"What is taking so long?" Mikasa grumbles. They've been sitting around waiting for Erwin's order for the past several hours. As far as they'd heard, things were progressing smoothly. An asset reported that Jean and Armin had been captured by the MP just like they planned. As soon as that was confirmed, Eren and Krista were whisked away to a more secure location, and now they could go rescue the others. Or at least—she thought that they could go rescue the others. That had been the original plan, right? So then why the hell hadn't Erwin cleared them yet?

At the other end of the table, Levi sits with a tea cup in his hand, staring grimly down at the wooden surface. He looks slightly more glum than usual, which is enough to tell Mikasa that he's getting worried too.

"Corporal," Mikasa ventures, "do you know what's going on?"

It's a stupid question, really, since they've both been sitting at the same table together for some time now, but perhaps he had originally been given some piece of information that Erwin hadn't told anyone else.

"We're waiting for Commander Erwin's order to move," Levi says, taking a sip of his drink. His mannerisms are calm, but Mikasa can sense his unease. His shoulders are more tense than usual, so when he raises the cup to his lips it seems very robotic.

"But sir….I mean, it's been hours."

This seems to annoy Levi. He's already tense, he's already worried. The last thing he needs now is Mikasa tempting him into insubordination. He has always trusted Erwin. After all, it was Erwin who brought him into the fold in the first place. It was Erwin who had made something out of Levi's downward spiraling life. And ever since that day, Levi had gone along with the Commander's orders without question.

But this mission….something just seemed off about it. Right from the beginning, Levi had felt a sense of uneasiness.

"We have to get Eren somewhere safe," Levi said during one of his evening briefings in the Commander's office. "We can't let him get into their hands. We just can't." He had to fight to keep the usual tone of indifference in his voice. The idea of those men dissecting Eren made him feel sick to his stomach.

"And Krista, too."

"Huh?"

Erwin flashed him a raw smile. "We have to get Krista somewhere safe, as well. Not just Eren."

Levi turned his face away. "That's what I meant, of course." He heard Erwin shuffling some papers around on his desk. For a long time, the two men remained silent, the slight awkwardness of Levi's slip-up permeating the atmosphere. Finally, Erwin's voice came again, slow and steady.

"I think I've come up with a good plan. I've been thinking about these matters for the last few days now. Obviously we want to keep the Titan-shifters in our custody. That's important. But at the same time, the Recon Corp cannot be seen publically going against the MP. We need Eren and Krista, but not enough to get shut down on treason charges."

Levi turned back around to face the Commander, listening intently as he went on.

"So here's what we will do. We have two of the younger soldiers disguise themselves as Eren and Krista and allow themselves to be captured. While the MP is distracted with the imposters, we can quickly get the real Titan-shifters someplace safe."

"What about the imposters?" Levi replied tonelessly. "They'll be killed."

"Not necessarily. We can play it off as if we've 'realized' that two of our soldiers are missing, and go after them. No one will fault us for rescuing innocent men from a mistaken death."

Levi thought it over for a moment. It was a plausible plan. A good plan, even. It would ensure Eren's safety, but he couldn't help but feel that is would seriously endanger the lives of the two imposters. "And who would you choose for this mission?" he asked.

"We'll need a boy and a girl," Erwin said, touching his chin as he thought about it. "Kirstein looks similar, don't you think?"

He didn't think so. They were of similar build, maybe, though Jean was quite a bit taller. But in Levi's mind, Jean's face could never be compared to Eren's innocent yet fiery countenance and distinct emerald eyes. Still, those weren't the kind of concerns he could bring before his Commander, so he reluctantly agreed. "Yes, Kirstein would do fine."

"And for Krista…I'm not sure."

"Not Mikasa," Levi said, quickly thinking of the first female recruit that came to mind. Her oriental looks could never be mistaken for Krista.

"No," Erwin frowned. "It's a shame that Annie isn't useful to us anymore."

No, Annie's blonde locks were useless to them now. Blonde locks! That's it. "Arlert," Levi said, sounding certain.

"Armin Arlert?" Erwin repeated dubiously.

"He looks very similar to Krista, actually," Levi assured him, growing more confident in his choice as he spoke. Armin was always trying to hang out with Eren when Levi wasn't looking, but he'd caught him now and then and had gotten plenty of good looks at the boy's nervous, guilty face. "The blonde hair, the thin build…even his face, actually." Erwin thought about it for a moment and then agreed.

"So what do you think?"

Levi sighed. There was no denying it: once again Erwin had come up with the best possible solution, but once again that solution would probably lead to sacrificial deaths. It seemed to be a pattern with Erwin's planning. Still, Levi had no choice but to agree to this if he wanted Eren to be safe.

Mikasa's heavy sigh tears Levi away from his thoughts. He looks down and finds his tea cup empty. "It's been a long time, sir," Mikasa is saying. She's immensely relieved that Eren is safe, but now her worries turn to Armin. He could be in trouble. "If we don't go after them soon…well, I'm just afraid of what will happen to them."

Putting the empty tea cup down, he says, "I understand how you feel." Should he go ask Erwin what's going on? Should he try to speed things up?

But Erwin's words echo in his mind, holding him still in the chair. "Stay here and don't make any moves until I send word to you."

Jean has felt pain before. During their years of military training he had endured numerous injuries just like everyone else—even some serious injuries. But this feels entirely different. Even more than the pain, he feels cold, nauseating waves of fear flooding through his body as the blood pours from his wrist, pooling into his curved palm before dripping into the puddle on the warehouse floor.

Calm down, Jean, you have to calm down, he tells himself. His tries desperately to slow his racing heart and regain control of his breathing, knowing that the faster his heart pounds the faster his blood will escape him. He does his best not to think about how extensive the damage may be, because even the slightest thought that he might lose his hand for Eren Jaegar's sake is unbearable. But still, the amount of pain tells him that the cut is deep into his bone. That much is undeniable.

As he fights to get control of his breathing, he hears Armin's voice. The boy sounds far beyond flustered, perhaps on the verge of a complete breakdown. "Wha-what are you saying?! If you already knew that…then why—?"

The man cuts him off. "Ahh! So talkative now, isn't she? No, I know you're not them. If you were, do you really think I'd be the only one in here? There'd be three dozen armed guards in here to keep those freaks in line."

Yes, that seemed true. If he really was Krista, Armin could have easily escaped by now. One soldier would never be enough to contain them. Why hadn't he noticed this sign before? Frustration grips him, making it hard to speak. So this whole operation has been a complete failure. And now Jean's life is in danger for no reason. There is a frightening amount of blood on the floor already…

"How did you know?" Armin chokes out, but the man's manic grin only grows as he rambles on,

"We'll have to answer to Commander Erwin?" he laughs, the mockery clear in his voice now. "Is that what you said, girl? Well…then I think this is the perfect opportunity to send that insubordinate little bastard a message. Don't you think?"

Armin's mouth falls open. Oh my god…shit…He's trembling in fear now. His mind does not even register the fact that he's still being called "girl." This is bad! Really, really bad…

"Don't fuck with the MP! God damn…he should know better than this, he's a career man," the fat man is saying, pacing around like a beast ready to strike somewhere, anywhere. Armin watches in apprehensive terror. What will he do? What is he thinking? "That's what I should do, send you both back with "don't fuck with the MP" carved into your fucking faces. How's that, beautiful?"

He has grabbed Armin by the face again and holds him tightly, making his face contort in pain as his fingernails dig into the soft flesh. "How about it?" Armin's breath catches in his throat when the knife, coated red with Jean's blood is raised to hover in front of his face.

"D-don't," Armin stammers pathetically. "We're just following orders…please…"

There is something so frightening in the man's face that Armin can barely stand to look at him. Who is he? Surely he can't be a ranking member of the MP, so why would they let him have at their prisoners? His lips are curled back in that disturbing sneer and his eyes flash with an intensity that makes Armin shutter against the ropes that hold him.

The knife comes closer and closer to his face until Armin has to stop looking at it because he is too cross eyed to see anything. "Please don't," he says again, as strong as he can. When his lips part to speak, the blade slips in between them. Armin freezes, the words dying in his throat as he feels the wet, warm metal resting the long way on his bottom lip and soon he can taste the metallic twang of Jean's blood. His eyes widen, fighting the urge to move his mouth in an attempt to rid himself of the object.

I have to stay calm, Armin thinks. I have to be really careful not to anger him even more.

The man stares at his face for a long time, letting the blade quiver slightly against his mouth. Armin's tongue has retreated to the back of his mouth, hoping to avoid harm. This wouldn't be the first time someone had threatened to cut his tongue out…

But to his great relief, the next thing he heard was the man saying, "No, your face is too beautiful to mar like that." He slowly removes the knife from between Armin's lips, scraping along the pink flesh as he goes, slicking the remnants of Jean's blood into his mouth. One spare drop dribbles down Armin's chin, leaving a bright red trail in its wake.

And then the knife is gone and the man has turned away. "You."

When Jean makes an apprehensive sound—something between a defeated moan and a miserable sob—Armin realizes that he's made yet another mistake. He immediately lunges forward in his chair, shouting after the man, "Don't hurt him! Please! Come on, there's no reason to hurt anyone. This is all just a big mistake!"

The man crouches down and grabs at Jean's wrist again. Thinking he's going to start sawing through the bone once more, Jean starts to beg. He can't help it. Pride be damned, he refuses to lose his hand over this stupid mission! "No, no! No, please, don't do it! Come on, please! Anything but this."

The man laughs at him and Jean feels the ropes that bind him fall away. What? "You're more of a little girl than she is," the man sneers. "Pathetic." He grabs Jean by the damaged wrist and yanks him to his feet.

He's light headed and swooning, falling against the man helplessly, gritting back shrieks of pain as that fat hand clutches the wound like a vice. "Oww," he groans, stumbling back. With a swift kick, the man sends Jean back to the ground in a heap.

"Stop it!" Armin yells.

"Anything but this, huh?" the man repeats, landing another kick on Jean's ribs. He curls up instinctively. "Pathetic!" the man spits again. "What kind of people are the Survey Legion taking on these days? Pussy boys and scrawny little girls? What a joke."

Suddenly, he is crouched down again, hovering over Jean's covering, bleeding form. One, two punches to the face and the world tilts dangerously. Jean has already lost enough blood to make this torturous. His body goes limp.

And then he feels hands on his waist, pulling at his belts, finger tips slipping under the waist band, and Armin is shouting again, his voice rising dangerously. "What are you doing?!"

"Anything but this, anything but this," the man practically cackles, tearing at Jean's pants without hesitance. "Still mean it, boy?"

Armin gasps out a sob, his eyes filling with tears as the man grabs Jean by the throat and forces him onto his stomach. His arms are stretched out above his head, the right wrist already forming a new puddle, and his fingers twitch in it, flicking red droplets. When the man yanks Jean's pant down to his knees, baring his pale backside to the stale warehouse air, Armin feels his heart stop. "No!" Armin yells desperately.

This can't happen. This can't be my fault. Jean!

Jean can hardly even hear Armin anymore. Too much blood has been shed and Jean's nose is also bleeding from the punches. The man jabs probing fingers into the boy and chuckles at the animalistic sound that he makes, like a stuck pig. He turns his face down to the ground and starts to cry again, unable to offer up any resistance in his weakened state.

Armin pleads for him. He offers up any logical reason that he can think of, any excuse, any bargain. "You don't have to do this!" "He hasn't done anything wrong." "We're just following orders, please!" "Look at him! Please! He's in no condition…he's…he's bleeding to death, can't you see that?! He needs medical attention! Please you have to stop!"

But the man doesn't stop, instead he undoes his own pants to reveal a vicious looking, veiny erection, fat enough to match the rest of his body. Armin wails out a broken moan and hangs his head. "Please….don't do this."

Pulling his fingers out of Jean's tormented opening, the man uses his knee to push the boy's thighs apart. One of his fat hands, stained with blood and filth, slaps down on the back of Jean's neck and holds him flat against the ground. He whimpers softly, too light headed to think anymore. But when the man stabs into him, he cannot control his wails of pain. Loud and long, bubbling from choking on blood, punching out of his lungs with every merciless thrust.

"STOP! Stop! Stop! Stop….stop…please just….stop…." Armin begs, quieter and quieter as his own tears strangle sound away from him.

After a minute or two, Jean's cries die down and then stop completely. Now each thrust rocks a limp, silent body, scraping it over the floor. And all that can be heard is the sound of flesh slapping against flesh, mingled with Armin's crying.

At last, the man shoots his release into Jean's motionless body. When he pulls out, a string of milky white liquid follows his softening member, dripping alongside more bright scarlet blood that oozes from the torn opening.

Armin's head hangs low. His wrists are bloody from struggling. He swallows down a wave of vomit and tears drip from his trembling chin. The man buttons his pants back up and slowly rises. A few moments later, Armin feels those fat, sweaty hands on his own. He flinches terribly, but no harm comes to him. Instead, his own ropes fall loose and his hands are suddenly free.

Normally he would have been terrified. He would have worried for his own safety, assuming that he would soon meet the same fate. But not now. He didn't care about any of that now. How could he, after seeing Jean ravished in such a way?

Jean…his partner, his leader, his friend. Jean had never done anything to deserve this. He had been a good, fair boy who—despite his own weaknesses—had always done his best for others. How could this have happened? Armin's mind is numb and his heart contracts with each gut-wrenching sob that he cannot contain.

It seems that the man's manic anger has faded. After he cuts Armin's hands free, he walks away from him. He walks past Jean without even a glance in the boy's direction. And just before he leaves the room, he stops to say, "This is what happens when you fuck around with the MP. And when you go crawling back to your precious Commander Erwin, you can tell him just that."

Erwin finally sent a man to relay his message. By the time the soldier burst through the doors into the room where Levi and Mikasa sat, it had already been over two hours. "Lance Corporal! Commander Erwin says that it's time. You may now move into step three of the mission."

Step one: Disguise Arlert and Kirstein and offer them up for capture. Step Two: Relocate Jaegar and Lenz while the MP is preoccupied. Step Three: Reconnaissance.

"Finally! Thank God…" Mikasa muttered, rising and strapping her gear on at once. Levi gets up as well, but he isn't relieved. He's not foolish and he's certainly not an optimist. Erwin waited so long…it's probably too late by now.

"Jean!" Armin cries, falling forward from the chair and landing on his hands and knees. "Jean!" He scrambles across the room on all fours, doubting that his shaking legs will hold him upright. There's blood spattered across the floor, but Armin crawls on through it to get to Jean. The light blue dress drags along, turning red.

He's still not responsive when Armin collapses beside him, weak from crying, reaching out shaking hands that hover because they are too frightened to touch him. Too embarrassed to lay a finger on the person that had suffered like that all thanks to Armin's incompetence. "Jean," he says again and his voice breaks on the name.

He can see the shallow rise and fall of Jean's chest moving against the floor, which means that the boy is still alive at the very least. That makes Armin cry even more. Out of relief? Out of shock? Or perhaps because this means that Jean will have to live with this for the rest of his life, and this means that Armin will have to fight the urge to kill himself every time he looks him in the eye…

Finally the hands find their courage. Putting his feelings aside, Armin rubs Jean's back, saying, "Jean, Jean come on! Look at me."

Jean's eye lids flutter half way open at the sound of his friend's voice. His eyes are glazed over with pain, his face is pale and beaded with a cold sweat. "Oh Jean…I'm so sorry," Armin practically croaks out. "I'm so sorry." His eyes flicker over Jean's body, too ashamed to linger. His arms, still stretched out above his head, lie in a puddle of redness which has slowly stopped growing. The cut in his wrist is deep. It goes halfway in from the far side of his wrist by the pinky going inward. His face is swollen, his nose clearly broken by the man's fists. But to Armin, the worst of all is that he's still naked from waist to ankle where his pants are bunched up, his legs are spread as far apart as the taught fabric will allow, and all manner of bodily fluids and filth have soiled his inner thighs.

"Ar…min…"

Jean's voice is so weak and small that Armin would never have recognized it if he wasn't lying there right in front of him. "Shhh don't try to talk," Armin urges him, patting his back gently. "Save your strength—"

"Armin—"

"No! Don't talk, alright? You're going to be fine. I'm gonna…" he grabs the hem of the blue dress that has twisted around his body, mocking him, and he tries to tear it. He can use the material to wrap up Jean's wrist. "I'm gonna…gonna…" he fights with the material but his shaking hands can't even manage to rip it. "I…I can…" But he can't. He jerks at the fabric until his shoulders ache but nothing gives. "Damn it!" he cries and his sobbing starts again, forcing him onto his elbows. He clutches his head, squeezing his blonde hair in tight fists. "Damn it, damn it! Why am I so—"

"Armin."

"—useless!"

Jean's eyes close again but Armin does not notice through his haze of tears. His fingers work on their own, tearing at his hair, shoulders shaking violently until something new and terrifying pulls him out of the daze. The door has opened again and this time there are more than one pair of feet.

Cliclip Cloclop. Cliclip Cloclop. Footsteps entering the room slowly, in such strong contrast to the frantic pounding of Amrin's heart. His head pops up, eyes wide and mouth hanging open in horror. Two men come toward them—new men in uniform.

No! Nothing else, they can't do anything else to him! Armin throws his thin body down on top of Jean's, wrapping his arms around the other boy and burying his face against his back. In the second of silence that follows, Armin hears the shrieking wires of 3D maneuver gear before the warehouse window shatters above them. He tenses his body, trying to shield Jean from the shattered glass that rains down on them.

"What the hell is going on here?"

The voice belongs to Levi, as snappy and cold as ever. Armin does not look up. He keeps his head buried between Jean's shoulder blades and listens, his breath hissing in and out in a panic.

Someone is rushing toward him and he tenses again, his fingers digging into Jean. "No!" Armin gasps, but it's Mikasa's voice that greets him next. She speaks with a gentle urgency,

"Armin, what happened?" Her hands fall on him, trying to pry him off of Jean's body. "Come on, get up." He cannot comply, so he has to physically lift him up.

Mikasa….Corporal Levi…they're here.

He can hear Mikasa talking to him but he doesn't know what she's saying. She stares at his face with great concern in her eyes and when he doesn't answer she turns to Jean. Levi is arguing with the other men a few yards away. Armin glances in their direction just in time to see one of them slap Levi across the face.

Levi does not flinch. He doesn't lunge back at them like Armin expected. Instead, he stares at the men impatiently, saying nothing. "And you can tell your commander that the next time he wants to send children over to play, we'll have a welcoming party all ready for them. Understand?" one of them demands, his voice cold and condescending, as if Levi is the scum of the earth instead of the man who just raped an innocent young soldier.

"Armin!" Mikasa's loud words pull Armin back to the scene in front of him. "Are you hurt?"

Hurt? He blinks, staring into Mikasa's pretty, unblemished face. Hurt…. "No, I'm not hurt," he says slowly, tonelessly. His breathing is melodic and slow now as he succumbs to shock.

"There's blood on your mouth," she says, reaching out and swiping at the trail of blood that had dribbled down his chin.

"It's….Jean's," he stammers.

"Ackerman." Levi stalks over to the jumble of young soldiers on the ground. The other men have left again. "Get him up. We need to get Kirstein some help. Now."

"Come on, Armin," Mikasa says, extending her hand to help him up. He stares at it, his face expressionless except for the rivers of tears that stream silently down his cheeks. Levi grunts impatiently and pulls him up by the shoulder. Jean looks to be in bad shape. They don't have time for self-pity.

"Carry him," Levi orders. He tears a strip of fabric from the bottom of his own cloak as if it were a sheet of paper and bends down to wrap Jean's wrist as tightly as he can. Then he slings the rest of the cloak off of his shoulders and wraps Jean in it, scooping him up into his arms with only minimal effort. It's harder for Mikasa to lift Armin, but she manages.

Armin's eyes close. He hears the whistle of the 3D gear once more and feels himself launch through the air, Mikasa's arm wrapped tightly around him.

A/N: Thank you guys so much for reading this. I really appreciate any comments of thoughts that you may have on the story.