RivaMika Week 2 Day 2: The Gift
Title: pride is like a blade
Rating: G
Fandom: Shingeki no Kyojin, Attack on Titan
Characters: Levi, Mikasa Ackerman, Squad Levi 2.0, RivaMika
Summary: What does an cantankerous man get a rather violent woman whom he dislikes for her birthday? A weapon. Duh.
Notes: Totally not inspired by Final Fantasy XIII, except Mikasa's birthday turns out better than poor Light's.
"What if.. what if she doesn't like it?" Jaeger is lying on his bed, eyes closed, chest heaving rapidly. "What if she gives out to me?"
Levi sighs, leaning against the wall. "She'll surely appreciate the effort." 'What a mess,' he thinks idly as Eren presses his hands to his eyes; it's just like the boy to work himself into a frenzy over something so small. "This is Mikasa Ackerman we're talking about. If you spat at her, I think she'd be happy."
Clattering resounds through the base, along with a shriek of "Sasha!" In the kitchen, having mostly finished with the preparations for dinner, Historia/Christa/whatever the hell she's called is making her best attempt to bake a cake; Braus is supposed to be helping her, but Levi doesn't think tomatoes are really the best addition to a sponge cake, even if Ackerman likes them. Springer is decorating frantically, setting the table with the least tarnished cutlery and the crockery with the fewest chips, and hanging paper streamers in inconvenient locations. Kirschtein is holed up in his room wrestling with two knitting needles and several balls of crimson yarn, and Arlert is doing his level best to distract Mikasa out in the forest by asking her to help him with his 3DMG technique.
They had been preparing for the tenth of February for a short while. Armin and Eren approached him with the idea; because Mikasa hadn't had a chance to properly celebrate her birthday in years, what with the daily grind of training and before that, the suffering associated with abject poverty, they wanted to make this birthday, her sixteenth, a special one. Levi had acquiesced, on the condition that the Squad do most of the work.
Levi glances at Eren; if he's not mistaken, the boy is whimpering. He can face up against the most fearsome of the Titans with bullish bravado, but he can't handle planning a birthday. "You have a present for her, correct?"
Eren nods, and rolls off the bed to rummage in a bedside locker. He emerges with a box wrapped in painted paper. "A locket... Armin's idea. With a picture of us three on one side and our squad on the other." He fidgets with the raw edge of the paper for a while, as Levi tries to get his head around the idea that Mikasa will potentially be carrying an image of him around her neck; on further thought, he doesn't find the idea disagreeable. When Eren speaks, he gets a small shock. "Mikasa isn't exactly a jewellery person... do you think she'll like it?"
Levi pushes himself off the wall. "The only one who can answer that is the birthday girl herself. The sooner we get this over with, the better."
Eren groans. Levi takes this as agreement, and makes to leave, but Eren stops him.
"Captain... have you gotten her anything?"
"... No. Why would I?"
Eren doesn't respond. Discomfited, Levi exits, and proceeds to try to rescue the table from Connie's dismal table setting skills.
Finally, when all is said and done, the party proves to be a success. Mikasa devours the dinner (wine stew and mashed potato with basil, all with generous lashings of butter, her favourite) with gusto, laughs as Eren tries to sing her Happy Birthday in a falsetto, happily blows out the candles on her prettily iced birthday cake, and accepts her presents with grace. Connie gives her an intricately carved wooden statue of the cat that wanders by (Mikasa has taken quite a liking to the scraggly creature). Sasha gives her a bag of gingerbread hearts, which almost brings Mikasa to tears; according to a quiet Eren, his mother baked gingerbread often. Christoria gifts her with a bottle of musky perfume, which Levi knows Mikasa will like; the soldier is more feminine than she lets on. Jean gives her a hand-knitted jumper made of soft red wool, which, despite being slightly out of proportion and not especially well made, Mikasa adores; when she kisses Jean softly on the cheek, the poor boy flushes a luminescent crimson. Finally, when Eren and Armin present her with the locket, made of wrought silver and inscribed with delicate filigree, Mikasa clasps it immediately around her neck. She hugs her brothers, but soon the rest of the team is sucked in, even Levi.
Levi manages to endure roughly ten seconds of Connie's elbow digging into his back. He barks a command laced with profanity and the rest disperse to clean up the mess. Levi would do it himself, but...
Finally, he and Mikasa are left alone at the table. She is sitting down again, examining the pictures inside her locket with a rare bitter-sweet smile on her face.
"Well, Captain?" She doesn't look up at him, instead choosing to gaze at his picture-self's minuscule face.
"What makes you think I got you something?" He says the words with less acrimony than he would like. In the process of colliding with this girl, constant attrition and anger, she has buffed his sharp edges until they are soft. He hates it.
"Well..." She hesitates. "Is that a present in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"
Shit. She noticed, and she called his bluff. His face goes as red as Kirschtein's jumper. "A present, you dumbass." He thrusts it at her, refusing to meet her gaze. Mikasa takes it haltingly, her own cheeks tinged with red.
She unwraps it carefully, taking care not to tear the paper. She opens the simple wooden box with reverence.
"A knife...?" She lifts it up carefully, running a finger along the flat of the blade.
"The handle is human bone. Hanji gave it to me, but since I have no use for it, I decided I might as well give it to you. Shame to throw it away." Mikasa remains silent, testing the blade against her finger; it draws a single drop of carmine blood. "Don't do that, moron! Look... I know you can protect yourself. God knows, that's one of your few redeeming features. But sometimes... help should be accepted. Comrades should aid each other, should they not?"
"Yes..." Slowly, Mikasa lifts her gaze to his; her eyes are unreadable. "You are right, sir." She inhales deeply. "Thank you."
"You're welcome." On a whim, he takes her hand and drags his thumb across the wound on her index finger. It is nothing less than a prick, but still. "Go fix yourself up."
The ice in her eyes has cracked, and he can glimpse something in the deep grey. Affection, maybe, but that is wishful thinking. It's probably hatred. He withdraws his hand.
She stands up gracefully. "Yes, sir." She drops into a small bow, and brushes away past him.
"Happy birthday, Ackerman," he says hurriedly, just before she crosses the threshold. He can hear her steps pause, the audible hitch in her breath.
When she leaves, he slumps into a chair, and studies the smear of bright red on his thumb. After a while, he rubs it off with a handkerchief.
When she returns from hunting the next day with a deer Sasha killed, Mikasa skins it herself with the knife she gave him, and gives him the largest portion on purpose at dinner. He doesn't thank her, only watches her as her hand brushes against the tell-tale bump on her thigh visible though her skirt that indicates the presence of a holstered knife, and smiles.