Requested by deathberryinbloom: Could you possibly write a wispers angsty smutty story about Mikasa and Eren finding comfort in each other after they rescue him and he struggles with what happened to his ****** and thinking he's a monster.

Warnings: sexual content

A/N: I wrote this one from Mikasa's perspective so as to keep Eren's thoughts ambiguous in order to avoid spoilers. Thanks so much for the request!

36. Convince

He's not the same when he returns: trapped in thought, not as whole, a part of him left behind in that crystal cavern. This darkness infiltrates their bed. Mikasa feels it in his touch when Eren presses his forehead to hers, his bare skin burning hot beneath her fingertips, his cheeks wet with tears.

"Please," he pleads, "please. I need to forget."

"You're safe," she replies, taking his face in her hands. "I won't let anything hurt you."

A shadow enters his expression, eyes opaque with clandestine distance, alerting her to her mistake. But before she can ask, he kisses her hard. It's the sort of kiss that sends her shivering, the sort of kiss where she can feel for the briefest of moments, his sorrow and pain, rooted deep inside, hungry and consuming. And she lets him. Let's him empty into her what he cannot say in words, eager to ease his burden even if she too is consumed in the process.

Laying him back down upon the bed, she pulls at the waistband at his hips before turning to herself, scarf uncoiling from her neck and set to the side. Keenly aware of his gaze on her figure, her nipples, hard, raised through the paper thin fabric of her nightgown which she pulls over her head, her body bare beneath, she climbs atop him, placing a kiss to the center of his chest as her hand reaches down to stroke him. He groans, back arching back and brow furrowing.

His warm hands reach up, running over her flat stomach, palms rough against the soft skin of her breasts. Her own hands are so much smaller than his, and she laces her fingers with his, gaze never leaving his tired eyes as she raises her hips, lowering herself onto him.

They both cry out. For a moment, Mikasa forgets the sorrow in the sheets, hips giving a tentative rise and fall, she's only reminded when she opens her eyes again, hand brushing away the tear at his cheek.

Taking the key hanging round his neck, she tugs him up as she moves against him, kissing him before taking his face in both her hands: "Please, Eren. You can talk to me."

But he shakes his head, the tears falling faster down his cheeks. "You wouldn't love me," he chokes out. "You wouldn't love me if you knew."

She assures him that's not true, that nothing in this world, nothing in this life they share, could make her love him any less, but she feels it in the tears on her chest, the way he moves—he doesn't believe her.

And so she pours herself into every roll of her hips, every searing kiss and fevered touch, tries to drown out whatever sadness plagues his heart, tries to convince him of the sentiments words failed to carry, hoping that she is solace enough in this unkind night.

And when they lie finished and spent, tangled up in one another, she still senses that he wanders far, far away.

"I love you," Mikasa whispers, pulling him closer to her chest.

His adam's apple bobs as he swallows, and when Eren speaks, his voice still carries that heaviness, that certain kind of sadness: "I love you, too."

She believes him. Of course she does. She can hear it in the coarseness of his voice, feel it in the way his embrace grows tighter around her body. She believes him. And oh, how she wishes he'd believe her, too.