm going to get on your shoulders and you're going to walk us across the river while I hold the gear and keep it dry. Now move it, Ackerman!"
Survival autopilot kicking back in, partially due to the striking tone of authority Levi commanded, and it made her dip in. The water was perfectly freezing, and she hissed out a note as it soaked into her clothes. It was so cold it hurt. Her legs kept moving, pushing forward, and as it covered her breasts she felt Levi yank on her scarf like a leash, holding her trembling body still as he climbed onto her shoulders.
For a moment, they grappled. The newfound weight combined with the painful, numbing cold of the water was misery, and Levi fought to give her precious time. But sure enough, she stopped being able to really feel her limbs, and as her ears caught the loudness of the titans' approach, she spurned forward.
The river was infinitely wider when you were in it. The soles of her boots barely had traction against the floor, a mixture of smooth rocks and silt and debris, and her lungs felt like they were full of ice. And Levi was heavy! How did anyone so small weigh so much? The thought was absurd, so absurd that she had to hold in a hysterical laugh as it mingled with the reality of death that trailed so closely behind them.
"You're doing good, Mikasa. Just keep moving forward."
"That's... all I know... how to do, sir," she bit back, teeth gritted to try and stop them from chattering.
Mikasa had learned to count her steps about fifteen seconds in. Distraction had become a necessity in order for her to channel all of her focus into moving her body across the rushing waters. The excess nervous energy diverted into the heavy motion of each of her thighs straining to lift through what felt like syrup, push forward, and then come down firmly on a hopefully solid surface. Her breaths had turned rapid, short and shallow, and the stinging ice that penetrated her bones was beginning to make her head throb maniacally.
There was other things to consider, though, like the steady grip of Levi's legs crossed under her arms and tightened on either side of her neck. That single source of warmth was a blessed furnace that provided sanity.
"We're halfway, Mikasa. Get across this and I'll do your laundry for a month."
Halfway? The distance seemed both too short and yet surprisingly far. Levi sounded so, so unaffected, so unbothered, and she couldn't comprehend how for a moment — questioning if maybe he was suicidal, or just didn't give a damn anymore — but as she sucked in a shaking breath of air and took in a splash of water, turning it into a fit of coughing, she felt the roughened callouses of his fingers quickly pull her soaked strands of hair out of her eyes and face, tucking them awkwardly behind her ears, and rational thought kicked in.
"Okay," she rasped back, thankful for his attempt at comfort. The water in her lungs began to burn, though, and the numbness in her extremities escalated. Mikasa was scarcely aware of her ankle folding on itself on a slick surface, and only caught herself with a scathing cry as Levi shouted her name.
The world tilted to the right for a terrifying second, but Mikasa grunted and from somewhere deep in her chest, found her balance and corrected her position.
"Are you alright?" Levi's worried voice was almost drowned under the roar of the currents.
"Y-yes," she grit out, and just to prove it, took another step forward.
The cold made it so that there was no feeling in her ankle, and she had no way of knowing if she had sprained it or simply bent it uncomfortably. That was fine. She had no time to worry about that. The shoreline was becoming visible in the faint moonlight, and though her skin felt pinpricks of acid in every pore, though her vision danced with black speckles that encroached from every side of her periphery, she felt like she might be able to make that distance.
"The gear is still dry, just so you know. We're still alive." Levi paused to leisurely pluck back the strands that had plastered themselves to her face again. "We're making it out of here alive, Mikasa, and it will probably be your all your fault."
The humor in his tone was not lost on her, and as his hands — which radiated so much wonderful heat compared to the damnable river — retreated once more, Mikasa choked on a breath as her adrenaline crashed into overdrive. The sensation could only be described as not having enough blood in her veins, and she was only faintly aware of the clanging of the gear Levi had hauled onto his back as her heartbeats pounded like war drums in her head. The end was right there. She saw flashes of Eren's face, his shit-eating grin and his scent of cinnamon and his precise temperature when they embraced, and even a glimpse of Armin's clear blue gaze that held so much promise and nervousness, and inch by inch, Mikasa felt her body slow to a crawl as the water receded from her chest.
Feeling like her legs were going to buckle from the inevitability of the shock and finally lost of any coherent thought, she made some sort of strangled noise — something between a sob and a groan — and with clattering teeth and violently shaking, slippery hands, she fumbled, reaching up blindly towards Levi and nearly suffocating from the wave of relief that hit her when his hand found hers. Silently, tremblingly, she gripped it, and brought it to her cheek again, relishing the endless heat, the familiar texture.
Levi didn't say anything; he just let his thumb run across her cheekbone, and Mikasa wanted to cry so badly in that single moment but simply could not.
Immeasurable time passed as she clumsily rose from the black, liquid deathtrap. Mikasa blinked once, and the waterline was to her ribcage; she blinked again, and it was at her belly button; she blinked once more, and it was lapping sweetly at her hips, deceptively calm, gentle — nothing like the hell it held in its belly.
"I can't," she gasped, eyes wide, all at once, and Levi was ready when she toppled forward.
The shock of water to her face was unpleasant, to put it mildly, and as it proceeded to cram down her sinuses and esophagus like tar, she retched and sputtered wildly. Dull nails clawed at her throat with the desperate need to create an opening and get the fluid out, out of her, and replace it with oxygen. In one swift movement, something hard collided with her back and she roughly spat out everything in her system before being grabbed by the wrist and hauled gracelessly up the bank.
Everything was spinning nauseatingly and her insides hurt with cold burning. Mikasa crumpled, unable to do a thing except painfully breathe in and out, in and out, but she distantly became aware of warm hands on her, combing her hair out of her face and then pulling off her boots that suctioned disgustingly to her feet.
There was the sound of water pouring. Then, a warm, if not slightly damp blanket wrapped around her, attempting to towel off her soaked-through clothes and skin.
I want to go home, Mikasa thought blearily, the first real sentence to cross her mind in what felt like an eternity. Regaining sensation in her fingers, fortunately or not, she dragged her nails through the packed sand and gravel, coughing weakly. I just want to go home. Please.
The strained, gentle voice at the cusp her ear dragged her further into reality. "I think you've heard this before, but it bears repeating. You are worth a hundred men, and a better one than I. And I will cut down anyone who says otherwise. You have made me proud to be your commanding officer, Mikasa."
Like a dam breaking, the hot, endless tears finally came, and they poured down her cheeks without restraint. Mikasa cried, long and soundless, biting hard onto her lower lip as Levi finally grabbed her carefully by the underarms and lifted her, her hands clinging to his shirt in turn. Swaying precariously on her feet, Levi made quick work of reassembling her 3DMG on her frame and dressing her, and as the tears ebbed into a blurry watercolor world, Mikasa finally remembered her plight and jerked back, staring across the river in trepidation as her eyes focused on the lumbering forms that hovered there. She counted the numbers sluggishly, and then saw that one of the smaller ones had fallen in, fruitlessly trying to right itself and failing. The others merely whined and complained, lurid, bulbous eyes flitting fretfully from the rapids to where they stood, indecisive.
But they weren't crossing it.
Words failed her. The powerful mixture of shock and relief and every emotion she had ever felt in her life compounded on itself, and Mikasa could only find herself clamping her frigid hands over her mouth in wide-eyed disbelief. Again, remembering where she was and who she was with, she looked back to her corporal, who was putting the finishing touches on a strap.
Sensing her gaze, Levi looked up, and in an impossibly rare moment, his expression was entirely open. His eyes held a fiercesome, burning reverence, and his lips curved faintly into a genuine smile to match. For a second, she thought she might have even seen a flash of teeth in a grin, but counted that one as a trick of the light.
"Yes?" he teased lightly, eyebrow raised. Mikasa felt her eyes watering all over again and sniffled hard. She spoke through her hands.
"I did it?" Her voice was small, childlike, and Levi smirked wider. Rising to his full height, he walked to her and pried her hands from her face, holding them in his instead.
"Why yes, I would say you did," he drawled, gesturing to themselves. "We are alive, and on the far more hospitable side of that god forsaken river."
Mikasa laughed despite herself, and nuzzled her shoulder to dry off her face. "I-I guess s-so," she chattered, finding herself unable to stop smiling.
"I know so, and I'm your corporal, so my word over yours."
She found that she couldn't argue with that one, and just rolled her eyes.
"I saw that," Levi quipped, tugging her by the wrist to start them walking back into the looming woods that begun some yards away. Mikasa tested her ankle, and found it was just fine. "But I'll let it slide considering you just saved our asses. Just this once."
"Yes, sir."
"I hope that wasn't sarcastic, Ackerman. I still have full rights to put you over my knee and punish you, which I'm sure is a priority on your end."
He glanced back after that one, and in an uncharacteristic moment she chalked up to her exhilarating near-death experience, adrenaline, and weakness, she simply shrugged and mumbled, "I guess so."
The dark-haired officer faltered mid-step, or so she imagined, and his hold on her wrist dug in just slightly. Just enough to let her know.
The words hung in the silence. Mikasa, still light-headed and reeling from the river, hid her pleasured smile in her scarf and savored that honey-like warmth that he so effortlessly summoned in her chest. And she was glad, and she was grateful, more than anything, that he was with her.
"...You're treading a dangerous line," he said seriously after a few seconds, and the mood shifted into something cold. As the crunch of rocks under her boots turned into the soft crush of leaves and underbrush as they reached the treeline, his words, all cool-politeness, processed.
Mikasa became starkly aware of many things at the same time. Staring blankly at his shoulders, barren of their cape (which sat wrapped securely around her own), she yanked her hand away abruptly.
A cool breeze swept through, reawakening the rampant cold of her wet clothes on her flesh, and she wrapped her arms around herself tightly, wincing at the fresh pain.
As a deep and grey silence stretched between them, she told herself, evenly, that it was important that he had said those words. Professional. It didn't matter that in a span of days a thread had been created between them that she was all too-aware of, that let loose a raw pang of emotion whenever she touched it; they were in a very drastic position and Mikasa felt very small and more stupid than she had in a long, long time for letting that thread get the better of her. It didn't matter, any of those stupid moments that had collected inside of her, or the things he said, or the indescribable feelings he elicited. She knew all of these things were silly, in hindsight, and it stung bad to think it, but she clung to that shame she felt and reminded herself that growing closer as comrades was fine, encouraged even. But growing familiar was not.
Mikasa's heartbeat left a dull ache every pump after that, and she ignored the pointed look Levi was directing at her.
There were more important things to dwell on. Like making it back. They weren't out of the woods yet, figuratively and literally.
"Are you good enough to take to the trees?" Levi asked, sounding just as formal as before. Like he was talking to a stranger. His arms were folded across his chest, and he was staring at some fixed spot in the darkness.
"Yeah," she said quietly.
Refusing to acknowledge the full protest of her limbs, muscles, and bones, Mikasa followed her corporal back into the branches, absently marveling at the speed in which Levi could move for someone to small and heavy.
It was almost funny how fast his walls went up, too.
Almost.