Disclaimer: You know this already. I unfortunately own nothing. SnK belongs to its rightful creator!
Author's Note: Ehh, I'm not sure how I feel about this. It seems like each chapter is me focusing on another body part. What's next? The spleen?
I know the last references the "end" of training, but I'm going to keep going drabbles of their training. I didn't want to have to split up the first and the last drabble since they're kind of related.
Enjoy!
When Shadis releases the mid-marks for the 104th training regiment, all hell breaks loose.
Elated shouts and muttered cursing fill the air as each teen compares his or her status. Even the sullen Mikasa looks vaguely pleased to see her name first. Rage. Embarrassment. Depression. Joy. Annie observes the predictable expressions of her peers with mild boredom.
The only reason she sticks around is to see his expression (she knows he isn't in the top ten—she already looked). However, the boy never checks the ranking list for himself. When he notices Annie watching him, he smiles at the girl.
Acceptance.
Annie can tell that he's already resigned himself to a fate that she could never willingly follow.
.
She offers no explanation as she yanks the blond away from his affronted, gape-mouthed brunet sparring partner. She offers no apologies when the blond sports more bruises than he's ever had before and he winces each time she demands another round. She offers no excuse when Eren glares at her from across the dining hall when the blond can barely lift the trembling spoon to his parted, bleeding lips from exhaustion.
He may not care whether or not he makes it into the top ten, but Annie sure as hell isn't going to allow the boy to brand himself as another one of humanity's faceless casualties. Not yet.
.
He jumps when she coughs behind him, but despite her abuse and torment, she sees no malice or fear in his eyes. He cranes a sore neck to smile warmly at her in the fading sunlight.
"I'm sorry that I can't keep up with yo—huh?" The boy breaks off disconcertedly as the girl drops a streaming towel in his lap. "Uh, wha…?"
"For the soreness," she announces before pivoting and stalking away.
His bemused thanks follow the girl as she retreats across the grounds and escapes to her cabin.
.
"Annie?"
He always addresses her with a slight lilt in his voice, as if he's asking a question. As if her name—or the girl it represents—is an enigma to him. The inquisitive tone is unsettling to her, because usually the boy knows everything. He's the only one at the camp that she can't understand. He's so human that he's inhuman.
The mystery baffles the girl and sometimes she finds herself drifting asleep only to wake without an answer.
.
They haven't even finished breakfast yet, and Annie already knows that the blond won't be able to move a muscle during sparring practice. The boy remains stiffly in place on the bench as the others get up to change.
Cool, slender fingers press gently against the boy's aching shoulder blades. His back automatically folds into the feminine hand, feeling the tension and pain leak from his sore muscles.
"Did you forget something Mika—Annie?!" The boy is flustered and startled by her presence, but he isn't afraid. He starts as if to pull away, embarrassment staining his flushed cheeks. "You really don't ha—"
Still, the relief Annie's lithe fingers provide is too overwhelming to deny and the blond's protesting weakens as he closes his eyes in contentment. Annie can feel a faint hum rumble through his chest, though she doesn't mention it to the boy.
.
Sometime after practice, she looks down at her pale, delicate fingers for the first time in years. The girl flexes her sinewy fingers, marveling at their simplistic beauty and their hidden strength. The faintly bulbous tip of each digit still tingles from where she had ran them down his taut back and worked the pain from his muscles.
(She reminds herself that this was a onetime thing and she will never ever do it again.)
Annie realizes with an unsettled frown that this is the first time in a long time she had ever used these hands for something that didn't require a fist.
.
"There was this old crone who claimed she could read palms at my village," Sasha announces that night. "She taught me how to."
"Can't it tell you who you're in love with?" Mina asks slyly, shooting her blonde friend a mischievous side look. From her bunk, Annie scoffs and rolls her eyes at the brunette's claim and Mina's implication.
"Yeah—if you look at this line right here," the brunette holds up a callused palm. Even Annie cranes her head slightly to see which wrinkled line Sasha is gesturing at.
The dark haired girl lifts an amused eyebrow when she later catches Annie studying her own palm in the faint, dying light of the full moon.
.
It becomes a sort of ritual between them. She throws punches and stern looks, hoping to convince him that he has no place in the world outside of the walls. He counters with optimistic dreams. Dreams of finally wading in the crisp ocean and of seeing the snowy white of gull plumage.
A truce is struck after each training session when Annie soothes the damage she causes to the blond boy's muscles. It is a time of reflection for the both of them. Nothing but the direst of topics breaks the content silence between the two.
.
Once the boy offers to knead the tension from Annie's stiff shoulders. Annie hesitantly allows him to breach her personal space. She even removes her faded hoodie, despite her growing sense apprehension with the sudden imbalance of intimacy.
However, it goes too far when the boy's nimble fingers trace their way gently down her exposed arms and shoulders. Goosebumps spring up on the surface of her clammy skin as an icy fire burns in the deeper veins beneath her flesh. Even when he removes his innocent, electric touch, she can still feel the energy coursing through her alert body.
She stares accusingly at his pleasant, naïve expression and pulls away without an explanation. The girl slips her hoodie back on, ignoring the boy's startled and hurt frown. She never lets him touch her again.
.
Sixteenth.
He places sixteenth.
His academic score is the highest in the history of the recruitment camp, but it isn't enough to balance out all of his physical shortcomings. He will not get the chance to join her in the Military Police.
Annie knows it's not her fault. It was the boy's weakness that kept him from the top ten. It's his fault.
Still, even as she stares at his proud, supportive face amidst the crowd of those who will share his fate, she is the one who feels like a failure.
She curls her slender fingers into hard fists. So much for trying.
Thank you so much! I hope you enjoyed! I'm begging you-give me hypotheticals or prompts. I need as much inspiration as possible for these little brutes xD
