IMPORANT A/N: This was done for a month. I literally forgot I finished this chapter's draft a month ago. /)_- Oh yes, shout out to tumblr user levixmikasa because it would totally make your day.
Not so important A/N: Oh look, the real update. I'm not apologizing for my prank :p Follow me on tumblr if you want to see some updates I'll be posting during the progress of the next chapter (assuming I still do this because I usually forget). And thank you for so many uplifting comments about my condition last chapter, I'm back to this story now though. Hopefully nothing will go downhill again.
Let me know what you thought of this chapter too!
Inside the Red Zone
*Sees Titan on lawn, sticks pen in mouth and puts on glasses* We're gonna need a bigger squad... by: Euregatto
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The horses trot into the courtyard with Commander Erwin Smith in the lead, followed by two teams of soldiers and a third far in back that is keeping Eren sandwiched in their formation. The station members have been poised out front the main doors and relatively boisterous about their opinions of having to watch a dangerous Titan Shifter for more than a few days (as well as being graced with the presence of Humanity's strongest soldier), and despite her still bitter emotions towards the boy in question she wants to kick every one of them in the gut for their commentary. Now they are quietly observing in awe.
"Is that the guy?" Boris whispers to Hawthorne, several paces ahead, who nods an affirmative.
"Holy shit," Hitch purrs, jabbing Annie in the ribs with her elbow. "He is one serious hunk of man. You tapped that?"
"Shut it," is all Annie can manage to reply with since her attention is currently on her ex, because damn it all does he look hot in that cloak. Hotter without the clothes, she tells herself, and as soon she realizes it she nearly punches herself in the face.
Hawthorne paces over the horses scattering inside the courtyard and as Erwin dismounts, he offers out his hand. "Nice to meet you Commander," Hawthorne greets, locking gestures with the opposing man. "Captain Lou Hawthorne, at your service. Commander Dawk is awaiting your show in the briefing room, and instructed I settle your men in before I escort you over. His apologies for not coming out to greet you."
"Thank you, Captain," Erwin returns graciously.
Hawthorne gestures with a twirl of his finger and the soldiers scatter to take care of the people and groups they've been assigned. Annie, Hitch, and Marlowe make it over to Eren as he removes his bag from the horse's saddle. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance," Marlowe remarks, giving him a brief salute. "We're going to be your personal guards for the extent of your stay. I'm Marlowe Freudenberg."
Eren politely returns the gesture, but his gaze turns to Annie – taking the stallion's reigns – who glowers right back, so he instantly diverts to shaking hands with Hitch who passes up any snide comments for once and simply chirps, "I'm Hitch Austerlitz!"
The taller soldier takes Eren's bag without hesitation, tossing it effortlessly over his shoulder. "Now if you'll follow us, we'll take you to your new room, and Annie will give you a personal tour of the base."
"Maybe when I'm dead," she grumbles, passing the stallion's reigns off to Dennis, in charge of the stable management, before starting off after her group, Marlowe taking point and Hitch trailing behind Eren in between them. Eren is walking rather rigidly, almost like he can feel Annie's glare burrowing a hole into his back, but he dares not turn around and keeps moving.
Hitch is studying the shifter's figure from behind. "How did you ever let that one get away?"
Annie doesn't respond.
When they reach the main guest room halls Marlowe guides Eren into the quarters all the way at the end near the window. "Your team is just down the hall," Marlowe tells him as he sets the bag down beside the nightstand, "settle in and if you need anything, let us know; I'll be outside in the mornings, Hitch in the afternoons, and Annie in the evening. But odds are I'll come by to check in: Hitch has a tendency to not do her job right and Annie likes to pretend she just doesn't have a job."
Avoiding work. Typical Annie.
When Marlowe looks over his shoulder to realize Annie and Hitch aren't even there, he just sighs. "And this would be a prime example of what to expect. Welcome to Stohess, you unlucky bastard."
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Eren has never been sure about how to set things right. It's caused a particular amount of problems in his past and tended to all end the same way: regrets, anger, depression, and, oh yes, death of the people he never got a chance to apologize to. He figures it was only a matter of time before it all came back to bite him in the ass anyway, one tumbling tower of mistakes at a time.
Eren's watch doesn't start until after breakfast, but he doesn't see Annie, and figures she's either sleeping in or avoiding him at all costs. It hurts to think about the latter, so he accepts the former excuse as his present reality.
Marlowe takes his job way too seriously for someone in the Military Police, which Eren is both appreciative and exasperated about, and he spends the morning receiving a quick tour of the place to keep himself from dying of boredom in his room. That afternoon he spends reading a novel Petra had given him about two days back, but Hitch is had a tendency to bother him with questions involving Trost, Titan Shifting, his relationship with Annie, the contents of the book, Scouting Legion activities and, well, his relationship with Annie. He answers the best he can before she's switching topics back to the original or swooping into another.
When Annie doesn't show up for her evening shift Eren takes the time to try and catch up in his book, but now he's thinking of Annie, and he hasn't gotten any further than the page's first line before Hange Zoe is knocking on his door to inform him of dinner in the dining hall.
Now he's sitting with Levi's squad, excluding the Captain himself who is with Hange and Mika Zacharius at the farthest table with the other station Captains, Erwin, and commander Nile Dawk. His gaze wanders away from them and over Erd Gin's shoulder to the table across from them that consists of this station's veteran soldiers and recruits, and subsequently, his attention lands on Annie. She catches him looking, narrows her eyes into a glare that spears through him like a sword, and briskly returns to eating.
Eren sighs despondently. Of course she's still mad at you, he scolds himself bitterly, opening his palm beneath the table and staring down at the pendant. He tells himself over and over and over again he wants to forget about her, but he can't, he can't.
"Eren?"
He coils his fingers around the stone and glances at Petra Ral to his right. "Hm?"
"Are you alright?" she asks sympathetically. "You look upset."
"I'm fine," he bluffs, tucking the necklace, the memories, the shame away in his pocket before she notices. "Just thinking."
"About?"
His focus is on Annie again, but this time she doesn't bother to acknowledge his existence and continues trying to separate the strips of pork from the rest of her vegetables and rice, muttering something under her breath when Hitch makes an incoherent remark and gestures, with her head, in Eren's direction. He diverts his gaze to the table top.
Petra smiles wanly. "You're crushing on that blonde girl, aren't you?"
Eren snaps to attention with a start and his cheeks flush of their lively color. He wafts his hands at her to diffuse the accusation. "N-No, nothing like that!"
"Are you sure?" Erd quips as he catches a quick glimpse from over his shoulder. "She is cute."
"You wouldn't know cute if a kitten bit you right on the arse," Auruo Bossard supplies. His elder teammate's hardened glare pins him back in his place, but Auruo shrugs it off, jabbing his fork at Eren. "Regardless, you've been looking at her since you walked through the door."
"I have not."
Auruo stares at him incredulously.
"Okay maybe I have…" He rubs his fists together awkwardly, nervously, as if considering the consequences for letting them in on such personal information. Almost instantly he wishes Mikasa and Armin were here to keep him occupied instead. "She's my ex, alright? From my trainee corps."
Auruo whistles condescendingly and now it's Gunter Shultz's turn to steal a quick glance. "No offense kid," he starts, turning back to the boy, "but how did someone like you hook up with someone like her?"
"Am I really that bad?"
"Yes."
Petra reaches around Eren and punches Auruo in the arm just hard enough that he nearly bites right through his tongue.
"Well, no, but you're very…" Gunter rolls his hand in thought as he searches for the right description. "You're very absent-minded. Kind of one track. Like you wouldn't have time for a relationship because you're focused on Titans."
"How do you expect anyone to have a relationship when they'll most likely get eaten by a Titan? Titans are a priority!"
"This is exactly what I'm talking about, Eren."
He twiddles his thumbs bashfully in response. Oh.
"Who broke it off with who?" Erd prods quizzically.
"She did when she punched me in the face… following the ordeal where we nearly got killed by General Verman sometime after I got eaten by a Titan."
Gunter shrugs passively. "Understandable."
"Ouch," he says complacently, lowering his attention to his food. He picks up his fork and Petra quickly takes it from him, checks his hands for open cuts, and after an exasperated, "I promise I won't blow you guys up this time", she returns the silverware. "Anyway," he drones, jabbing at his carrots, "I don't want to talk about it. Trost is far behind me now. I'd like to keep it there."
Annie gets up from the table and gives her tray to the soldiers on kitchen duty over the end of the serving station. Eren realizes, suddenly, that Trost may be behind him, but his future would always be one step ahead. It's time he set things right, even if he doesn't know how.
Even if he may regret it in the end.
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"He misses you."
Annie storms down the corridor as Hitch's words reverberate through the back of her mind. Dinners for the last few days had been grating on her nerves since the legion first arrived, between her roommate's constant prods at how Eren was looking at them (specifically, how he was consistently observing his dear ol' bombshell blonde of an ex-girlfriend) and the stabs of guilt she felt deep in her chest every time she met his gaze.
"You two need to kiss and make up already, this is getting depressing."
"He's been here for four days and not once have I talked to him. I'd rather keep it that way."
"Don't you miss him too?"
She turns into the center courtyard's side halls. It's a massive boxed in garden you can access by sweeping over the granite railings, the paths lined with wide marble benches, something so profusely exquisite she's not even sure how the Military Police could have afforded the place to be built. The railing of stone is topped with massive arches several paces wide, allowing the sunlight to filter in, and when she glances out at it, she can see the brushes of roses and lavender and sunflowers, and chaparrals of orchids.
Then she sees the miscellaneous wildflowers just across the way. Yellow petals. The same kind of flower Eren had once given her, back in their trainee days, when –
Her eyelids flutter shut. The scent of burning kindle amplifies until she can practically taste the familiar ash hanging in the air, swirling around the groups circling their fires. Her ears ring with the sound of that girl's singing, her chest hums to the vibrating chords of the instrument, and if she focuses she can see them, her friends, smiling or scolding each other… and she can feel Eren, taking her hands so gently despite his lethal temper.
Still you think about him. About Mina and Hannah and Franz.
She can now feel the notches in the mess hall table, relishes in the scent of oak and stew and light gravy and the wildflower aroma from Mina's hair when she leans too close. The laughter in Hannah's voice is like a soothing timbre that reminds her of the spring season with its bounce and vigor, and she nearly laughs at the exasperation in Franz's tone as he scolds Reiner over the daily fiasco he caused amongst the populace.
They meant nothing to you.
Then she grits her teeth, nails digging into her palms to the point that she nearly punctures her flesh, remembering the twisted, mangled, headless corpse and the days she spent scrubbing her skin raw to peel away the memory of Hannah's death and purge herself of Marco's blood on her hands.
But they all meant something, didn't they?
As if cursed through some sick joke the universe absolutely loved to torture her with, a familiar voice echoes out from a perpendicular hall close ahead, startling her right back into a cruel, cruel reality.
"Marlowe! Son of a bitch, where'd I lose you at? Marlowe, do you hear me?!"
Annie wants to make a break for it but she's still dazed from her memories, and a moment later, Eren appears in her line of sight, less than ten paces out of reach. His next call hitches in his throat when he catches sight of her, meeting her frigid, scrutinizing glare. The silence cracks between them under the tension. And he gives in first, taking a step to the side so he can completely face her – but she wishes he would look away from the monster he wasn't aware writhed beneath her skin.
"Annie…"
She immediately turns her head. "I don't want to hear it."
"No, Annie, wait! I want to talk!"
"Didn't you get it last time? We're through. And you're still a pompous idiot." She whirls around to face the end of the vacant hall. "Whether either of us likes it or not I'm stuck with you for the next week, but I will absolutely not tolerate your attention-needy bullshit. Now if you don't need anything from me, Orphan"—he flinches at that, just like the first time when they were still trainees, but now its meaning is laced with a potent venom she concocted herself—"I bid you fare-fucking-well."
She barely gets seven feet when he opens his mouth again.
"Your nose is still weird."
She freezes up, just like the first time he said it, and immediately she regrets letting him take advantage of her weak points so easily. A thin sheet of ice settles into the atmosphere as she gradually moves her hands up to unfasten her jacket, sliding it casually over her head so she's in her hooded vest and letting it fall listlessly to the floor. "If you're really this intent on getting your ass kicked, I'm more than glad to be the one to do it."
He strips his own jacket and tosses it against the fold of the tile and the wall. She sweeps around, one leg resting behind the other, hands raised to guard her face. "Don't forget you're the one who trained me," he muses, and he mirrors her but keeps his fists further out, one stretched out too far to be defensive. They gradually draw closer, step for matched step.
As predicted by his stance, he moves first with a jab at her jaw.
She slaps his hand aside and slams her fist into his exposed kidney. He cries out, clutching his wounded side. "That's for being an idiot," she remarks matter-of-factly.
She doesn't expect him throw back his elbow and nail her in the shoulder as she barely manages to move out of the way, but he kicks off the floor to propel himself into a turn in the opposite direction, the way she's moving, so he can catch her by her forearm. She twists her wrist and grabs his forearm, thrusting him forward and kicking out his knee so he lands on the floor. He lets her go almost reflexively, hissing about the acute stabs of pains in his joints.
"You haven't gotten better at all," she scolds, thrusting the point of her leg up into his chin, knocking him aside. "I'm not surprised you got eaten by a Titan. You need to quit while you're-!"
He sweeps out her legs right from under her. The rear of her skull connects with the floor with a sickening crack that throws her into a daze, and it isn't until she feels her bruised tissue regenerating that she snaps back into reality. He fists her collar and traps her beneath him, legs locking down her own and his hands pinning her arms above her head by her wrists, just as Mikasa had taught him, only this time it is more fluid and his strength is unchained.
"Get off," she demands, but his gaze only hardens over like a steely film of refusal, determination, empathy.
"Don't you remember," he whispers dejectedly, soothing the blazing anger in her chest, "this is the same move I got you with last time." His clutch on her wrists tightens. "When I first saw in your eyes that you were happy, that you weren't so cold and detached as you said you are… and I had asked you if you wanted to keep sparring."
"I said I didn't."
"It made you happy," he relents, leaning down to brush her lips, "that's why I had asked… and in the end I kissed you…"
"And stabbed me in the leg with a rock."
"But you were happy. Sparring makes you happy. I want to make you happy."
She shoves him off and he lets her get to her feet, following her lead a moment later. She brushes gravel dust from her pants before seething, "You should have thought about that before your worthless ass got devoured by a Titan."
"Annie," he stresses, but she's already stomping off the other way. He catches her by her shoulders, forcing her to face him, to square up to the pleading desperation in his erinite orbs, like wilting trees beneath winter frost. "Come on, Annie, please, just talk to me! You can't keep ignoring me like this!"
"I'll do whatever the hell I want," she hisses as she makes a move to slap his wrists down, but he's suddenly ramming her up against the wall, firm but not hard, and she has half a brain to kill him on spot. "What the actual fuck, Jaeger?! You have until the count of three to let me go before I-!"
He kisses her.
He parts her lips with his, a sloppy attempt that nearly bruises her tender flesh, his tongue kneading at hers almost possessively. He kisses her in a way that tastes differently – much more exotic than their first and more exhilarating than the last, and she wants to kick him, to floor him, to shove him away and scream, but her blood is ignited with a familiar passion and she presses back, welcoming him and rejecting him all at once, digging her nails into the back of his neck.
Gentle, he's being so unfamiliarly familiar to her with how gentle he is with his lips. He's rough with his hands and eager with his hips and nearly so much so he becomes clumsy, but the gentleness in him drives her to the brink of insanity and keeps her there, suspended on the threshold of giving in and maintaining control. He's wet and hot and alive, the beating of his heart like a freak collision against her ears, overriding every need to conceal emotions as her father had embedded in her as a child.
And he's breaking her, chiseling her stone walls with the sensual scraping of his teeth and ushers of her name and desperation for everything that is her. It's never been about her but with him it's always, always, always her.
He thrusts his thigh up to lock her in place, throwing her free from her trance. The point of his knee massages her clit through her pants, rocking back and forth through the thick material of their jeans. She breaks off to gasp, and he moves his lips to her neck, finding her sensitive pulse point, sucking on her plane of skin until her flesh is swelled with blooming spots of red, her gasps ebbing into hushed cries of his name.
Almost immediately he pulls away, and she can barely keep herself up against the wall as she recovers from the sudden chill between them.
"I'm sorry," he utters, dabbing at his swelled lips with the edge of his sleeve, heaving to still the hammering of his heart within the cage of his chest. "I'm sorry, I just… I had to kiss you again, I had to touch you, I had to feel you against me… I just had to remember…"
"Remember the mistakes you made?" she answers bitterly, more of a fact than a question, her thighs visibly shaking as they recover from the sudden lack of heightening pleasure between them.
"No." He casts his gaze to the floor. "No… I had to remember what I've been fighting for. I didn't mean to get eaten by a Titan – I mean who the fuck does? – I was trying to protect Armin… You don't ever have to forgive me for failing to save"—he swallows dryly—"for failing to save Mina, but I never meant for that to happen. And I didn't mean to be such a terrible person to you, Annie, I loved you – love you – and…"
His voice cracks, falters.
Annie suddenly feels the familiar brine of anger boiling in the cavern of her chest. He had no fucking right to say this, to kiss her or touch her or mess with her goddamn head like she would forgive him out of some sick level of sympathy! He - he - ...he's broken, just like her, feeling so, so very alone in this cruel, cruel world. "It's too late," she barks, "stay the fuck away from me before I break your goddamn neck! I'll kill you just like every other one of your kind, Titan."
Something in Eren's features crumbles into a hollowed emptiness, a grotesque loneliness she comprehends better than anyone ever could. And she doesn't realize what she's said until her cataclysmic rage has finally registered to her own ears.
I am his kind.
He abruptly turns his back to her, facing the way he had come. She turns in his wake, the guilt gnawing away at her insides as she realizes that she's stepped too far over the line. Her hand lifts to his shoulder – I didn't mean it, but she chokes on every word – and he promptly shrugs it off.
"I'm sorry," he echoes again, much quieter than before and something so sincere it pierces through the iron veil around Annie's heart. He's so, so broken, and she did that to him, just as her father had raised her to do to everyone she wanted to love, to everyone she ever had ever loved. "I should go. You've had enough of my bullshit for three lifetimes anyway. I just had to kiss you… this one last time…"
She shouldn't let him walk away from her.
She does.