Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Mikasa catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror by her door. It’s large, and circular, and she can only see from the center of her chest, where her jacket is zipped, to the top of her head. She stops and tucks a loose curl under her headband before she leaves. Locking the door of her home, she starts down the road, six-minute mile pace to start.

The grass is coated in a thin layer of snow, but the road is clear. There aren’t many cars on the road before the sun rises.On her right, houses span the street, each one passing her by. Across from them is the water, a rocky beach that the falling snow is starting to coat as well. Mostly, she sees the mailboxes that stick out onto the street. They’re the same shade of forest green that all the ones in Fenwick are.

The October cold causes her breath to show with every exhale. She makes her way up the hill, picking up her pace as she runs onto campus. It’s dark and empty. The southern edge of the University borders the neighborhood occupied mostly by students. A quarter mile down, the northern side opens into the town, where Mikasa likes to run. She heads eastward, onto the empty boardwalk. The wood echoes with every step she takes, picking up her pace after the first mile. Her chest burns a bit, heart pumping blood through her entire body as her breath quickens. It feels good to her. The adrenaline, pushing against the fatigue.

All the shops on the boardwalk are closed for the season, doors closed and locked. At the end of the wooden path, she takes a right, running across the street and into the rocky, wooded part of town. Four miles later, she’s back on Hale street, where she lives. She stops on the porch, breathing heavily, and takes the key out of her pocket.

Upon opening the door, she sees Sasha sitting at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of cereal. Her hair is red, pulled back into a bun that keeps it out of her face. They share the home, along with another one of their teammates, Talia. Freshman year, Sasha and Mikasa shared a dorm room on campus. Amherst Hall, a tower on the west side of campus, near the stadium. They went on runs together and found on the longer ones that they had many things in common. Their enjoyment of old movies, as well as surfing in the few weeks it was warm enough to.

After the year was over, Mikasa visited Sasha at her summer home in the Hamptons. She couldn’t deny her privileged upbringing, but Sasha’s was something entirely different, as were many of the students’ at St. Andrews. It was a small, private school on the eastern shore of Massachusetts, often called a “little ivy.” Each day in the month of July, she and Sasha played tennis, spent time on the beach, and on occasion tasted wine. They only grew closer as time went on. Sophomore year, they lived in the same room, in the same dorm, and Junior year they moved into the house together.

“How was it?” Sasha asks, looking up from her bowl.

“Cold,” Mikasa says. She walks over to the fridge and takes out turkey to make herself a sandwich. “You’re up early.”

“Erickson requested that mid-distance come to the stadium today,” she replies. Sasha eats the last scoop of her cereal and stands up to rinse it out in the sink.

“I can’t believe you abandoned me to run hurdles,” Mikasa jokes, eliciting a soft smile from her.

Sasha runs the water, rinsing off the porcelain before putting it in the dishwasher. “I’m just trying it out,” she says. “I didn’t get recruited for my two-mile time, like you did.”

“Sure, but I miss running with you.” It’s quiet in the mornings alone, nothing but the sound of the ocean and the cold wind coming off of it. Sometimes, it’s serene. Other times, Mikasa finds it lonely. She unties a loaf of whole grain bread and takes out two slices, preparing her sandwich the way she likes. “I miss it too,” Sasha says. Mikasa cuts her sandwich diagonally and puts it on a plate. “We still spend the day together. Just not the mornings.”

She was right. Later on, they would go to class together and have lunch in the commons. It was too cold to sit outside in the courtyard anymore, as it would be for most of the year.

Sasha asks Mikasa a series of questions about her opinions on the universities in Boston. Sasha complains about her rejection from Harvard, and Mikasa remembers the expectation in Sasha’s family to attend a prestigious institution. “Should we get a drink tonight?” Sasha asks. Mikasa smiles. She knows their definition of getting a drink is waking up without knowing how they got home. She considers, for a moment. “I can’t,” she sighs. “I’ve got an exam in the morning, before afternoon practice.”

Sasha nods. “You’re so good with your studies,” she says.

“I have to be.” Mikasa’s mother attended an Ivy League school. She herself went to private schools growing up but transferred to public in high school. Mikasa loved it. She participated in cross country, lacrosse, honors society, and whatever clubs she could find the time for. It was easy then, to balance it all—her sports and friends and academic commitments.

Around them, people hurry past or stop to find tables to sit and eat at. They sit on the second floor of the commons, where you can eat or study or sit next to the window pane that faces the ocean.

“Yes, yes, your parents’ expectations,” Sasha says. “I understand.” Mikasa relaxes in her chair a bit, leaning back. Her attention shifts past Sasha’s head to the people passing them by. She likes to watch them, wondering where they’re heading or coming from. Everyone seems to be in such a rush. Sasha continues talking about her literature class and the essay she has due this weekend. “Mika,” she says, catching her attention.

“Sorry,” Mikasa says. She brushes her hair, long and wavy, from her face, bringing her focus back to the conversation. Sasha makes a comment about her being spacey, and they continue talking.

Mikasa observes her. She continues to wear clean-cut clothes, sweaters and nice, tailored pairs of jeans under her coat. She wonders how Sasha manages to stay put together, despite everything. Sasha has an easy time letting go of things, people. Mikasa wishes she could say the same about herself. It’s been a few months now. When Sasha’s done explaining, Mikasa says, “Yeah, let’s get a drink.”

That night, Mikasa closes her anatomy textbook and wears something she has the confidence to because of a few glasses of wine. She stands in the bathroom while Talia walks in and out of her room, asking to borrow things. Mikasa never minds.After a half hour, they follow Sasha down the street to one of the houses other athletes live in. Typically hockey, or lacrosse, in the fall. The neighborhood is old, built two centuries ago after the school was.

The cold wind bites her ears and bare legs, unmasked by the alcohol. “Fuck, Sash,” Talia says. She can tell by the slur of her voice that she’s drunk. “It’s freezing.”Sasha takes her scarf off and wraps it around Talia. They’re only a few houses away. When they get there, they separate, but always leave together.

Mikasa makes her way through the kitchen, to the patio, where her usual friends sit. She likes the guys that play hockey. They have that northern niceness about them, and she’s consistently amused by their thick Canadian accents. Connie has short blonde hair and is a defender. He sits on one of the chairs with a blunt in his hand, before passing it to one of his friends, Jean.

She sits on the arm of his chair. He likes her, which she knows. She likes to smoke. “Want me to roll up for you?” he asks without question.

She turns towards him, letting her legs rest over his. “Yes, thank you,” she says. He leans forward to roll her a joint, puts it in her mouth, and lights it for her. She smokes it slowly, enjoying the feeling. The bonfire keeps her warm, as does his hand on her thigh.

She observes them as they talk about racing season and summering abroad and the same things she’s been hearing about for the past two years. Connie is nice enough. He comes from a good family, he’s taller than her. But she could do without him, or any man she’s involved with. They’re unfulfilling for her.

“Are you going to share?” Jean asks. He’s taller than Connie, cockier, and has made many passes at her that she ignores. She nods, stands up, and hands him the blunt. “I'm going inside. Need another drink.”

Outside, Connie’s teammates gripe about letting her walk all over him.

Mikasa checks the time on her phone, it reads twelve-thirty. She closes it and sighs, picking a seltzer off the counter. Nothing heavy, like the bottle of vodka she sees in Sasha’s hand as she passes by.She opens the can by its metal tab and finds Talia in the living room with some friends of theirs. Mikasa settles there, on the couch with them and enjoys the rest of her night.

She’s delighted by the way the girls remember so many things from their freshman year. She, Talia, Sasha, and their other teammates spent many days together, on the beach, at meets, or school events. “You hardly come to the games anymore, Mika,” Megan, one of them, says.

“Megan,” Talia says quietly, elbowing her softly.

“It’s fine,” Mikasa says. She can’t keep avoiding the topic, and him, forever. She checks her phone absentmindedly, for lack of anything better to do while they start to chat again. One-twenty-two.

Talia insists they all take a photo together and posts it on her socials.

At one-thirty, Eren studies his phone carefully, and gets up to join his friends across the street. The music isn’t too loud when he opens his front door, but inside the house he can hardly hear. He looks for Armin, his freshman year roommate, though they’ve known each other their whole lives. Eren finds him by the stairs, sitting with his girlfriend.

“Hey E,” Annie says. He replies back kindly. They make a nice pair, he thinks. Both shy.

Armin looks at him for a moment. “You changed your mind?” he asked. Eren’s teammates urged him to come out with them, but he often said no. Eren just nods. He looks around the house at all the familiar faces. He tells Armin he’s going to look for the bathroom and runs into plenty of people on his way there. They talk about his season, give him pats on the back for actually winning them a few football games this year. He replies with a nod or a friendly smile.

When he opens the bathroom door, he finds Sasha knelt down next to the toilet. He grimaces. They don’t speak much as of recent, but they were good friends for a long time. He steps in and closes the door behind himself. “Sash,” he says, and she turns her head to look at him.

“Just give me a second,” she says. Eren kneels down next to her and combs her hair into his hand, holding it back for her. It isn’t the first time. When she’s done, she flushes the toilet and stands up to wash her hands and mouth off. “Sorry,” she says. He lets go of her hair, and she looks in the mirror, fixing herself up.

Eren takes out his wallet and gives her a piece of gum, before sliding it back into his pocket. “It’s no problem. Do you feel better?” Sasha nods and takes the piece from him. “Yeah.” She takes a step and stumbles. He catches her by her arm and opens the door. He walks her through the crowd, holding onto her hand, until he spots Talia’s black hair in the living room.

At the same moment, Mikasa looks up from her phone and sees them. The campus is small. They often run into each other. It doesn’t make her heart drop anymore. He doesn’t know what he expected, coming here. That they were going to magically start talking and become at least friends again. She just stares at him, for a moment.

He looks so much older than when they were kids. His hair is grown out, black and falling at his ears and cheekbones. They’re twenty, of course he looks older. But when she catches his eyes she sees the same boy she grew up with, who she called her best friend. It’s a feeling that fades quickly.

She doesn’t get the same feeling with Armin. Maybe because he kept his youthfulness, his round face and quiet nature. Maybe it’s because she hasn’t seen the intimate side of him, like she has with Eren. Maybe because he didn’t hurt her.

“Mika,” Sasha says affectionately. She lets go of Eren, and Mikasa can see that she’s drunk beyond her means.

Mikasa stands up to take her hand. She typically drinks this way. It’s not something that annoys Mikasa as much as it concerns her. She gives Talia a look and she stands as well, telling their friends goodbye. They start to walk towards the door, and Mikasa looks up at Eren. “Thank you,” she says, and he nods, as to say of course.

The three girls leave the house and walk up the street. Talia wraps Sasha’s scarf back around her and they make their way home. At the same time, Eren finds Armin and some of his hockey friends outside on the patio. He’s fond of all of them, save Jean. He sits down with them and smokes a bit, relaxing his mind. Connie sits on his left. He knows, of course he knows. It’s not in his nature to not know about Mikasa’s life.

Back at the house, Mikasa puts Sasha in bed. Sasha says she’s sorry, and Mikasa tells her not to be. They’ve both had worse nights. Afterwards, she makes herself something to eat and goes to bed.

At half past two, Eren’s night continues. One of the hockey kids, Luke, lays out white powder on the glass table. It doesn’t phase him anymore. Freshman year, he and Mikasa would talk about how insane the kids at St. Andrews were. Especially the legacy kids.

He rolls up a dollar bill and offers some to Eren. He shakes his head. Annie takes a bump, which later sparks an argument between her and Armin.

At home, he can hear their raised voices through their shared wall. He puts in earbuds and dozes off around three forty.

Chapter Text

In grade school, Eren liked to be the best at things. He never felt any pressure to; he just enjoyed the feeling of being at the top of his class, winning games.

Mikasa Ackerman, his longtime family friend who he spent many weekends and summers with, transferred to his high school. She came from St. George, a small Catholic school in the city, to their large public school in northern Virginia.

She had no problem adjusting, and being the best at things as well. She was an extremely talented runner, and he was an extremely talented receiver. The healthy competition was good for them and drew them closer than they already were.

His mother worked at the same firm as her mother. His father was a doctor. They were both fairly absent, always busy at work. So Eren made himself busy as well, playing football and lacrosse and earning the title of salutatorian, behind Mikasa.

He spent plenty of time at her home, or Armin’s, rather than sitting in his own. Her father would teach him about coding, as his own only child was interested in medicine.

In the summers, he and Armin went with them down to their home in the Outer Banks, where Mikasa taught them both to surf.

Armin was a legacy of St. Andrews. Mikasa and Eren took interest in the school, and the school took interest in their academic and athletic ability.

They all committed to the school in May. Later in the month, they all attended prom and graduation together.

Senior summer, they spent most of July in the Banks. Eren enjoyed the fact that there was a beach just like where they sat on campus. Armin reminded him it was too cold to go to the beach most of the year, save a couple of months.

Mikasa sat next to them in her beach chair, reading a book, as she typically did. She missed most of their conversation with her earbuds in until Armin tapped her.

She removed one of her headphones. “Who’s your roommate?” he asked.

Mikasa took out her phone and opened Sasha’s social media. She handed it to the boys, and they scrolled through. Armin made a comment on her wealth, apparent from the photos of her vacationing in different countries and her New York City private school uniform.

Eren made a comment on her appearance. “Don’t even, E,” Mikasa said. “She’s gay.”

“Lucky you,” he joked. She rolled her eyes and put her earbud back in. At the end of the month, they packed up and went home. In early August, they reported to school early for their various sports.

Mikasa was fairly sheltered in high school. One night in September, she spent her night at the house where the lacrosse players lived. She’d become friends with some of them due to their shared interest in the sport, debating the differences between the men’s and women’s rules.

Matthew was tall, like her. He’d always been sweet to her, and she found him to be attractive enough. He was a year older and more experienced.

She put her hand on his arm, running her fingers over his tattoos while she spoke to him. She liked the way his voice sounded, how his hands felt on her skin.

The next morning, she sat in her dorm and recounted to Sasha and Eren how she slept with him. It was her first time. It was awkward at first, but he was kind. She didn’t feel any particular way about it—Sasha was happy for her. Eren said nothing.

Eren liked her, of course he did. It was okay in ninth grade, but now they were like family. He kept his thoughts about her to himself, brushed them away. He considered his feelings childish, something he needed to let go of for the sake of their relationship.

In the following year, Mikasa found men at St. Andrews to be worth nothing more than friendship or occasional fun. She preferred to focus on her studies and fulfilling her athletic goals.

She never saw Eren the same way she did them, though he wasn’t aware of it. No one was. She hardly knew how she felt herself.

At the beginning of sophomore year, she sat on the beach with him. College had made him look older, she noticed. He had always been handsome, to her and everyone else, bright blue eyes and dark hair.

He was tan from their summer together, spent without Armin—he was away at his aunt’s in Florida. They spent their days surfing and walking around Nags Head together. Her dark, grown out hair lightened a bit in the sun over the month. He’d admire her from afar—the curve of her lips and soft grey eyes.

In the fall, football had filled him out. She observed the hard lines of his shoulders and abdomen. Maybe it was the drinks she had. She found it hard to take her eyes off of him, or deny the thoughts she’d had about him for years, like she usually did.

Over the next month, it grew more difficult for them—teetering the line between friendship and feelings, whether they were sexual, or romantic, or both. Mikasa often found it hard to distinguish between the two.

He noticed the way she’d look at him, the difference in her body language. She’d ask him to stay with her when she was drunk, and he’d oblige.

When Sasha had a girl over, Mikasa would retreat to Eren’s—he was living in the house already and had plenty of space. They’d sit in the living room, watching whatever movie they’d picked for the night. She sat perpendicularly to him, letting her legs rest over his. He put his hand on her leg, tracing small circles on her skin with his thumb.

It became normal for them, routine almost. They both stopped seeing other people, unspokenly, instead spending their nights with each other. She loved the way it felt to be close to him. He was comforting and familiar in the environment of their university. She was the same to him, if not more.

He turned to look at her, light from the television illuminating her features. He put one of his hands on her waist, pulling her closer to him. It was a simple moment, but that was all it took.

She turned to him and kissed him, her heart beating out of her chest. Nothing had ever made her feel so much. It was gentle and nervous. The rest of the world fell away. They stayed like that for a few moments before he laid her down on her back.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and sighed against his lips, as if she were relieved. He kissed her a little faster, deeper, and she returned it. Both of them were too nervous to move, so they didn’t for a few minutes.

Armin opened the front door and startled both of them. They pulled away from each other, flushed and smiling.

Armin just smiled and shook his head. “Sorry,” he said. He went upstairs and closed the door behind him.

They sat up, her head resting on his shoulder, and finished the movie.

Eren wakes up an hour before practice. He walks downstairs to the kitchen and, upon noticing the mess his roommates left last night, starts to clean it up.

He prefers an organized space and often finds it difficult living with four other football players. Washing each of the dishes, he puts them away, then makes himself something to eat. Armin wakes up later than usual. Eren makes him something too.

They eat silently. Thirty minutes later, they’re in the locker room. Eren’s quiet at practice: it helps him focus. The stadium seats rise around them, forest green, the same color as the track.

He goes through each drill exactly how his coach directs him, without mistake. Afterwards, when his breath is heavy and his chest is burning, he sits on the sidelines and takes a drink of water.

Armin sits down next to him. He tells him he was glad to see him last night. Eren listens to him talk about Annie and advises him to talk it out with her. He and Mikasa could never communicate about anything, almost as if they were afraid to.

“Downsides of dating a legacy kid,” Eren jokes.

Armin smiles, taking his cleats off. “She wants me to spend Thanksgiving with her family in Aspen,” he says.

“You’ve been together for a year. It’s time you meet her family.”

Armin sighs and says he knows. He fears they won’t approve of him, and Eren knows that. He supposes he was lucky to already know Mikasa’s family. Her father always liked him, treated him like a son.

They leave and walk home together. It’s not yet cold enough to require driving.

Eren and Mikasa pass each other on opposite sides of the street, but they don’t notice.

She did well on her exam, despite the lack of sleep she got. It’s Friday; she has team practice in an hour. She enjoys Fridays—she and Sash get to do their long runs together.

They meet at the stadium and stretch together while their coaches talk. “You seem better than usual,” Mikasa comments. She shifts the position of her body to stretch the other leg.

Sash explains her belief that not using mixers prevents a hangover. She continues, talking about the girl she was with last night, and to Mikasa’s relief, eludes any details about Eren.

On their run, they stride slightly in front of the group. They convince themselves running will flush the alcohol out of their bodies, and it feels like it does.

Mikasa breathes deeply. Their feet patter against the asphalt in unison, keeping the same pace.

The sun shines harshly against them in the mid-afternoon. Birds chirp in the trees above them, and it doesn’t feel as brittle as it does the rest of the day.

They make their way through the town of Fenwick, bare after the end of the summer. The roads are old and cracked under their feet and turn to dirt paths when they reach the woods. The shade from the trees is cooling.

After two miles, they end at the stadium where they started. Mikasa puts her hands on her head, catching her breath for a few seconds.

Slowly, the adrenaline creeps out of her body, and she feels serene.

Later, after practice, Mikasa cooks dinner for Talia and Sash.

Sash sits at the kitchen table, studying, while Mikasa cooks chicken in a pan. In the burner next to it, she boils broccoli.

Talia sits at the counter in front of the stove, scrolling mindlessly on her phone. “The bars are having a deal tonight,” she says. Sash lifts her head from her notebook and looks at Mikasa.

“You two go,” Mikasa says. She tells them she has plans to study. Truthfully, she spends her night down the street with Connie. They sit on the same back patio, smoking. His home is farther down the road, and the backyard faces the beach.

Mikasa puts the hood of her sweatshirt on, curling up from the cold wind. “How was your day?” he asks, and she goes on talking about it, conversation eventually spilling into the whole week.

“Our season is just about starting up. I’d like it if you could make it to a game next week. Some of your buddies will be there.”

She nods. “Do you enjoy hockey?” she asks. “Like, all the time. Even getting up early and putting on all those pads and getting knocked around.”

He shrugs, taking a drag of his joint before blowing it out slowly. She watches him as he does so, relaxed brown eyes and sharp jaw.

“Most of the time. In the middle of the season around February, I tend to enjoy it less. School picks up, and by then, I haven’t been in Ontario in six months.”

“Hm,” Mikasa replies. She enjoys winning, though she’s not sure she enjoys running as much as the way she feels when she’s done. A calm washes over her that she feels she’s always chasing. For the night, the weed is doing the job for her.

Across the road, Eren sits at Armin’s desk, helping him with his computer. Armin gripes about the fact that he purchased it about two years ago, and it’s constantly giving him issues.

Unscrewing the bottom of the laptop, he replaces a part with another part and puts the bottom plate back on. “Here.” He hands it to Armin. He’d agreed to fix it in return for an eighth after the shop in town quoted him two hundred dollars. Truthfully, he would have done it for free.

Armin reaches in his pocket and takes out thirty dollars, handing it to Eren. “Connie has some.”

Eren sighs, and Armin looks up at him. “Gotta let it go at some point,” he says. “That’s the advice you would give me.”

“You don’t listen to my advice,” he says, getting up. “I’ll be back.”

When her joint is burned away and her mind is calm, Mikasa kisses Connie goodnight and stands up to head home. His eyes follow her as she opens the back door to walk back into the house, and his feet do soon after.

He offers for her to stay over, and she considers for a moment. She likes him. But she doesn’t like the feeling that they seem to be getting closer to a place she doesn’t allow herself to go.

Outside, Eren knocks on the door. No one answers the first time, so he knocks again, wondering if he should call Connie, though he tends to be awake at this time. As he raises his fist to knock again, Mikasa opens the door.

She’d assumed it was Sean, who’d wander home drunk without a key, or one of her teammates that often hung around the hockey players.

Her eyes shift to his hand and see the cash he’s holding. “Hey,” Eren says.

“Hey,” Mikasa answers. For some reason, her heart sinks this time. She misses him. She can smell the faint scent of the cologne he’s been wearing for years on his shirt. “Connie’s out back.”

“Okay,” Eren says, almost affectionately, tone cutting right through her. She feels herself drawn to him, despite everything.

Her mother still asks about him when she calls her. She sees him weekly in the training room, yet they don’t speak. When she’s with Connie, she thinks about him.

She has to look up a bit to make eye contact with him. His eyes are soft, despite the hardness of the rest of his face.

Mikasa looks back down and takes a step to the side so he can come in. He refrains from saying what he wants to. “How’s Sash?” he asks.

“She’s fine. You know her.”

His lips upturn a bit. “Yeah.” They’re both silent for a few seconds. Mikasa steps past him and out the door. He resists the urge to catch her by her arm, or look back to see if she’s doing the same. She is. He walks into the house, closing the door behind himself.

Chapter Text

A few weeks after Eren kissed her, Mikasa told Sasha. She was hesitant at first to tell anyone and accept her own feelings about him.

He was known for sleeping around. She didn’t take issue with it, but it made her hesitate. “Do you love him, or do you want to have sex with him?” Sasha asked.

“I’m not sure,” Mikasa replied honestly.

Typically, in their conversations, Sasha went on and on speaking, and Mikasa just listened. Neither of them minded, it was just the type of person each of them was.

Sasha sat and listened to her talk about him for an hour. Occasionally, the conversation would change, then return to the subject.

Mikasa admitted she was afraid to have sex with him because it meant whatever was happening between her and Eren, sexual or romantic, was real, and would change the way they’d been for her entire life.

To Eren, the idea of touching her, being inside of her, made him feel guilty. Like he was again fantasizing about his family friend who he valued so much. Who he realized he’d loved, for years.

He never knew how she felt, what she was thinking. She was a quiet person, but it was deeper than that. She didn’t let him, or anyone.

A few days later, he laid her down on his bed, gently, hands on her waist. She kissed him, more deeply this time, more wanting, as his hands roamed over her.

He was a little drunk and so was she, letting go of their inhibitions. She told him he didn’t need to be so careful with her. He asked if she was sure, and she said yes.

Mikasa relaxed under him, hand slipping underneath her shirt, fingertips tracing her nipple. She sighed affectionately and he repeated the action, learning what she liked.

He memorized the sight of her in front of him, the sounds she made, her reactions to each touch. His other hand rested on her hip, fingers pressing into the soft skin and pulling her closer to him.

He pulled away to kiss her neck, between the valley of her breasts, down her stomach. Her breath quickened the lower he went, and he took his time on the supple skin of her thighs, making her wet.

She lifted her hips for him when he asked her to, and he took her pants off, leaving her in her underwear. He didn’t bother to take them off, slipping the thin fabric to the side.

His tongue was gentle against her cunt, enough to make her moan. The sound became like an addiction to him, the feeling of her soft thighs pressing against his ears. She said his name softly, almost like she was pleading with him, until she came.

He sat up and kissed her forehead affectionately. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer to her, whispering in his ear what she wanted.

He kept his hand on her hip as he slipped inside of her slowly. She closed her eyes and they both sighed, almost as if they were relieved. “Am I hurting you?” he asked, unmoving, watching her facial expression.

She shook her head, and he entered her fully. She took a long, shaky breath, adjusting to the pressure, and he questioned her again. “It’s just a lot, is all,” she said. He smiled softly to himself.

He started slowly, and she relaxed. Her shaky breaths turned to moans. She wrapped her arms more tightly around him, nails scratching his back. He liked the feeling, even when it was slightly painful. “Can I make you come like this?” he asked, and she shook her head.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does,” he said. He stopped, pulling out of her carefully and turning her on her stomach. He pulled her hips to him and entered her again. “Better?” he asked, deeper inside of her.

“Yes,” she sighed, starting to moan softly as he hit the same spot over and over again until she came. Her legs shook slightly afterwards and he slowed down.

“Do you want me to stop?” he asked. “I can, if you’d like.”

She told him no, she was okay. She had another orgasm before he did. She liked listening to him curse and say her name when he was close.

Afterwards, he lay on his back, her head resting on his chest. Eren ran his fingers through her hair gently, repeatedly, until he thought she was asleep.

“I don’t want things to change between us,” she said, quietly. He’d never seen this part of her; shy, unsure. Even when they were having sex, she seemed so much softer to him, more open, compared to the coldness she usually presented.

That was all he wanted, for her to let him really see her. “They won’t,” he replied. In the morning, they had sex again. He enjoyed peeling away her layers, pleasuring her, making her melt in his hands, more than he enjoyed his own orgasm.

Mikasa had rarely found sex to be so pleasurable before him. She didn’t want to tell him that, for her own ego’s sake, but when she did, it satisfied him more than anything else ever had.

_______________________________________________

Before bed, Mikasa replaces her contacts with glasses and studies a few things before she grows tired.

Closing her computer, she sets it on her nightstand and picks up her remote. She puts on Sleepaway Camp. The chaos calms her in an odd way. Her phone buzzes beside her. Sash sends her a photo of Talia kissing someone at the bar, who she makes out to be Brandon, Aaron’s roommate. Mikasa grimaces. Sash sends another message asking if she’s awake. She replies, yes, and the movie she’s watching. Three dots appear to let her know she’s typing back.

Scary, Sash says. Mikasa types back, Goodnight. Don’t be late to the bus, please. I’ll die if I have to sit next to Dany and listen to her snoring.

Three dots appear again, and Sash promises she won’t.

Setting her phone on the charger, she sighs and turns her attention back to the movie rather than anxiously thinking about her competition.

When her alarm goes off, the television glows back at her, asking if she’s still watching.

While Mikasa sits on the bus, Eren enjoys his bye weekend leading up to midterms. He puts on a thick sweatshirt and sits on the front porch of his home, laptop open on their glass table. He can smell the ocean air in the cool breeze, and takes a deep breath.

He wants to call her, wish her luck on her race, like he used to. Shifting his focus, Eren continues working on the code for his junior project. It’s an expectation for all students in his department at the university to create a running program of their choice. It’s strenuous, and time-consuming, but he likes the order of it all.

Focus and being outside makes two hours pass by quickly. Later in the afternoon, Eren meets some of his classmates in the library to work together.

It’s an old building in the center of campus, high ceilings in the center and small rooms on the outside. He orders a coffee from the shop on the first floor and sips it absentmindedly as he works. He likes football, but he loves this.

On the bus, Talia and Sash sleep soundly while Mikasa finishes typing a paper for her health disparities class. She finds it ironic that most of her classmates have never, and will never experience what they write about.

She opens a citation website and finishes the paper, before opening another tab. On the lineup, she’s seeded number one in the 3200 meter and 1600 meter races. Scrolling through, she looks at the times for the other competitors. Mostly, she focuses on Priscilla Lane, from UMaine.

“Stop,” Sash says, opening her eyes. Mikasa closes the tab. Sash reassures her that she’s four seconds faster than Lane. “I’m running an event I never have before, and I don’t spend time obsessing over rankings and times. Just run.”

“You’re right,” Mikasa replies.

She closes her computer and gets some rest. When she opens her eyes, they’re in Ithaca. She sleepily gets up, shaking Sash awake, and picks up her backpack. The team files off the bus one by one and picks up their duffle bags from underneath the bus.

Inside the hotel, cold air blows in the lobby where they all sit, getting their room keys. It’s a routine she’s fairly used to by now. In her and Sash’s room, they find sandwiches and chips on the desk.

Sash sighs and sprawls out on the bed while Mikasa takes a shower and braids her hair for the race. Quietly, while Sash continues to nap, Mikasa opens her laptop to turn in her paper.

Wind roars outside the window, muffled by the sound of the air conditioner turning on and off and her teammates’ voices through the hallway.

Mikasa opens the tab again, looking through Lane’s last few 1600 meter times. She knows that race isn’t her strongest, or it hasn’t been this season. She sighs, closing her computer.

At half past six, she wakes Sash for team dinner. She eats and enjoys the presence of her friends. She likes away trips, despite how tired they make her.

Before bed, Mikasa hits her pen a few times and messages Connie.

“Miss you,” she writes.

“I'll be here when you get back.”

“I know. Wish you were here now. Want you to do that thing I like.”

“Yeah? What else do you like?”

Mikasa hesitates. Pleasure lets people, and things, have too much control over her. She gives too much of herself. “What do you like?”

“When you run your nails over my stomach,” he says. “Makes me crazy.”

She smiles. “You wanna see me tomorrow, when I get back?”

“Course I do.”

“Mkay,” she says. “I’ll text you.”

Eren opens his phone the next morning and scrolls through a streaming app. When he gets to where he wants to be, he taps on the livestream.

Mikasa is lined up on the starting line next to about eight other women. She’s taller than almost all of them, faster. Thirty seconds after the gun goes off, she’s in the front of the group.

He watches her intently, her strides, the green bows in her hair that she wears for good luck. Four minutes and twenty seconds later, she crosses the finish line in first.

Later in the day, he watches Sash run the 400 meter hurdles. She gets fourth place and finishes the race smiling.

Eren messages her, congratulating her. It’s not unusual for them to talk, a bit.

Sash finds Mikasa in the tent later on in the day, sitting down in a lawn chair with her. Mikasa reaches over to Sash, straightening one of the bows in her hair.

She asks Sash who she’s texting and she stiffens a bit. “Eren,” she replies.

Mikasa notices her tone and replies, “He’s your friend. You don’t have to say it like that.”

She doesn’t mind that Sash maintains a relationship with him. She doesn’t consider him to be a bad person, or someone she dislikes. He was never mean to her, or condescending. Their relationship dissolved in a mix of confusion, jealousy, and hurt. She couldn’t be honest with him, despite her effort to.

“Alright. I miss being around both of you,” Sash replied. She’d always been one to speak her mind. Many times over, she’d encouraged Mikasa to speak to him and be transparent.

Maybe Mikasa had too much pride, or maybe she was afraid. Either way, she hadn’t. “I know, Sash,” she says.

Mikasa wins the 3200 meter race by a vast margin of seven seconds. At the podium, she sees her old teammate, Laila, from high school. They catch up before she returns to her team tent and sits down. At the end of the night, after each of the events and relays are done, they get back on the bus and drive back to St. Andrews.

In the evening, Eren sits outside with his friends, nursing a Corona. The bonfire on their back patio keeps them warm, illuminating each of their smiling faces as they tell stories about past years to the younger players.

“Yeager,” Brandon, one of them says, referring to Eren by his last name, like he always had. He looks up from his phone. He asks him a question about Maria, a senior on the soccer team. He replies that she’s nice. He doesn’t enjoy talking about the women he’s slept with. Maybe he’ll bring up the topic with Armin, but that’s all.

He changes the subject to a story about their offensive coordinator from his freshman year. The fire crackles behind the noise of their conversation, small embers flying away from it. “Don’t you think he favored you a little?” Armin asks.

Eren shakes his head, taking a drink of his beer. “No. Actually, I think he hated me. So did you, and you,” he jokes, pointing to Brandon and Flint.

“We were just messing with you,” Flint explains. “Everyone’s hard on the freshman.”

Flint's definition of being hard on him was making him drive him home from the bar at two in the morning and consistently flirting with Mikasa solely because they were friends.

Eren found every organization at their small university to be similar. Clubs are competitive to be admitted into, almost as competitive as it was to get into the school itself. Even so, you had to earn your spot afterwards.

Mikasa had to go to six AM lifts her freshman year, despite her older teammates having a choice to attend the afternoon session. At team nights, she was offered amounts of alcohol she didn’t know any better than to accept.

Eren, Mikasa, Sash, Armin, and Talia would gripe about it to each other the entirety of their first semester. So much so that it drew them all as close together as they were. Sash, being a legacy, already expected it all. She described St. Andrews as a “cult,” and joked about having to be initiated into the surfing club.

“If I'd known you actually liked her, I wouldn’t have done it,” Flint says.

“Yeah you would’ve,” Eren says. He regrets his words immediately after speaking. He finishes his drink, hoping the conversation will shift.

“I would’ve,” Brandon says. A few of their friends laugh. Eren takes another drink out of the cooler while Armin brings up their win against Bates last year. Brandon ignores Armin. “Shit, I still would.”

Eren picks up another drink. After having a few more, he calls it an early night for himself and heads upstairs. Eren sits in his bed after showering, in the dark, unable to sleep. The muffled voices of his teammates and his own thoughts keep him awake.

He was used to being alone, being the only child of two career-minded parents. But he’d grown to like being in the presence of so many of his friends, even when he found them to be an annoyance.

When he was younger and home alone, he’d take his lacrosse stick to the wall or swim laps in the pool. Anything to avoid sitting in the cold, empty house. He never took advantage of the freedom. Maybe he’d have a few of his friends over to drink, or swim, but that was it.

He had no neighbors, his house was built up on a hill at the end of the street. Occasionally, he’d have a girl over, and as he got older that became a habit. It was nice to feel another person's touch, to wake up to their presence in the morning. It became an easy fix whenever he felt alone.

He runs his palms over his face, sitting up. He picks up his phone, harsh white light shining against his face.

He remembers Mikasa’s face when she came to his door. She’d driven down to his house, it was early March then, and too cold to walk.

Sash had scolded her about being too cold towards Eren, too closed off the past few months. She didn’t want to ruin things, she said. He was never interested in having a girlfriend. She decided she’d try harder to let that fear go. She stopped at the coffee shop they both liked and picked up something warm for both of them to drink, and a few croissants in a brown paper bag.

On the street in front of his house she parked, the windshield frosted enough that she could barely see through it. She put on her hat and a scarf, not bothering with gloves. They hadn’t seen each other in a few days; she had just returned from a meet.

While she opened her car door, his front door opened. A girl walked out. She was short, and had dark hair. Mikasa recognized her. She waited until the girl got in her car and left before walking up the sidewalk. Slowly, the realization settled over her. His roommates were gone skiing in the mountains. Armin had just started dating his girlfriend.

She didn’t even feel the cold biting at the bare skin of her hands and face. Knocking on the hard wooden door stung her knuckles a bit. She looked down at the metal doorknob, frozen over.

Eren answered the door. She was looking down, arms crossed over herself and shivering. “Come inside,” he said, but she stood on the snow-covered porch, unmoving.

She didn’t speak for a few seconds. “I don’t know why I thought I was the only one,” Mikasa said. She felt stupid, more than anything else, remembering why she never let herself get close to him. It made her vulnerable, and it cut deeper than she expected it to.

His lips parted. “Mikasa,” he said, tenderly.

“I thought we were—we had something,” she said, honestly.

He hesitated, letting go of his casual grip on the door. “You told me that’s not what you wanted,” he said. “Over and over again until I finally heard it. Until I got myself to stop hoping.” She did say that. She knew she did. For her, it took until that moment to realize she was wrong.

She looked up at him, for a while, hair stuck to his forehead, bruises on his neck. He had clearly moved past it all.

He remembers that look. It almost makes him feel sick when he thinks about it. Her eyes were glassy, downturned. She couldn’t find the words she wanted. He waited for her to speak

but she didn’t. “I’m sorry,” he said. 

She shook her head. She never liked to cry in front of others.  “It’s fine,” she said. She handed him his drink and food. “We shouldn’t have done this, anyway. It’s my fault.” 

“Come inside so we can talk about it. Please.”

“What’s there to talk about?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady. “You’re the same as you’ve always been, and so am I. I don’t know why I thought—“ she stops talking. “Sorry. I’ll see you later.”

He didn't call after her, so she didn’t turn back. She sat in her car outside her dorm for a few minutes, coffee growing cold. She accidentally left it in her car that night, and it froze. 

In her room, she walked past Sasha without a word to the bathroom and ran a hot shower. There, she could let her tears fall, one by one, for her embarrassment, her hurt, her anger at herself. 

She stood there for a while, for long enough that Sasha knocked on the door. Mikasa steadied her voice and told her she was almost done. Sasha asked if she could come in. 

“Mika,” she said. She sat down on the counter and listened to her best friend cry for a few moments. “What happened?”

Vulnerably, for once, she tells Sasha. When she’s settled, she considers picking up the phone and calling him. She doesn’t. Though she didn’t exactly have the right to be upset, it didn’t change the way she felt about it all. 

She became avoidant of him, like she usually did of things that upset her. In seventh grade, when she fractured her ankle trying to run hurdles, she never tried again, despite her talent. 

Eren knew this about her. He waited, and waited for her to come to him, knowing he’d hurt her. He hated himself for it. It was an empty attempt to bury his feelings for her. It was easy enough for him, most of the time. 

They grew apart. She spent her summer with Sasha, rather than him, and he spent his time at St. Andrew’s, taking a few classes and avoiding home. 

Now, he types a message to her, then deletes it, repeating it over and over again until he finally says, I miss you. 

Chapter Text

Mikasa wakes up back at St. Andrew’s, around one in the morning. The bright lights of the bus turn on and she grimaces, trying to shake the haze off and get her things together. 

Their coach congratulates both of them when they walk off. Mikasa, Sasha, and Talia get in Sasha’s Mini Cooper and drive back to their house. 

Inside, Mikasa drops her bags in her room and runs herself a hot bath. She opens her bedside table, taking out a pair of pajamas and her pen. She relaxes in the bath, letting her muscles rest as she takes a few hits. 

After every away trip, she does this, and reads a book. Afterwards, she dries off and gets in bed. She opens her phone to check the messages she’d missed from her parents watching her race. The most recent one is from Eren, thirty minutes ago.

She reads it and her heart burns. Sitting down on her bed, Mikasa stares at the screen. Her room is silent, other than the hum of her fan. Finally, she lets go of her pride, and types back, me too. 

They don't speak for a while after that. They both go about their lives. Eren, embarrassed about messaging her drunkenly, avoids the training room and the hockey house. Mikasa doesn’t think much of it— or she doesn’t let herself. They both say things they don’t mean. He used to tell her he loved her when they had sex because she’d said it turned her on. She did the same.  

Sometimes, Mikasa thinks about the fact that he knows everything about her. Beyond what she looks like naked, he knows her likes and dislikes, even the little things she’d be embarrassed of if anyone else ever knew. 

She doesn’t tell Sasha about the message because she doesn’t want to hear her opinion about it. 

The next weekend, after their race, Mikasa has a few of her friends over before they go out to the bars in town. She cleans her kitchen carefully, at the same time putting something for them to eat in the oven and making a drink mix. An hour later, her house is filled with her friends, half of which are just her teammates. Annie, one of them, brings Armin with her. 

She feels bad, seeing them all together without Eren. She stands in the kitchen, behind the island ledge that serves as a bar for her, making herself a drink. She adds sweet rum to a cup of coke and nurses it throughout the hour. Connie, Jean, and a few of their friends sit on the back patio smoking. 

Mikasa promised Sasha it would be one of their drinking nights. Connie didn’t drink, and agreed to drive them into town. Talia finds the speaker upstairs and brings it down, putting on some music. 

Mika ventures out of the kitchen into the living room, sitting down on the couch with a lone Annie. She asks her about her race. Annie tells her it was alright. The blonde is a year younger than Mikasa is. “I’m more embarrassed because Armin watched it online and I finished in fifth.” Annie is quiet and they’ve only spoken a handful of times; it's not until now Mikasa notices her slight southern accent. Maybe it’s the alcohol. She notices Jean’s gets more prominent when he drinks. 

Mikasa reassures her that she did well. They have a few more races before the indoor season starts. 

A freshman girl comes to sit with them. Mikasa gets up to refill her drink before she returns to their conversation. The girl asks her about Jean and she warns her off upperclassmen, something no one did for her when she was a freshman. She asks her name, and she tells her its Sierra Lu. “What about Peter?” she asks, pointing to him. Sierra says they’re just friends. Mikasa can see clearly that they’re not. 

She gets up to make herself another drink and finds Talia and Sasha in the kitchen, doing the same. 

By the time the three girls get into Connie’s car to leave, they’re plenty drunk. Enough that Mikasa has to get out because she forgot to lock the front door. 

Talia pesters Jean to play a song she likes while Mikasa tries to finish the seltzer she grabbed on the way out. She peeks over to nose in on who Sasha’s texting. Jordan, her ex. 

She sees a message she doesn’t want to and averts her eyes. “You can look,” Sasha teases. “I know you straight girls love this kind of thing.”

“Oh shut up,” she says, smiling. “Stop talking to her. How many times has she cheated on you? How many times have you cheated on her?”

Sasha shakes her head. “You don’t get it.” 

“Fine,” Mikasa says, putting her hands up. Jean puts on the song and by the end of it, they’re at the bar. They all spill out of the car onto the street, illuminated by the overhead lights and the glow out of the bar window. 

There’s never a line at Callahan’s; it’s too cold out and students would rather stay home than freeze. 

Mikasa crushes her seltzer and throws it away before going inside. She can hardly hear Sasha over the music or see her through the people. They go straight to the bar and order a few shots, which Sasha refuses to let Mikasa or Talia pay for. 

Afterwards, they head to the other side of the bar, closer to the music. She enjoys dancing with her friends the most when she’s drunk. Sasha holds her hand while they do so. 

Eren adjusts from the cold air outside to the warmth of the bar. He doesn’t see Mikasa, at first, though he isn’t looking for her. His teammates pressured him into going out after their win that morning against Colgate. He sits in one of the booths with Flint, Brandon, and a few others. They order a few pitchers. 

Mikasa hasn’t been this drunk in a while. It feels worse when she turns her head to the side too quickly. She tells Sasha and Talia she’s going to take a break, sitting down at one of the barstools. She takes her phone out and checks the results of a few races this morning. Jean sits down next to her. He asks what she drinks, and she replies, anything. He orders them both Cape Cods and leaves his card for the bartender. 

“Your friend doesn’t like me,” he says while Mikasa stirs her drink with a straw. She takes a sip. It tastes like there’s no alcohol in it. “He’s looking at us.”

Drunkenly, she replies that Connie loves him, saying how close they’ve been all the time she’s known either of them. “I'm talking about Eren.”

Mikasa responds with a simple “Oh,” and continues to drink. 

“You don’t like rubbing people in his face, do you?”

“No,” Mikasa replies. “He’s not someone I would enjoy doing that to.”

“Ah,” Jean says smugly. “You still love him.”

“I never told him I loved him,” Mikasa says. Her head spins a bit, and she rests her chin in her hand. 

She’s not in the mood to think about the topic, yet he goads, “But you do, don’t you?”

“Fuck off Jean,” she says, and he lets the topic go. “What is it to you?”

“It’s nothing to me,” he says. “It’s something to Connie.”

Mikasa sighs. She feels the urge to put her head down on the bar, then remembers she’s in public. “He’s fine.” She speaks truthfully. She and Connie have had many long conversations about her nature. 

“Alright,” Jean says. He stands up, and she follows after him, asking him to bring her to Sasha. 

She finds Talia instead, and offers her the rest of her drink. Looking around for Sasha, Mikasa grows concerned that she’s in the bathroom doing cocaine, which she has, once before. Talia says she went off with Jordan. The two walk, hand in hand, to the front side of the bar where the bathroom is. 

Eren looks up from his glass and sees them pass by. His eyes follow her involuntarily, like they did when she was sitting with Jean. 

He looks back down at his drink, finishes it, and goes on looking at the other girls in the bar. Flint asks him a question about a pick he threw during the game. He’s so drunk it’s the third time he’s asked Eren that night. Eren tells him it’s fine, they still won. When Mikasa walks back, her eyes shift to him for a moment, before she turns away. 

Eren doesn’t miss the way Brandon’s eyes follow her as well. Eren gives him a look. “She’s not yours, E,” he says. 

He puts his glass down. “Never said she was.”

“But you act like she is,” Brandon says. He instigates when he’s drunk, a fact Eren is used to. He doesn’t deny it. He shrugs. “Even though you cheated on her.”

Eren lets out a little breath that sounds like a scoff. “You can have her if you want her,” he says calmly. “We’re too old for you to try to rile me up. It doesn’t work.”

“It used to,” he said. Brandon recounts the time Eren punched one of the older linemen square in his jaw. He’d called Mikasa something along the lines of jail bait, when she was still seventeen. Eren tells him he’s not like that anymore.  

He had a few similar instances, in high school, before he was as calm. He was easy to irritate. It takes a lot more now. 

An hour later, Sasha tells Mikasa she’s leaving with Jordan. She refrains from making a face and tells her to be safe. Talia leaves with Brandon, and Mikasa goes go get herself another drink. 

A firm hand wraps around her arm and pulls her into the corner near the bathroom. Eren knows better, but he’s not himself when he’s drunk. “Jean? Really?” he says. His cadence tells Mikasa how much he’s had to drink. 

She smiles a bit. “Who are you going home with? Lila? Reese? Maya?”

“It should be you.”

“No it shouldn’t,” she says. His hand gently keeps her from taking a step past him. 

“You don’t think about it?” he says. “I do.” His eyes trace over her slowly. It sends a shiver down her spine. 

“Connie’s waiting for me.”

“Connie left. Jean too.”

Her eyes narrow. “He wouldn’t do that to me. What did you say to him?” 

“Nothing,” Eren shrugs. “You can take that up with him.” She looks down. “Answer the question Mika.”

“Let me ask you something,” she says. 

“Go ahead,” Eren replies. 

The bar seems silent to him, aside from the sound of her voice.  “How many people have you had sex with since I stopped seeing you?”

“Two,” he answers. “How many have you?”

“Why would I tell you that?,” she asks. 

“Right, why would you tell me anything,” he says. 

She rolls her eyes. “Two.”

“Were they good?”

“Eren.”

“Tell me,” he says. 

“Yes.”

“We’re they better?”

“No.” He smiles to himself a bit. 

“Do you remember that time, right before Christmas when—“

“Eren,” Mikasa says, her tone light as the memory washes over her. “I’m not doing this with you.”

“I used to call you before your races and remind you of all kinds of things.” Though he can’t see it in the dim lighting, her face flushes.

“That was when we were… friends.”

He pauses for a moment. “We’ve been friends for fourteen years, Mika. Whatever happened between us, that hasn’t changed.”

She remembers him telling her one night, when they were in high school, that he couldn’t imagine his life without her. She realized she couldn’t either. He was always there; on the fourth of July, in third grade, when her family had a cookout. That was the first time he slept at her house. His mother was working late and his father was on call at the hospital. When they were older, in 10th grade, he got his driver's license before she did. He drove her to physical therapy when her hip started to hurt; it still does sometimes. 

She doesn’t know if it’s the alcohol, or the memory, but she lets go for a moment. “I miss you,” she says, meaning it. “I think Sash does too.”

“You don’t have to miss me,” he says. “I’m right here.” 

She takes a slow breath, closing her eyes. She can’t stop seeing him in that doorway. But she also can’t stop thinking of him lying next to her, watching their movies. Her want for that is stronger than the ache of the memory. “We can’t do this again, Eren. I can’t do it.” She wants him in her life, steadily, even as just a friend. 

“We won’t,” he says. He wants the same. He could put his feelings to the side— he had been for years, to have her back. 

Her eyes water. She feels relieved. “You can’t talk to me like this anymore,” she says. “You can’t act like I’m yours.” She knows she can’t handle reminders of their intimacy, she’ll fall back into it. 

“I know,” he says. Selfishly, he asks, “But do you remember, before Christmas, when I put your hands behind your back?”

“I remember,” she says. He’d tied her wrists, at her suggestion, and whispered little things into her ear, at his own liking. He called her good, and pretty, and told her when to turn over while he fucked her. She liked to close her eyes, and he’d make her look at him. 

“Why’d you like it so much?”

She leans on the wall. “I don’t know. Usually when I have sex I feel like I’m… outside of my body, looking at myself. When you’d do things like that, or say those things to me, it put me back in. Like I didn’t have to think so much. Just do what you want me to.”  

He nods. “I was worried you only did it because I liked it.”

“No,” she says. “You were always very considerate of me.”

“I tried to be,” he says. They’re both silent for a few seconds. Rain starts to patter against the window softly, then picks up. It thunders. She enjoys storms. “Do you want to, one more time?” he asks. 

She pulls her lips between her teeth. “We shouldn’t,” she says. She looks up at him and nearly folds on her previous statement. 

“Alright, I’ll take you home. Forman’s driving me.” Eren takes her hand and leads her outside in the cold. His palm is large, and warm. She almost misses him for a moment. 

When he closes the car door, he asks, “Can I see you tomorrow?” 

“Sure,” she agrees. “I’ll be in the library around two.”

“Alright,” Eren says. At her house, he walks her to the door. “Goodnight, Mikasa.”

“Goodnight Eren.”

_______________

Mikasa’s friends are still asleep when she wakes up. She walks into the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of water from the filter in the fridge. Taking out some fruit, she cuts a banana and some strawberries into pieces to make herself an oat bowl. 

After eating, she brushes her teeth, washes her face, and gets dressed. A pair of leggings and a running jacket are enough for the morning chill. She stops in the mirror by the door to tuck her hair and her ears under her headband before she puts her gloves on and takes her keys off the hook. 

It’s a sunny, serene morning. She runs on the path closest to the beach, sun rising over the water. It casts pink and orange hues onto the beach and the sidewalk under her feet. The asphalt is painted with white bike lines. This time of morning, only a few bikers pass her by. 

She only runs two miles; one down the shoreline and one back. It’s Sunday, and she’d just raced the day prior. The edge of the beach is rocky in the second half-mile, moss-covered stones lining the barrier between the homes and the sand. The concrete path turns to wood, making each step she takes echo off of it. 

On the way back, it’s warmer out, and she’s sweating by the time she gets back to Hale street, where she lives. She checks her watch and it reads six-twelve. 

Mikasa showers, does a bit of homework, then cleans up the house from the night prior. She enjoys her Sunday routine. The half empty alcohol bottles go back on top the cabinet and the liter soda bottles are placed in the fridge. 

Afterwards, she takes a nap. Around one, she wakes up and walks downstairs to the kitchen. Sasha and Jordan are sitting on the couch in the living room adjacent, rewatching Jordan’s tennis match. 

Mikasa greets both of them, taking a carton of eggs out of the fridge to make. Sasha turns to her and asks if they have any bacon. She says she’s not sure and checks. Sasha does most of the shopping, and Mikasa cooks. 

They do, and she takes it out of the freezer. Mikasa makes enough for the four of them, though Talia hasn’t made an appearance yet. 

Eren re-racks his weights at the gym and showers. He puts a hat over his wet hair and walks from the stadium to the library. In the past, he and his friends would always use the same study room on the fourth floor. He wonders if she still sits there. 

The library is fairly empty for a Sunday afternoon. He takes his hat off and lets his hair fall, walking through the lobby to the elevator. 

It beeps as it passes each floor, before the doors open. He heads to the left wing and looks inside their usual room. Mikasa is sitting there, laptop and notebooks sprawled out on the wooden table. 

She doesn’t see him, at first, headphones over her ears. He opens the door, and she looks up. “Hey,” she says softly, taking one side of them off. He closes the door behind himself and sits down across from her.

“Hey,” Eren says. He sets his backpack down on the ground and takes his laptop out. The air feels thick between them for a few moments, until he says, “I haven’t seen Dr. Ackerman a while,” referring to her glasses. 

She smiles softly. “I couldn’t be bothered with the contacts today.” He glances at one of her notebooks, and asks if she’s working on physics. She nods, and remembers he said he had a big project this year. “Are you making that program?” 

He nods, and she remembers. His mother grew up in a rural srea. She had access to a computer, but the nearest hospital was miles away, and God knew they couldn’t afford a trip to the doctor, even when they were sick. His grandparents didn’t think much about hypertension until it ended their lives, and threatened his mothers. It had no symptoms to concern them. Eren had only admitted all of this to her on one of his marajuana-fueled tangents. “If she had something at home, you know, something affordable, and something that made it easier for her to understand, maybe her health would be better than it is now,” he’d said. “I don’t know. It’s just a project.”

“Does your father like it?” she asks. 

He shrugs and says he’s not sure. She knows their relationship has always been a bit distant, but they typically talked on the phone. “He wasn’t thrilled that I stayed here over the summer.”

She looks up at him from her paper. “You took summer classes?” He nods and says his coach wanted him to. It was partially the truth. She feels guilty. Her own ego, if she wanted to boil it down to something as simple as that, severed him from her family. The realization guilts her. “My Father missed you in Nags Head.”

“Did he now?” he asks.  

She shakes her head slightly. “You know he likes you more than me.” 

Eren smiles, a sight she missed. “You’re a better surfer than me. He cares more about that than computers.” 

“Maybe,” she says. She finds it easy for her eyes to meet his, to be around him again. She doesn’t know what she expected. They fall right back into themselves again. 

He asks if Sasha went with her, though he already knows she did from their photos together. She explains that they spent part of the summer in the Hampton’s and part in the Outer Banks. “I worked at Marsh Hill again in August.” Eren thinks of their hometown country club. She was a server in the restaurant and he was a lifeguard. “Tell me about your summer.”

“There’s not much to tell,” he says. “I took a few engineering courses and did some summer training with Coach Wells. Spent time on the beach with whoever was here.”

She nods. Mikasa’s not surprised he didn’t go home. 

One year, the Yeager’s paid for Mikasa, Armin, and Eren to go to Puerto Rico. It was their senior spring break, and as long as they all made good grades, they were allowed to go. 

It wasn’t odd that his parents sent him on a trip rather than going with him. They’d been doing that since Eren was fifteen. He spoke Spanish well enough to travel without them. 

Even so, they didn’t accompany him to much of anything. Graduation, maybe, and his senior night. Mikasa’s parents went to his games like they were her own, and in turn took her to her races. 

It was nice for both of them. She was an only child and liked having another kid her age around. He enjoyed her mothers cooking; it reminded him of his own mothers when he was little and she wasn’t yet a partner at the firm. 

He stopped coming around as much when he was older. It was unusual for him to sleep in her bed at that age, spend all his time with her. 

Mikasa didn’t mind. He was a teenager, he wanted to spend time with girls he liked, rather than one he called his friend. She had other interests of her own. 

Cameron was one of the only boys other than Eren that was taller than her in the tenth grade. He was nice to her. She didn’t know much about boys then, that outward kindness didn’t equate to their true motivations. 

Laila, one of her closest friends at the time, had a bonfire one weekend, as kids in their town usually did. On the side of her house by the woods Cameron kissed Mikasa. He was the third boy she kissed, one being Eren when they were thirteen, but the first she felt attracted to. 

She didn’t mind when he slipped his hand under her shirt, not after drinking a few seltzers. 

They’d go on like that over the next few weekends. Kissing and touching and speaking nervously. After a while, with Cameron’s constant encouragement, she contemplated going further with him. Eren suggested she didn’t, so she didn’t. He was more like an older brother to her. Even though she was a few months older, he was more experienced.

She clearly remembers Erem referring to Cameron as a prick. They played football together, locker room talk, all that. 

Eventually, coming to him for advice became the norm for her. Partially his responses were selfish, but they were mostly genuine. He didn’t feel any of them were good enough for her. 

She didn’t ask his opinion on Matthew, though Eren liked him: He was respectful of her. Part of him always thought he would be her first. 

He knew it was a little twisted to want, but he still did. It was a thought he never admitted to anyone, even Armin. As he matured he realized he just wanted to be the one to please her, take care of her, sexually or not. 

The two of them spend a few minutes in silence, working on their separate assignments. Mikasa stops to look at a text on her phone. “Is it alright if I invite Sasha?” she asks. 

“Of course,” he says. He misses her. He’s very similar to Sasha in some ways; their outspoken manner, their type. She understands the constant need to have someone, likely a result of their family life. 

Sasha didn’t think Mikasa was hollow, like most of the girls she knew from high school, or the other legacy kids. She was kind, and attentive, and Sasha was afraid she would see her differently. So she confided in Eren instead  

“I’d go out in the city when I was fourteen, come home drunk, and no one said anything. But when I spent the night at a girls house, it was a problem. It was so much harder when my brother went away to Vanderbilt.”

He let her continue, about everything she’d never said out loud to anyone else. 

Mikasa drums her pencil on her notebook, bringing Eren out of the memory. “She’s in the house with Jordan. I’d rather her be here.” Eren grimaces. He knows the extent of their complicated relationship. Sasha has talked to him about it more than once. She cries more than she speaks when they do. 

In any other regard he’d describe her as a shark. Sasha is very adept when it comes to women, even more so than himself. She picks them up and lets them go as it benefits her. As a friend, though, she’s loyal. Jordan seems to skew things for her. 

“What do you think about it?” he asks mannerably. 

She exhales and shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter what I think.” Mikasa messages Sasha and tells her to come. 

“It does to me.”

“You’re just going to turn around and tell her with the weird little relationship you two have.”

Eren smiles. “Not weirder than our relationship.”

She looks up at him, and realizes she’d separated the two of them the last few months. “It’s different.” She looks back down and writes something. “Why didn’t you see her all this time?” 

He shrugs. “It didn’t feel right to go and spend time with your best friend after I...” He trails off. He needed time to forgive himself. He tried, at first. They’d still run into each other in the weight room or in the commons. Unfortunately, Sasha was just a reminder of Mikasa. “After everything.”

Her eyes have always carried a sad look, brown with a bit of gray, from her father, but it deepens then. “I’m sorry,” she says, though he doesn’t feel she should be apologizing. 

“So am I,” he says. 

Mikasa reassures herself that they’ll do better this time, get back to where they were before all the mess. Neither of them speaks until Sasha comes in twenty minutes later. 

Her eyes widen when she sees Eren, then her gaze shifts to Mikasa. She gives Sasha a smile and a little shrug. 

Sasha sits down and says nothing more than a greeting. Unzipping her backpack, they all sit and study, pretending everything is normal. For the moment, it feels like it is. 

Chapter Text

A few days later, Mikasa sits on the bus on the way to an invitational in Boston. She yawns, looking out the window as they make their way up the coast on Route 3. She sits alone. Sasha and Talia don’t compete in 5k races. Annie and Sierra sit across the aisle from her, talking about how much they love the city. 

She checks her watch and sees that it’s eight in the morning. Sighing, she closes her eyes and thinks about the exam she’s missing for this. 

In Fenwick, Eren relies on the cold morning air to wake him up. It’s refreshing as he walks to his morning class, cold hands in his sweatshirt pockets. This time of year, that close to the water, it’s a bit damp, making the cold wind feel sharper. 

In the trees, birds tweet, the faint sound of the ocean echoing across the street. Music plays in his headphones as he makes his way up the slight hill that leads into campus and enters the engineering building. In the morning, he enjoys something soft, and slow, like the Beach House songs his mother played in the house when he was young. 

The first floor is unrelated to him— mostly for those interested in building bridges and homes. Upstairs, there are more technical things, like the robotics laboratory that drew him to the school. 

He walks past it into his adjacent classroom, sitting down at one of the desks in the back. He takes the hood of his sweatshirt down, but leaves his headphones on for a few minutes until class starts, letting the song finish. 

When it’s done, and his professor comes in, he slides them off of his head onto his neck. 

A few minutes after, Jean and Connie come in. When they first had classes together freshman year, he grew to like the both of them. Jean was naturally talented at coding, and Connie was kind. But those traits made Jean cocky and Connie a pushover. 

Jean always thought he was the best, even if he wasn’t, and Eren was, but didn’t think so. Their difference in personality drove them apart, though they’ve all shared classes since then. 

Eren writes down what the professor is saying mindlessly. He’s never been good at focusing in class. While he sits, he looks out the window, mind wandering away to home. He misses the warmer climate, and the simplicity of his relationships. With his teammates, his friends, with Mikasa. 

He hopes they get back to where they were. They have to, for both of their sake. His mind wanders to practice later. It’s Tuesday. A fair amount of conditioning will be run after the team has had the opportunity to rest during the weekend. He doesn’t mind. It’s the individual drills that get in his head. 

St. Andrew’s isn’t the best team when it comes to football, but he’s the best player they’ve seen in a while. 

The expectation that rests on his shoulders feels heavy for a school that typically didn’t care much about sports other than lacrosse, rowing, and track. 

Over the weekend they play Bowdoin, a longtime rival. Everyone, donors and students alike care about the outcome of the game. They come back, like a sort of cult homecoming for the game. 

There’s a parade and tailgate Eren never gets to see. He doesn’t care as much for football as others expect him to, but he performs well enough. 

Last year he scored two touchdowns, one of which was almost an interception. His father played football in college in Texas. Playing was the one expectation he had of Eren. At first, it was fun, when it didn’t matter if he won or not. The stress set in when it did. He still loves the game, just not the commitment it takes to play and be a student. 

Outside, he watches a light snow start to fall from the sky, the first heavy one of the year. The sky is grey and the snowflakes melt as they touch the windowsill. 

When he turns back, the professor has changed the slide. He hurries to write down what it says and catches up. Mikasa messages him for the first time all week and says, In Boston. 

He replies, Good Luck.

The track at Harvard is crimson red and melts each piece of snow that falls on it. Mikasa lifts her head from the starting line, stark white, and looks up. She takes her stance, breathing in deeply to let all her nerves go. 

They stay. When the gun fires, she runs. With each stride she makes more and more leeway to the front of the group. A girl in Columbia blue who she recognizes from previous races stays a few paces in front of her. 

Mikasa rounds the corner off the track onto the dirt path and passes her swiftly. The two of them fight for first place over the next two miles. 

The last mile is in the city. Harvard invitational is one of the only races that doesn’t cut through an empty forest or field, but through a length of the city that borders the campus. 

Mikasa is used to it all. Concrete, dirt, snow, sun. She pushes against the wind and the small pieces of ice that hit her face as she passes her opponent. It’s easy to keep pace after that. When she crosses the finish line, she’s smiling. 

Sasha, Jordan, and Eren see it on the television screen in the girls house. “Good,” Sasha says, relaxing from the leaned-forward stance she’d taken in the final minutes of the race. “She needed that one.”

“She could lose that race and still go to conference,” Jordan says. She sits with Sasha on the couch, leaning on her. Eren thinks it’s sweet. Maybe the good moments are worth all the bad ones. He understands that, to an extent. 

“For her confidence. That girl from Columbia has beaten her the last few times they’ve met.” Sasha has watched Mikasa obsess over the same statistics and time sheets the entire season. 

Eren replies in surprise. He’s only known her to win mostly uncontested. “Who’s this?” 

“Priscilla Lane,” Sasha says. “She’s a freshman.”

At one point, Mikasa was the freshman threatening the positions of the upperclassmen. Now, she stands at the finish line, out of breath, defending herself. 

She looks at her time and realizes she ran a personal record. Lane pushes her to get faster and faster each race, and she fears at some point she’ll hit a wall.  

On the bus ride home, she leans her head against the window. The snow has started to pick up. Crystals line the bottom inch of the windowsill, and she watches them pile higher and higher. If the drive was even an hour longer, they would have gotten stuck in the storm. 

Mikasa can barely get her car from the stadium, where the bus dropped her off, to her house. She brings Annie and Sierra back to their dorm first.  On her porch, she fights with the lock a bit before it opens. Eren looks up from his phone, light glowing against his face in the dark living room. 

Mikasa reaches for the light switch before she sees Sasha sleeping on the couch. Instead, she quietly closes the door behind herself, locking it. His eyes meet hers and she makes a silent waving motion with her hand. 

He gets up, careful not to disturb Sasha, and follows Mikasa up the steps and into her room. He leaves the door open behind himself, cautiously, but she tells him to close it. 

The clock on her nightstand reads eight twenty-three. The sun is long gone, and the storm roars outside. 

She didn’t see his car in front of the house. “Did you walk?” she asks, casually, like the last time he was in her room, he wasn’t inside of her. 

Briefly, as the thought crosses his mind, he  glances at her bed. His eyes shift to her bathroom; the counter, the shower, the doorway, her desk, before they return to her, and he shakes his head. “I drove. Just parked on the other side of the street.” 

Mikasa stops unpacking her duffel and looks at him. “What about where you usually park?”

He purses his lips a bit. “Jordan was here this morning.”

She kisses her teeth. “Of course she was.”

He hesitates. “She’s not that bad.” She glares at him for a moment, before her expression drops into a sadder one. 

“Do you remember what happened last time they broke up?” she says. Sasha drank so much at Callahan’s that Eren had to carry her out. He and Mikasa put her in his car and took her back to the house. Sasha sat in the bathtub and leaned over the adjacent toilet, throwing up for an hour. “Actually, you missed last month, when she did fucking coke with Jean.”

His lips part. “What?” 

She shakes her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know if that was because of Jordan or if it was just… Sasha.” She’d spent years being Sasha’s anchor; steady, and reasonable. Sasha had been similar; comforting, and encouraging to Mikasa, a person who always wanted to compact herself. She feels like Sasha is slipping through her fingers.

Maybe it’s not right for her to treat her friend like someone she has to take care of, but she likes it. They need each other. 

“She talks to you,” Mikasa says, looking at him intently. She’s willing to admit to herself that their relationship is different, even if she’s jealous of it. Sasha doesn’t hide any part of herself from him. Sasha, as loyal as she is to Mikasa, has been missing that because of her. 

Eren nods in understanding. When Mikasa goes back to her bag, he fishes his keys out of his pocket. 

The sound of them draws her attention. She tells him he can’t drive home. He says it’s just down the street. Usually, he’d sleep in her bed. Even when they were just friends. “It’s alright,” he says. “I’ve driven in worse.”

Mikasa takes her sweatshirt off and throws it in the basket while Eren puts his coat on. “You ran well today,” he says. 

Her chest tightens in that familiar way. She only beat Lane by a small margin. After the race, her mom called her to tell her she needed to “pick it up,” this season. That was her best time for a 5k. 

“Thanks,” she says. She takes her running shoes out and sets them on the rack. Eren tells her goodbye and leaves. 

Mikasa stays there, sitting on the floor and unpacking. A few thoughts circle in her head and spiral into one. What would she do if she lost? 

In middle school, Mikasa grew tired of playing soccer and started to run. Our Lady of Mercy had a cross country team. They would compete against a few other catholic schools in the area. Eventually, she joined a club. 

Once after one of her races, she sat a few feet from the finish line, keeled over and cried. She’d twisted her ankle on the course and managed to finish. The pain worsened when she stopped. 

“Mikasa,” her mother said, rushing to her from the sidelines. She was a tennis player, not a runner, but she understood competition. She looked at the state of her daughter, then around herself. People were staring. Her mother helped her up, putting Mikasa’s arm around her shoulder. 

Mikasa sat down on the ground away from the sidelines, gripping her ankle. Her mother crouched down in front of her and told her to stop crying. “Don’t ever let them see you like that. They’ll take your emotions and use them against you.” Her tone, stern, shook Mikasa a bit. But she nodded. 

When she hears the front door close and Eren’s engine turn over, she tucks her knees to her chest and lets the tears fall. She knows that when she lets the same thing play over and over again in her head until she can hardly breathe, it’s not normal. 

Mikasa reaches for her nightstand and takes her pen out of the drawer. When she inhales, the light on the front blinks red. “Fuck,” she says, getting up. She wipes the tears off her face and digs around until she finds a joint and her lighter. 

It’s hard to open her window, a bit frozen shut, but she manages to. Snow sticks to the screen as she smokes. It eases her mind for the night, but it’s not what she needs. 

Eren remembers the night Mikasa went to the hospital clearly. She placed second at regionals and qualified to run at the Virginia high school championships. It was winter of her freshman year, late enough that indoor track was starting to bleed into lacrosse season. 

She hated the dry, dusty air of the sports complex they competed in. Her heart rate increased when they announced she placed second. Eren watched her leg bounce up and down in the stands, sitting next to her. She reached for her backpack and shook a few pills out of an orange container into her hand. 

Two was the daily limit. It was prescribed medication for her anxiety, he knew, and so he ignored it. She’d taken five. 

Later that night at Laila’s, she took two more. 

Eren went looking for her when he arrived later. He found her lying on the ground, eyes half open, cup in hand. The mix of alcohol and propranolol lowered her blood pressure enough to make her faint. 

“Mika,” he said, shaking her. She muttered something to him, then closed her eyes again. He cursed and picked her up. If he was thinking straight, he would have called her mother, or 911, but he couldn’t. Not with her. He drove her to the hospital. 

He waited with her until her father got there. She had to stay for a few days because it was considered an overdose. 

At the end of the 72 hours, she got up and ran in the state championship, despite her doctors, and her fathers advice. She got first place. 

Mikasa calls him not long after he gets home. He recognizes her shaky breaths on the end of the line within a few seconds. 

“She’s going to beat me, Eren,” she says. She brings the joint to her lips, inhaling and exhaling slowly. 

“Maybe she will,” he says calmly. 

She laughs a bit. “That’s not very supportive.” 

“You don’t want me to be supportive,” he says. She wants him to be honest with her. 

“I didn’t have you to calm me before my race,” she jokes. 

He smiles. “Are you high?” 

“Yeah. Otherwise I wouldn’t mention the fact that I used to call you and listen to you tell me all the things you were going to do to me when I got back.”

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “You should go to bed.”

“I want to talk to you.”

“You can’t talk to me like that if you want to be friends.”

She sighs softly. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Why don’t you call Connie? Have him talk to you.”

“Connie’s not like you,” she says. 

Even though he shouldn’t, he likes to hear it. “Yeah, how so?”

Mikasa takes a few more hits before she answers. “He doesn’t know me, really, how I am. He’s not as considerate, but I don’t fault him for it.”

“In what way?” 

She rolls her eyes and sighs. “In every way. Why don’t men understand that they need to be gentle with their fingers?”

“I don’t remember you liking gentle,” he says. 

She smiles. “I don’t know. I’m trying to change, be less fucked up.”

“It’s not fucked up,” he says. “I’m sure there’s something he likes that he’s not telling you. I’m sure you don’t even ask. You’re not very expressive.”

“Are you giving me advice?” she says. He hears the uncertainty, even surprise, in her voice. 

He replies, “I’m trying to.” 

She puts out the end of her joint. “Thank you.”

Eren nods a little grudgingly. He doesn’t mind talking to her about another man, if it helps her, makes her happy. “Sure. Are you feeling better?”

“Yes, thank you,” she says, then sighs. “Maybe one day I'll figure out how to fix this shit.”

“Stop running.” 

Mikasa laughs. They talk on the phone for another half hour, her laying on her back, phone on speaker, him sitting up with her voice pressed to his ear.  

Time slips away from both of them. “Do you think it’s bad? The weed.”

“It’s better than the pills,” Eren says. “But I think it’s a temporary fix.

“Isn’t everything?” she says. 

“Sure. It’s not going to stop until you deal with it.”

“Yeah? Do you deal with your issues?”

He smiles. “Clearly not. I lost you for a few months because I couldn’t handle being alone.”

She’s silent for a few moments. “You felt alone?”

“I didn’t mean it that way. But no, I didn’t exactly feel like I was with anyone.”

“Well, I wasn’t seeing anyone else, if that’s worth anything.”

“It is. But I don’t think anything of it anymore. It’s all in the past.” A partial truth. He doesn’t have any animosity against her, or the situation. But he does think of the good parts often.

He already knew she wasn’t seeing anyone else. If she wasn’t in his bed each night, she was studying, or training. 

“That’s good for us,” Mikasa says. Part of him wants to ask, if it is, really, but he knows even if she felt differently she wouldn’t tell him. 

“Yeah,” he says. His eyes don’t shift to the clock, but he says it’s getting late, and that he has lift in the morning. 

“Right. Sorry for troubling you so late at night.”

“You know I don’t mind,” he says. “I never have.”

She smiles. “How are you so mannerable all the time?”

“I don’t know,” he replies. He prefers to keep some of his thoughts, and feelings to himself, if it makes those around him happy. Especially Mikasa, Armin, and Sasha. 

“Alright. Goodnight Eren.”

“Goodnight Mika.”

After ending the call, Eren calls Callie, a girl in his differential equations class he’d taken a liking to earlier in the semester. He keeps his thoughts to himself, and deals with them on his own. 

In the morning as the sun is rising, he gets up and tells her she can sleep the rest of the morning in his bed if she likes. Sasha often teased Eren about the fact that he likes girls that aren’t interested in him. Callie declines politely.

At the stadium, he changes in the locker room and pulls his hair back. It’s gotten long enough that he needs a headband or hair tie to keep it out of his face. 

He sheds his shirt and Armin looks at him for a moment, the small, red marks on his back standing out. Armin jokes about him making up with Mikasa. 

He shakes his head without looking at his friend. “No, not like that. Mika and I are friends.” Armin nods silently. The two leave the locker room. “If you want to say something, which I know you do, then say it.”

“You’re a very consistent person Eren. And because of that, you tend to make the same mistakes over and over again.”

Eren thinks about his friend's words carefully while he lifts. The truths behind them, and the parts he disagrees with. 

He doesn’t consider his consistency to be a mistake, he considers it to be faith. And he’s lost that faith in Mikasa, that one day, she’d change. No amount of time, or sex, could bring out of her what he so desired unless she wanted to herself. He also knows that if she asked him for anything, he wouldn’t be able to say no. It’s not in his nature.  

He prefers the approaching winter cold outside to the suffocating heat. Maybe it’s the fact that last summer, his coach had him running in the sun every day. Usually, he would run in the morning, when it was cooler, but the schedule of his class didn’t allow for it. 

At least now, when he walks out of lift, the cold wind greeting him feels refreshing. He pulls a hat over his wet hair and walks down the center of campus to the engineering building. It’s nice and cold inside as well. 

At the same time, Mikasa wakes up. Her legs ache a bit when she walks into the bathroom, sore. She turns on the light and looks at herself in the mirror. The sound of water running escapes her with how tired she is. She pulls her hair back as best she can and then washes the sleep off her face. She doesn’t find her morning routine mundane, but relaxing. She brushes her teeth and opens her curtains and makes enough breakfast for her friends to have something when they wake up.  

At ten, she gets in the car and drives to her appointment. After her incidents in high school, her mother mandated that she see a therapist once a month, to help her, “Stop thinking so much and just run.” Her last therapist moved away from Fenwick. She’s only seen this one twice, including today. 

The sun glows harshly against her tired eyes as she drives off campus onto the main road. The office is upstairs in a building with a few other medical practices. One, a surgical center, one a pediatric, and one psychiatry, on the third floor where she steps out of the elevator. The waiting room is quiet, the sound of the clock ticking and the receptionist talking quietly on the phone drowning everything else out. 

At ten-thirty, Mikasa walks back into the therapist's office. She sits across from her on a soft tan couch. The walls are fairly blank other than a few art pieces and Dr. Harlon’s framed degrees. The woman asks her a few questions about her week and she answers honestly. How was your race, how did it make you feel, the usual things. 

Mikasa says it was fine, and as she did the previous session, eludes the tears and the panic and the smoking. 

“Are you still using marijuana?” the doctor asks. 

“Occasionally,” she says, and the woman writes something down. Mikasa knows by law she can’t tell her mother, so she’s partially honest.

“Recreationally?”

Mikasa nods her head. “Recreationally.”

The therapist nods and looks down at her notes. “What about your friends?” she asks. “You’ve said previously that they’re a source of calm for you. How is,” she looks down for a moment and flips the page in her notebook. “Sasha.”

“Sasha, she’s, she’s okay.”

“You sound worried.”

“I’m typically worried about her.”

“Why?”

“She’s not very stable when it comes to this one person she’s involved with. Or much of anything else, but mostly that.”

Dr. Harlon writes, more willing to talk about others than self. Her eyes shift to other names on the page. 

“What about Talia? What worries you about her?”

“She has some… issues with men, I’d say. From her family life.”

“Eren?”

“Eren’s fine.” Dr. Harlon makes another note. Mikasa always wonders what she’s writing. 

“Do you think both of their issues stem from their family life?” 

“Yes,” Mikasa says ardently.

“What about yours?”

Mikasa gives her a look. “I have a good family. I’ve never seen my parents fight. They’re actually very in love.”

The woman nods. “How is your relationship with your mother?”

“Good,” Mikasa shrugs. 

“She played tennis professionally?” 

“Just for a year. She got injured then she went to law school. She mostly played in college.”

“Do you think that affects how she talks to you about running?”

“Yes. She’s very cut and dry about it all.” Mikasa tells her more than she typically does. 

After the hour is over, she drives to class. 

Sasha is waiting for her in the center of the seating in the lecture hall. She’s wearing her glasses with a nicely put together outfit. The contrast between them is clear when Mikasa sits down next to her in her leggings and sweater that is getting too big for her. 

She takes a few notes absentmindedly. Her concentration during the day doesn’t seem to come back to her until her heart burns during lift later in the day. 

She pushes the weight off of her chest shakily and racks it. Mikasa drives home alone. Sasha has her own practice afterwards. Over the speakers of her car, she plays something soft. On the road, she sees Eren walking. She slows down and rolls her window down. 

His head turns towards hers and she tells him to get in. When he closes the passenger side door, she says, “I’m sorry for how I called you last night.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I know. I’ve got to find my own ways of dealing with this, though.” She drums her fingers on the steering wheel as she drives. “I’m making dinner. If you’d like something to eat.”

“Sure,” Eren says. He realizes one of the playlists he’d shared with her is playing over the radio. 

In the kitchen, she asks him about his morning and he tells her, eluding nothing, not even Callie. She does the same, saying she has a new therapist now, that it was what her mother wanted. 

Eren asks her how she feels about it. She tilts her head to the side and shrugs. On a paper plate, she places a caprese sandwich in front of him, before putting her own next to it. He thanks her, and reminds her of a time they had the same sandwiches at the beach.

Mikasa appreciates the memory. She remembers the mimosas they drank with them. “I have a margarita mix,” she says. 

He smiles. “It’s Wednesday.” 

“We have tomorrow off. Wellness day,” she reminds him. 

“Alright,” Eren agrees, wanting to take his mind off the weekend. She makes them both drinks in the cute glasses her and Sasha bought in the Hamptons. She adds more alcohol than Eren expects, but justifies it by saying she’s not going out tonight, like all of their friends are. 

It skews her thoughts. She forgets to wash the pan on the stove and he forgets his principle of no longer getting in her bed. 

They lay against her headboard, watching the tape from one of her races. Her fingers move over the remote, rewinding different parts of the race. “Is this helpful?” he asks. 

“No,” she says. “I like to see that I’m fast. It’s reassuring.”

“Why do you need any other evidence than your own confidence?”

“Confidence makes athletes negligent.”

He’s heard the same quote from her mother. The difference between the two of them, she thinks, is that she loses and wins on her own, not with a team. 

His hand rests gently on her leg, her head on his shoulder. Their heart rates are slow, bodies relaxed. He takes the remote from her hand and puts on an old horror. Reflexively, her hand reaches up, fingers combing through his hair. It’s soft, and easy to run her hands through. He relaxes under her touch, nails dragging over his scalp. “It's getting long,” she says. 

He shrugs and makes a comment about cutting it in the summertime. She tells him not to, that it looks nice. 

“Yeah, you’ve always had a thing for long hair.” 

She thinks over her past choices. “I guess I do.” 

“So why Connie?” he asks. He keeps his hair cut short. 

“Because he’s a very simple man,” Mikasa says. 

“And whoever was before wasn’t?”

“No, he wasn’t,” she says. “From summer, in the banks. Lots of money like the kids here.”

“And what about him wasn't simple?”

She smiles. “I liked him because he reminded me of Sasha.”

He hums quietly. She hands him her phone and shows him the profile of a Boston Bruins player. He doesn’t mention the fact that he’s watched many of his games, and knows him by name, Liam Preston. He also doesn’t mention his thoughts on the fact that Preston is eight years older than her. Eren just nods and hands her phone back. 

She reaches over to her nightstand and opens the top drawer. Her fingers fish out a nice silver bracelet. “He got me this after I caught him with another girl.”

“I see how he’s like Sasha,” is all he says. “Did it work?”

“No,” Mikasa says. “I’m not one to be blinded by material things. But sometimes he would do this thing where he put me on my side and reach around me with his fingers and make me come. I think that clouded me a bit.” She shrugs. He chews on the inside of his cheek. “It was nothing bad for a summer fling. I just don’t want to deal with all of that again. The games and the lying.”

Something stirs in Eren. A mix of jealousy and something he can’t put his finger on. It’s not an unfamiliar feeling, the same as when he'd imagine himself sleeping with her, even when she was seeing someone else. Maybe it was some twisted version of possessiveness. He doesn’t mind hearing her talk about other men. It fuels him more. “Sometimes? It’s not difficult to make you come.”

Her face flushes. He was the first man to do it for her. He notices the way she shifts and tenses slightly. Aptly, his hand slides up her thigh a bit. “Yes it is. I get in my head. I'm sure I’ve said this all to you before.”

“You have. All I had to do was make you stop thinking.” In the moment, she employs her self control. Later, when he was gone and she laid alone in her bed, fingers between her thighs, she’d think of him. She didn’t mean to, he just came to mind, or rather, the memory of his figure and his words. 

“I love you when you’re like this. So good for me,” he’d said. Him inside her, his hand pressing her face into the mattress. 

The image fades away slowly when she comes down from her high.

In the darkness she gets up to wash her hands and put her hair up before she goes to sleep. In the morning, she’d see him in the commons and tell herself the feeling will pass. 

Chapter Text

During the weekend, in the afternoon, after Mikasa has won her own race and returned home, she lays in bed, staring at the ceiling and listening to the clock tick. She’d already finished all her work for the day.

She’d qualified for nationals, and it seemed to be the only thing she could focus on for the last twelve hours. She folds her hands over her stomach and lets every thought that plagues her mind fall away. Instead, she thinks of the beach.

The light feeling of the water carrying her, board under her feet. Closing her eyes, she can almost hear the distant sound of the gulls and feel the cold water on her scalp.

She stays that way, for a while, until her chest no longer burns and it’s all she’s thinking of.

Sasha walks into Mikasa’s room. She doesn’t cry, or say anything. She just lays down next to her. They both watch the ceiling like there’s something playing there.

“Why do you send Eren to talk to me?” Sasha asks

He did, she thinks. “You listen to him.”

“That’s what I hate about it.”

Mikasa opens her eyes. This close, she can see the leftover freckles from the summer on Sasha’s nose, her red, swollen eyes. “Was Jordan here this morning?” Mikasa asks.

“Don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.” Mikasa stands up to clean her room while Sasha speaks, swiftly avoiding the topic of Jordan. Talia knocks on the door, cautiously, hearing the raised tone of Sasha’s voice, asks what's wrong. Rather than talking about Jordan, she changes focus to Eren’s game.

Mikasa hasn’t been to a football game since the previous year's season. She’s forgotten what the atmosphere is like.

Eren hasn’t. He stands in the stadium and can feel the noise in his bones. It isn’t a football school, but a school that hates Bowdoin . While he warms up, Talia, Sasha, and Mikasa stand outside with their teammates.

She can admit she’d missed standing in a parking lot under a tent drinking with them. It was a half hour past noon and she had no cares in the world.

She’d qualified for conferences that morning, and was slated to place. Talia grabs her arm and leads her towards the stadium in a herd of people, telling her they’re going to miss kickoff.

Talia had never cared much for football before— neither had Mikasa. But they were both tied to it now, whether they knew it or not.

She likes watching him play. It’s been a while. He’s good, better than he was in high school. Good enough that they win.

She doesn’t see him after the game, but she doesn’t mind that. She doesn’t like the way she's been thinking about him, how he seems to seep into every part of her mind she tries to keep him out of.

At home, she asks Sasha how she's doing. They sit on the couch, absentmindedly watching a movie. Sasha shrugs. She keeps checking her phone, and eventually puts it down.

“Could we have a night out, maybe?” she asks, almost pleading.

Mikasa agrees, hoping it’ll help Sasha. She’s hardly ever as quiet as she is. Talia decides to stay in. That night, around nine, they walked down Hale to the football house they’d avoided the past few months.

They’ve drank enough to not feel the cold. Mikasa stumbles over the heel of her boots when they enter. She grabs onto Sasha, smiling, and wonders why they ever think they need other people.

Sasha makes Mikasa a drink in the kitchen, though she doesn’t need another, and they both wander to Eren’s room. He’d invited them, Sasha insisted they find him. When she opens the door, he’s sitting on the end of his bed with a girl that gives them both a look. Of course. Mikasa's brows knit together. “Come downstairs,” Sasha says, drunkenly.

“Sash,” Eren says, gesturing to the girl with his eyes.

“You invited us here,” she says harshly.

“Two hours ago.”

She rolls her eyes and takes Mikasa back downstairs. Mikasa recognizes the girl– Sierra Lu, the freshman.

Sasha’s hand holds hers tightly as they walk down the steps. She runs into Jean and they start to argue. Mikasa hardly notices that Connie is there, too. Her mind is elsewhere.

Connie looks at her, then at the door to the patio. She nods and follows him. They sit down on the wooden benches that face the yard. Connie offers her a blunt. She politely declines, and he lights his own.

“Not smoking anymore?” he asks. He looks at her in the dim light. He has a kind smile like Eren does.

She shakes her head. “I’m trying not to, as much. Think it's becoming a vice.”

“Ah. You’re better than me.”

Mikasa shakes her head. “It’s different. Like I said, a vice.”

He shakes his head. His arm rests over her shoulders, body keeping her warm. It’s heavy, and strong. “I like hockey because it makes me forget about everything else,” he says supportively. “That’s my vice.”

“God, I wish I had that.”

He blows smoke out of his mouth, then sighs. “I’m seeing someone.”

Mikasa controls her expression. “Yeah? Who?”

“Layla. She works at the grocery shop in town. Studies communications.”

“Very cute,” she says, sarcastically.

“I like her, Mikasa.”

Mikasa sighs. She knew it was going to come eventually. Unlike Eren, his kind smile had nothing buried underneath it. The kind that would bring him someone he could make happy. Someone that would appreciate him. “That’s good. I’m going to miss you.”

“I’m flattered,” he says. She turns and smiles at him.

She takes the blunt from between his fingers and takes a few hits. “Ah, you hockey players. she sighs.” Connie laughs.

Inside, Eren walks down after the girl. His hand guides her waist gently. She gets a glass of water in the kitchen and Eren leaves her to her friends. Mikasa, walking in the door, sees this. She ignores her feelings about it for a while.

It’s not until later, when she’s much drunker, that she bumps into him and says, “You’re fucking freshman now?” It’s crude language coming from her. The alcohol had dissolved her need to filter herself.

A short laugh escapes him. He’s a bit startled. They stand in the kitchen. She watches his expression change when he realizes who she is and what she said. His head tilts to the side a bit. “How old were you when you were seeing Matthew?” he asks.

“That was different.”

“It wasn’t different, Mikasa. You just don’t like to see it.”

She hates the way he says it, the slight smile on his lips. He knew her well, from years of dealing with her emotional boundaries. Jealousy was one of the few things that managed a reaction from her.

“You left me, Mikasa. You don’t get to be upset.”

Her brows furrow. “After you cheated on me.”

At that moment, he wanted nothing other than her honesty. Upsetting her was worth that. “We weren’t together.”

All the air escapes her lungs, and her fingertips press into the edge of her glass bottle. “Yes we were, Eren. And you knew that. I know somewhere you did. And you still did it.” For a moment, he considers that she may have felt something for him. Until she says, “You were the only person I was sleeping with. Was I not enough for you?”

His hand comes to her waist gently. It presses her back against the granite counter, his frame hovering over hers. She hardly notices anything but him. “You’ve always been enough for me.” Her expression softens. “I’m sorry.”

She hates what he does to her. His touch, his voice. She would have never admitted that she was hurt to anyone else. And she never would have forgiven them.

He pulls her closer to himself and she forgets every moment she told herself she wouldn't do this again. His shirt smells faintly of cologne, and his palm is warm.

She comes back to herself and steps past him, putting some air between the two of them. “It’s okay,” she says. “I don’t have a right to be upset.”

“But you are,” he says, partially as a question.

She shakes her head and turns away. Mikasa puts down the empty bottle and picks up a new one. Eren reaches forward and takes it from her hand, putting it back down. “Mika.”

“You don’t get to tell me how much to drink anymore,” she says. She picks up another bottle and opens it.

She hadn’t forgotten his tendencies. She wouldn’t call it controlling.

“You used to care what I thought,” he says.

“Sure, I wasn’t in my right mind then.”

“Of course you weren’t.” His tone lets her know what he's implying.

She takes a drink and ignores the feeling that travels through her. “You’re very arrogant.”

He opens the bottle he took from her. He doesn’t speak for a while, just drinks. “Do you still think about it?”

“No,” she says. She takes her eyes off him.

“Are you sure? I think you do.”

She knows his games all too well. “No. I’m not doing this with you.”

“Why not?” he asks, and she laughs.

“I’ll get roped back in.”

He laughs. The sound fades into the voices of those around them and the music. “So you’re telling me, if I did the right things, you’d come back to me?”

“You’re not going to do those things.”

“I’m not?”

“No. I’m asking you not to.”

He nods. “Alright.” He’s never been one to say no to her. Mikasa finishes the rest of her drink and takes Eren’s from his hand.

“I’d never sleep with a freshman. She had too much to drink and wanted to go somewhere quiet for a bit.” Eren says.

Sarcastically, she tells him, “You're such a good guy.” He laughs, and they continue their conversation.

Two people standing in a sea of one hundred, leaning on the counter and drinking more than they should.

Later, they go upstairs, to get away from the noise. Mikasa lays on her stomach in his bed that she hasn’t been in for a while.

He lays next to her, looking at the ceiling, his hand rests on the back of her leg. She folds her arms above her head and turns to look at him.

She asks him if he’s drunk and he gives her a little smile. His hand slides up over her ass, slowly, and onto her waist. “Yeah,” he says.

He pulls her a little closer. “I’ve been talking to Dr. Harlon about my mom,” she says.

“Yeah, how’s that?”

“Good,” Mikasa says. “I guess she coached me more than she parented me.”

Eren nods. “I could see that.”

“It’s interesting how we turn out the way we are.”

Eren thinks of himself and Sasha. His mind wanders to Anthony, his long lasting insecurity from being the smallest in class. Mikasa’s, from being the tallest. She never seems to be able to see all she has.

He’s always known she was beautiful. The way people looked at her in shops at the beach, how she was treated in school. She never seemed to believe any of it. Her intelligence, her talent, no matter what she accomplished. She acted as if it was all going to slip away at any moment. She’d put a barrier between herself and things she didn’t think she deserved.

“Do you think people can change?” he asks.

“I do,” she says. “But they have to want it on their own. I think I've changed.”

“How so?”

“I’m not as naive as I used to be about things when I first got here. I don't think I can win every race. I don’t think I’ll be the valedictorian again. And I certainly don’t understand when my friends trick themselves into thinking a guy, or a girl, actually likes them.”

“I hope I didn’t have a hand in that,” he says.

“You did. But that’s okay. It was my own fault.”

Their eyes stay on each other for a moment. He notices her expression is a little softer than usual. “It wasn’t your fault,” he says. “Sometimes it’s true.”

“Then why’d you do it?” she asks.

“You seemed content with what we had. I was trying to be.”

“So you slept with someone else?”

“Yes,” he said. “You know, how I turned out, I don’t react in the best way when I feel alone.”

She doesn’t speak for a few seconds. He was trying to be, she thinks. She wants to ask. Despite everything, her emotions surrounding him haven’t changed. Her throat tightens as she chokes back her words. The way she turned out, she couldn’t say what she meant even if she wanted to.

He apologizes, and she forgives him.

In the morning, Eren and Mikasa sit on his front porch. She’d declined smoking, and he’d made her a cup of hot tea instead.

She sips it as they watch the snow pile up, cold wind soothing their hangovers. The wooden porch is littered with cups and trash. On the couch, inside, Flint slept. There were a few empty bottles on the glass table adjacent to him, and a girl sleeping on the chair across the room. Despite all the people that had been there last night, the house, and the street, were quiet.

Mikasa plants her foot on the ground, making the porch swing move a bit. They always used to sit out there and smoke. She pulls his hat down over her forehead and tucks some of her hair in. “It’s colder than usual for this time of year,” she says.

“You say that every fall. Do you want to go inside?”

“No. It feels nice.” They enjoy silence for a few minutes, before she says, “You did well at your game yesterday.” He nods. He finds it hard to come up with an answer to something he doesn’t want to talk about. “Saw you won,” is all he says. “Qualified for nationals.”

“I did,” she replies. His leg rests against hers, and she puts her empty mug down.

“And how do you feel about that?”

She smiles. “You sound like my therapist.”

“I can be your therapist,” he says nicely.

She shakes her head. “You have been for too long.”

He shrugs. “I liked our little run, even the anxious late night calls. You know I did.”

Despite how he felt about it, the thought of her running to him when she needed comfort and pushing him away when she was okay guilts her. “I wasn’t good to you.”

He puts his hand on her arm. The air between them feels thick. Faintly, he can feel her pulse. He looks at her eyes, red behind the gray, from being tired. “You were plenty good to me, Mikasa,” he says. “Very good. I mean, I loved all of it. You know that, don’t you?”

“I do,” she says, hesitantly. “So did I. It was a good time in my life. We did well, for ourselves, I think. For how we are.”

“Do you think we’ll ever change?”

Mikasa smiles. “I hope so.”

When they finally go inside, the sidewalk is covered in snow. Eren offers for her to stay longer, until it clears up, and she politely declines.

Mikasa walks home with his spare coat wrapped around herself. When she walks in the door, and Sasha looks at her, she sees hope in her eyes.

Mikasa looks down. Being home, away from him, reminds her of what she has to face soon.

She changes and goes for a run. Sundays are typically her off day. She doesn’t feel she has time for one.

Her sweat smells like alcohol and her stomach turns over without any food in it. She tucks her thumbs into the holes of her jacket as she passes into the shaded woods.

It’s below freezing, and still snowing. She should have worn gloves, but she didn’t have time to find them. There’s only an hour in the day she has time for her personal runs. Afterwards, she’ll cook a few meals for the week and study for an exam.

Each snowflake that falls on her fingertips burns as if it was an ember. She hardly feels it. Mostly, the cold air is sharp in the back of her throat, her lungs. After four miles, farther than she meant to go, she turns around. She’s deep in the woods next to town now.

The snow has started to pile up on the trail despite the cover of the trees. She takes a wrong step, and in a second, she’s on the ground. Her face and body scrape against the rocky, frozen floor of the forest.

Mikasa curses through gritted teeth and pushes herself back up by her reddened hands. The snow burns her cheek and makes her eyes water. She stands up, brushing herself off, and keeps running, more carefully this time. She takes turns slowly and feels her hip ache.

It’s a normal pain, she’s been told by many doctors. Something about her joints. It’ll go away when she stops running.

At home, she hangs her keys on the hook by the door. In the large mirror she sees dried blood on her cheek, right below her left eye. She realizes the burning feeling was from a cut. In the warm air inside, everything seems to hurt more.

She kicks the snow off her soaked sneakers and leaves them on the mat by the door. Her socks are cold, bits of them frozen.

Talia walks down the stairs and observes Mikasa. She watches her, for a moment, her frantic movements. How irrational it was to go on a run in that weather. Without Mikasa seeing her, she turns, goes back upstairs, and wakes Sasha up, telling her it’s happening again.

In her room, Mikasa unzips her jacket and takes off her hat, both wet from her fall and partially frozen. Each movement hurts. Her leggings stick to her skin a bit, leaving it tender and red when she finally gets them off. She whimpers a bit as she bends her leg to step out of them.

Sasha knocks on her door while she stands there in her underwear. She comes in and observes Mikasa, shivering. There’s snow in her hair and the tips of her fingers are red. She wants to express her concern, but she doesn’t. Mikasa won’t take it well.

Instead, Sasha walks into her bathroom and runs a bath. Neither of them speak. She opens the cabinet and takes out a washcloth, running it under warm water. Sasha reaches for her face, to wipe off the blood. “It’s fine,” Mikasa says, turning away. She walks into her bathroom but Sasha follows her.

“It’s not,” Sasha says. She wants to ask what she’s thinking, why she’s ignoring the pain that graces her body. Why would she do such a thing to herself?

She finds no purpose in asking questions she already knows the answers to.

Despite Mikasa’s attempts to be quiet on the phone, Sasha would often hear her conversations with her parents freshman year. Their room was small. Rather than crying at their critiques, or ignoring them, Mikasa would agree.

It was good to have a work ethic like hers, she thought at first. Mikasa always desired to be the best at everything she did. But even when she was, she never thought so.

“It’s not,” Sasha repeats, quietly, to herself. She looks away while Mikasa takes her underwear off and gets in the tub. Sasha kneels down to her level, elbows on the porcelain, and wipes the blood off her face. “You think this doesn’t matter?” she asks, showing Mikasa the cloth. There’s a bit of anger in her voice. Her heart breaks a little every time her friend ignores her health.

Mikasa looks down. Sasha puts her hand on Mikasa’s shoulder and her skin is cold. She gently cups some water with her palm and lets it run over the area. “You know, you spend so much time begging me not to go back to Jordan because it hurts me. This is the same thing. Maybe I need Eren to drill it into you.”

Guilt washes over Mikasa. It sinks down into her stomach and makes her speak. “I needed to get a run in, Sasha.” She’d had too much to drink, and her race next weekend held so much weight in her mind. She needed to flush everything out. To her, it wasn't a choice.

“No, you didn’t,” Sasha says. Their coach has consistently advised them not to run in the snow, that athletes needed days off. “You’re punishing yourself.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know,” she says. Sasha cups the water over Mikasa’s scalp, and she relaxes. “You’re too hard on yourself. Just because your mother—“

“My mother isn’t hard on me,” Mikasa says, eyes shifting to Sasha’s. “She’s honest.”

Silence hovers in the air for a few seconds when their eyes meet.

“Mothers aren’t always supposed to be honest, Mika. Sometimes they can bend the truth, or at least the delivery, a bit for their kids. It’s part of being nurtured.”

Mikasa moves away from her touch. “Was your mother nurturing?” she asks. She never means to be defensive, but she is. She regrets the words as soon as they leave her lips. Sasha sighs and leaves the cloth on the edge of the tub. Cold air rushes into the room when she opens the door to leave. Mikasa sighs and puts her head in her hands.

Water drips slowly off the edge of the cloth onto the floor.

Sasha sits on the other side of the door in Mikasa’s room, back against the wood. She can hear the faint sound of Mikasa crying. For a moment, her hand reaches for the knob, to stand up and open it. Her arm comes back down and she pushes herself off the floor. She picks up the wet and scattered clothes and takes them down to the laundry.

Talia waits anxiously in the kitchen. She’s seen Mikasa break down after a race, even if she doesn’t know it. She doesn’t hide herself from her friends as well as she thinks she does. She’s seen the empty bottles of Ibuprofen in the trash appear every two weeks, the half eaten meals she never seems to have enough energy to finish.

She’d gotten over her aversion to weed, if it meant Mikasa was happier, doing better. She watches Sasha walk past her and go down the steps to the basement, clothes in hand. She wonders if they’re making a big deal of this.

To her, that risk was worth any of her friends' well being. Mikasa had done the same for her more than once.

Upstairs, Mikasa wipes her tears, washes herself, and gets up. The clothes in her room are gone. She takes fresh clothes out of the drawer and puts them on. By the time she does so, the kitchen is empty.

She opens the fridge and takes out breakfast food. She makes Sasha’s eggs and pancakes the way she likes and knocks on her door. She doesn’t answer at first. Mikasa opens the door and Sasha takes out one of her headphones.

Mikasa apologizes. Sasha accepts it.

Eren finds that with the end of his season, he has much more time to sit and think. Maybe it’s just the hangover. He sits on the flat part of his roof outside his window and watches the snow pile up. He can feel his heartbeat in his head and has to stay still to keep from throwing up. Being outside helps.

Flint comes to join him. Eren jokes about him making it off the couch. His friend punches him lightly and they both smile. It’s a good moment for him. He can see the ocean from where he sits. The sand is white, mostly covered, but the ocean is still a stark blue.

The sun peeks through the clouds for a moment and casts gold on the street. Flint offers him a blunt and he takes it. He’s already given up his vice.

The lighter slips from Flint's hand and falls off the roof, into the snow. Flint curses. Eren goes back through his window and goes downstairs to get it.

In Fenwick, it was colder than this most of the year. The town was quiet, and deserted. In the summer he found it odd to see so many people in town. Those who lived inland and were looking for an escape. Between Memorial Day and Labor Day the beaches had lifeguards, ones that told him what times of day and places he couldn’t surf.

Now, the boardwalk and shops are all closed and a few thousand college students stay inside, studying or sleeping. The only thing he minds is the bare oak trees, though the pines make up for them.

He opens the front door and picks up the lighter. It’s easy to spot, forest green in white snow. That’s why the mailboxes are all painted the same color. Flint cheers.

When the blunt is smoked away, Eren showers and goes back to sleep. Upon waking up, the sun is almost starting to set. He realizes he’s wasted the entire day. At the very least, he gets up to clean. He looks out the window over the kitchen sink. The snow hasn’t let up.

Eren still loves her, and he doesn’t know how to stop.

The darker it gets, the more he can see a reflection of himself in the glass panes. His hair hangs over his eyes a bit. It’s starting to become a nuisance.

He turns the tap off and dries the rest of the dishes. Armin is sitting in his room, playing a game when Eren knocks.

“Can you cut my hair?” he asks.

“Sure,” Armin says, without looking at him. Eren walks into his bathroom and takes out his clippers and scissors.

Armin puts his controller down and tells Eren to sit in the chair at his desk. He’s been cutting his hair since high school. When he was younger, his father did it. Armin asks if he wants an inch off, like normal. Eren asks for a little more.

“Thought you liked it long,” Armin says.

“I do. But it’s time for a cut.”

“Alright,” Armin agrees.

Chapter Text

Mikasa wakes up at six AM– it feels like it's the middle of the night. It's hardly fall anymore. The sun doesn’t rise until seven and sets at four-thirty.

Her heart is beating fast enough that she knows she won’t be able to go back to sleep. She remembers a time when she never felt this way, when her thoughts didn’t seep into her body, dictating her actions. When she was young, before she started running. Her mother never cared about how she did in lacrosse. Mikasa loved it. She loved running, the smell of the turf, the girls on her team. She wants that again. The calm, happy feeling she always seems to be chasing, the one that Connie has.

She clings tightly to the memory of her enjoying her sport. She still loves running, somewhere. Dr. Harlon tells her she just needs to find it.

This isn’t what she imagined for herself when she came to St. Andrews. She thought the distance from her mother would help, that she wouldn’t feel so much pressure, being on a team.

She closes her eyes again, tries to imagine the last time she didn’t wake up before a race with her chest aching. At first, she can’t. Slowly, it comes to her. Last spring. It was a sunny day in late March, not too hot. St. Andrew’s has an invitational around that time each year. Things were good with Eren. Soon, he would leave for spring break and her and Sasha and Talia would fill their days with anything they wanted. The water at the beach was still freezing, but they had plans to go after she ran anyway.

She got second place, a fresh-faced sophomore that was quickly climbing the national rankings. Her mother and father were out of town. They didn’t watch the race, or call her afterwards. As simple as it was, it made all the difference. The people, the weather, and the lack of pressure.

She leaves herself in that moment, mentally, as she tries to fall back asleep. The thought of losing doesn’t seem so bad. Maybe, once she does, this will stop. The need to perform, the lack of satisfaction.

Later in the morning, when she wakes again, Mikasa sits on her bed, facing the window. It’s light outside, and if she looks hard enough, she can see the snow coating the sand in the distance. Slowly the pale yellow turns to white, and she knows she won’t have class that day.

Her legs are sore, and hurt when she finally gets up from the place she’s been sitting in for too long. She squints when she turns on the bright bathroom light. With it comes the dull hum of the fan, then the running of the tap, and the cold splash of water on her face.

She opens the medicine cabinet above the sink and takes out a tube of antibiotic cream, squeezing a small amount onto her pointer finger. She swipes it over the fresh scratch under her eye. It burns a bit, at first, and she winces, the same way she does when she bends her hips to get dressed, or walks down the stairs.

The bottle of ibuprofen in the kitchen cabinet is empty. She rattles it, like it’ll make more pills appear, but it doesn’t. Mikasa curses. She rests her elbows on the cold kitchen counter and puts her head in her hands.

The same doubtful thought resurfaces– that this isn’t sustainable. It's just for a second, but when she tries to push the thought away, she can’t. She prides herself on her high standards and expectations for herself. It was hard to maintain her grades and standing in the conference, but she did. Sometimes it took extra work, early morning runs, studying on long bus rides.

Eventually it took more, and more. Smoking, to stop her mind from controlling her body. She hated the feeling of her heart burning in her chest, not being able to breathe. The calm dissociation of the marajuana made it stop. So did Connie’s touch, finishing a run, Eren’s voice. Easy, simple things.

“How are you feeling?” the sound of Sasha’s voice startles her, enough that she jumps. “Sorry.”

Mikasa shakes her head. She wants to lie, to keep it to herself, but she doesn’t have the energy to. “I’m sore,” she sighs.

“Yeah? Why don’t you go see the trainer before practice?”

Mikasa had never seen the trainer in her seasons at St. Andrews. It led to athletes being sat out, missing opportunities. “Don’t think I can,” she says, looking away from Sasha. “Don’t think we’ll practice in this, either.” She instead directs her eyes to the refrigerator and takes out a carton of eggs. Standing in front of the stove, she shifts, taking her weight off the side that aches more. Sasha sits down in a stool that faces the kitchen. Mikasa takes out a pan. “Do you want some?”

“Yes, I’d like some.”

Mikasa turns the stove on and cracks each of the eggs. They eat breakfast fairly quietly. “Thank you for helping me yesterday.” She hadn't said that, yet.

“Of course,” Sasha says.

The silence in the air starts to feel thick. Typically Mikasa wouldn’t mind, but she does this time. “Where’s Tal?”

“Not sure. She went out sometime last night.” They talk casually, for the rest of the morning, as if the previous day hadn’t happened. Sasha knows that’s what she wants, so she leaves it at that.

Later in the day, Mikasa drives to see Dr. Harlon, as she’d promised Sasha the night before.

She rubs the inside of her arm while she sits across from the doctor, watching her flip through her notes. She brings up the pills she took in high school. Mikasa squeezes her arm harder.

“In times of stress, you find ways to cope,” she says. Mikasa nods. “What made you rationalize taking more than your prescribed amount?”

She breathes deeply. “I wanted my anxiety to stop.”

“How so?”

“The physical part. It feels like I can’t breathe. I need to be able to breathe to race.”

“Would you do the same thing today, if it meant you could compete on Saturday?”

She chooses her words carefully. “No, I wouldn’t.”

“What would you do instead?”

“Call one of my friends,” she says, truthfully.

“Who?”

“Sasha.”

“I remember you saying Sasha wasn’t very stable herself.”

Mikasa smiles a bit. “Maybe not. But you know, that’s why we go together. Me, her, and Tal. We pick eachother up.”

Dr. Harlon writes, then questions the scratch on Mikasa’s face.

She tenses, but answers honestly. “I thought I needed to get a run in.” She sighs. “I started to feel anxious. Like I wasn’t doing enough.”

“Do you not practice five times a week?”

“It’s hard to think that way when I’m in the middle of it. Sometimes I just have to do what will make it stop.”

“Give me some examples.”

“I smoke more than I should,” she admits. “It’s a vice. Or I’ll call someone to spend the night with.”

“Anything else?”

“Sometimes I close my eyes, pretend I’m on the beach.”

“I like that one,” the Dr. says as she writes. “Little healthier than the others,” she smiles. Mikasa eases.

On campus, Eren sits with Sasha in the commons. He closes his laptop, tired of doing the same thing for hours at a time.

Sasha sits across from him, typing on her phone. Eren asks who she’s messaging.

“Your girlfriend.”

Eren nods, disregarding her word choice. “How is she? She drank a lot the other night.”

“She’s alright,” Sierra says, omitting some things. “I assumed you took care of her.”

“Course I did.”

“Did you?” she asks, looking up at him.

Her tone and the deadpan look in her eyes scare him a bit. “No, not in that way,” he says.

“Okay,” she nods, looking back down.

Mikasa sits on her phone after her session and messages Sasha back. No smoking, she writes in reference to her earlier session. Dr. Harlon advised her to avoid anything that could possibly be used as a crutch.

Mikasa wonders if that includes Eren. But he wasn’t a crutch to her— maybe at one point he was. Not anymore.

Sasha responds and says she’ll take a break with Mikasa. She smiles at her phone and puts it down.

“I was thinking you and Armin could come over for dinner tonight, like we used to. Think it would be good for Mikasa.”
“Sure, that sounds nice.” Eren says. It’s easier for him to be around her in a group setting.

Though, later on, the two of them end up alone like they always seem to. He helps her in the kitchen while Talia, Sasha, and Armin raise their voices at a hockey game on television.

She minces garlic for their pasta and asks him about his classes. He shrugs and says he’s passing. He hasn’t remained an A student in university, like she has. Though, unlike him, she has years of school after this.

Mikasa steps over to the pan where her sauce is simmering and the steam fogs up the lenses of her glasses. She pushes them up onto her head and picks up a spoon to stir.

They both look up and laugh when Armin, a diehard Washington Capitals fan, yells at the game. “Who’s playing?” Eren asks.

“The Bruins,” Armin replies. Eren watches Mikasa’s attention shift to the screen.

“Yeah? What just happened?” she asks.

“One of the players just scored against us.”

“Who?”

“Uh, Nickson, I think.”

“Oh, okay,” Mikasa says. She makes eye contact with Sasha and they smile.

She turns towards Eren. He leans against the counter, hands in his pockets, looking at her.

“What?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “Nothing. How are your classes?”

She tells him she’s not the biggest fan of physics. “I took the same class freshman year. We can work on it after dinner.”

“Okay,” she smiles.

He walks over to her, standing behind her. His hand reaches forward, holding her wrist, and stirring for her. His grip is firm, and familiar. She turns her head to the right a bit to look at him. His other hand comes to her waist to move her gently. “Take a break,” he says.

She hands him the spoon and takes a step to the side while he stirs. Eren scoops some of the sauce with his finger and tastes it.

“E,” Mikasa says.

“I just washed my hands,” he rebuts. “Here.”

He takes some for her and brings two fingers to her lips. She parts them, like a reflex, which he doesn’t miss.

She tastes the sauce and he pulls his fingers out her mouth, a little too slowly. “It’s good,” she says. “Doesn’t need any more garlic.”

“You think?”

She turns away. “I know. It’s my sauce. I make the same one every week.”

“I don’t know, it was off that last time.”

“Because I burnt it while we were… upstairs.”

Eren lowers his voice. “We weren’t upstairs. We were still in the kitchen. Sasha and Tal were at that race, remember?”

“Oh, I must have forgotten,” she says.

She remembers, vividly. It’s a memory that comes to mind often when she’s alone in her bed at night. Mikasa nods. “Well, I haven’t burnt it in months.”

“I’m sure you haven’t.”

She clears her throat and steps away from the counter to take the bread out. Eren moves over so she can take a mitt out of the drawer. She picks up two trivets and puts them on the counter before she opens the oven.

“You said you wouldn’t do this, Eren,” she warns.

“I’m not doing anything,” he replies.

“Is it ready?” Talia asks. She turns around on the couch and the other two do too. Mikasa lifts the lid and checks the sauce. If she lets it sit any more, it’ll burn. So she doesn’t respond to him.

“Just about,” she replies. Their friends get up and join them in the kitchen, chatting and opening cabinets and drowning out whatever they were talking about before.

During dinner, she eats silently, listening. He does the same, forks scraping against porcelain plates and eyes on their friends, not each other.

Afterwards, they sit on the couch while their friends wash the dishes, watching the next hockey game of the night. “Do you two want ice cream?” Sasha asks. “We’re going to the place in town.”

Mikasa shakes her head. “I’ve got to study for my physics test. Thank you, though.”

Sasha looks to Eren, and he politely declines. When the front door closes, and the two of them are left alone, it feels like deja vu. She looks at him, and the feeling she’s been trying to suppress, or bury in others, comes to the forefront. “You cut your hair,” she says, just noticing.

He nods and turns to her. He knows the look in her eye, because he has it too. “It was getting too long.”

She nods. He looks younger, more familiar. Mikasa turns away from him and picks up the remote, scrolling through the channels until she finds a movie.

When Talia and Sasha come home, they go upstairs, leaving the two to themselves.

She relaxes as time does on, shifting closer to him.

Eren is afraid to move, that if he does, she’s going to slip away and go back behind the wall she’s built between them. But she doesn’t. Instead, she leans into him.

She rests her head on his shoulder, letting go of her inhibitions for a moment. They were honest with each other, the night before. The admissions didn’t push them away from each other. She can’t pinpoint how she feels about it all. On edge, or at ease with him, until she stops thinking so hard about it all.

“Do you think we’re bad for each other?” she asks, sitting up. The question catches him off guard after a half hour of silence from her.

He doesn’t know how to answer. “I think we can be. But overall, no.”

She sees his eyes shift to the cut on her face. He stares at it for a few seconds. “Sasha told you?”

“Yeah, she did.”

Mikasa sighs and closes her eyes. “It’s fine.”

“Really?” Eren says. “You were limping around the kitchen.”

Mikasa shakes her head. “I ran out of Advil.”

He puts his hand on her hip, slides his fingertips under the hem of her crewneck. His touch is familiar enough that it doesn’t startle her. He pushes it up a bit, looking at the bruised, purple mark on her abdomen.

Her skin is tender, and she tenses when his fingers run over it. “Don’t think Advil would fix this.”

“I already talked to the doctor.”

“Does that mean you’re going to stop doing this to yourself?”

“I know it was irrational. Sometimes I just need to do things,” she says, frustrated.

“No, you don’t,” he says. “You didn’t do any of this last semester.”

“Things were different.”

“How so?”

“I wasn’t as good. I had Sasha every day. I had you.”

“You still have me.”

“You know what I mean, Eren.” Her voice breaks a bit. When her gaze returns to him, she looks sad. He hadn’t seen her cry in a long time. She looks like she might, but she shakes her head, looking down.

“I know,” Eren says. His hand comes to her face, tilting it up towards him. “You still have me, Mikasa.” He lets go of her and stands up before she can respond. “It’s late. You should go to bed.”

She can still feel his words in her chest as he walks her upstairs. Mikasa climbs into bed, body still exhausted. Eren picks up her comforter, pulling it up over her. She watches him as he does so. Her hand comes to his wrist. “Can you stay, please?” he hesitates.

The look in her eye makes his principles slip away. “Sure.”

They sleep next to each other, his chest pressed to her back. He’s warm, and comforting. For once she sleeps through the night.

In the morning, she wakes up with her face pressed against his chest, his arms wrapped around her. She doesn’t want to move. When her alarm goes off for class, they both hope the roads are still covered in snow, not suitable for students to walk.

But the plows have cleared and salted the pavement, so she groans, sitting up and turning it off. “Class?” he asks groggily.

“Yeah,” she sighs. She stands up, thankful that her limbs are less sore than the day before. “You can stay, though. If you want.”

“I have class in an hour. I’ll leave when you do.”

Mikasa gets ready for the day as Eren gathers his things. They leave together, and go their separate ways.

Even though it's still cold, It’s a sunny day, with clear skies. Mikasa doesn’t need a hat and can walk to class. The crisp air is refreshing, keeps her mind as clear as it’s been for the past twelve hours.

Throughout the day, that deteriorates. She can’t focus in class, and skips lunch. She can feel it happening– she always does, but she tries to ignore it. Around seven, Sasha knocks on her bedroom door.

“Hey. Talia brought home some food. Why don’t you come eat dinner?”

Mikasa paces around her room, walking from her bathroom to her suitcase. “I need to finish packing. I can’t find my black uniform top.”

“It’s in the laundry room,” Sasha says, taking a step in. She observes the clothes scattered on Mikasa’s floor, the open drawers.

“Not the top, the bottoms. And I need to see which products I can fly with.”

“Okay. How are you feeling about tomorrow?”

“I’m fine,” she says. “I don’t want to forget anything, that's all.”

Sasha sighs. She comes inside her room, taking her hand. “Have you eaten anything? Maybe that would help– ground you, a bit. Since you’re trying not to smoke.”

Mikasa nods. “Yeah. Yeah, sorry.”

Sasha tells her she doesn’t need to apologize. She’s right, the food helps some. So does their company. She stays out in the living room with them, talking and watching TV, until it's late. When Sasha and Talia head to bed around eleven, she stays there.

Mikasa puts on an old horror movie she likes, intently watching. The living room is dark, other than the glow of the screen. After a while, she picks up her phone, trying to help herself.

“Hello?” her mother answers. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“Yeah. I should. I can’t sleep.”

“Why not?”

“I just– I can’t focus.”

“What’s distracting you?” she asks.

“Just… pressure.”

“Nothing wrong with a little pressure.”

Mikasa takes a long, shaky breath. “You don’t need to come down, tomorrow. For the race.”

“Are you drunk, Mikasa?” she asks.

“No. I know it’s hard for you to take off work. You don’t need to come all the way down south when you can watch online.” Mikasa’s phone shakes in her hand.

“Did you stop talking to the therapist?”

“No,” Mikasa says. Her heart burns in her chest, the way she hates.

Mrs. Ackerman sighs. “Alright. I’ll see you during Thanksgiving.”

The feeling doesn’t go away when she hangs up, like Mikasa hoped it would. She turns the television off, laying back on the couch. She closes her eyes and tries to imagine the beach, calm herself. It doesn’t work. Her head spins, and she feels like she can’t breathe.

“Hello?” Eren answers. He lays in bed almost asleep, holding his phone to his ear.

Mikasa doesn’t speak. The threat of codependency weighs on her heavily. She needs his touch to calm her down, but that’s not all. She needs more than that. He recognizes her silence at the end of the line.

She’s running tomorrow. When her chest felt heavy and she couldn't stop thinking, his number was the one she dialed. When they were younger, it was for comfort. In college it had become for sex.

He didn’t care either way. Eren would take her any way she would give herself to him. “Tell me what you need, Mikasa,” Eren says. He holds his breath waiting for her response.

“Come here, please,” she says.

When she opens the front door, she wraps her arms around him tightly. He hugs her, one hand on her head, holding it to his chest, and the other around her waist. Cold air rushes into the house, but neither of them notice. Eren hadn’t bothered to put a coat on. He takes a step back, with her, closing the door behind himself.

She needs him, but in a different way this time. She wants his kind words and gentle touch and soft smile. Mikasa pulls away to see him.

He looks at her for a few seconds. His heart pounds in his chest as he does, mouth going dry. He knows what this is. Her hands rest on his shoulders, broad and firm. She doesn’t want to talk, or think. She just wants him.

“I need you,” is all she says, quietly.

He gently brushes a piece of hair away from her face, and cups her cheek with his other hand. When he kisses her, she melts into him. Her hands hold onto him almost desperately, one threading through his soft hair and pulling him down to her.

She knows she’s not using him. It’s different this time. Heavier on her heart. Though she won’t tell him that, he knows. The two of them only part for a few moments to go upstairs and into her room. Eren locks the door as they come in. She takes a step back and he goes with her, until the back of her knees hit the bed and they fall onto it.

Eren doesn’t rush; Mikasa’s movements are hasty, desperate. She missed how soft his lips were against hers, the feeling of being his in his hands. He deepens the kiss, tongue parting her lips and making her sigh. Her hands run through his hair and she never wants to let him go again.

Her skin feels soft to his calloused hands. So he’s tender as he kisses over the supple skin of her neck and abdomen, and she’s gentle as her fingers trace the hard lines of his back.

She closes her eyes and relaxes, let’s go. She’s not nervous when he takes off the flimsy shorts she has on, or when his fingers gently pleasure her.

He kisses her neck and whispers simple nothings in her ear, the kind that make lust replace any other emotion she’s feeling. She moans softly and he applies more pressure.

After a few minutes she tells him, quietly, that she wants more. He asks her to repeat it, and she says it louder. Both of their breaths are heavy, desperate.

She’s forgotten how it feels to be touched by someone that truly knows and cares for her. He hasn’t. She sounds the same and feels the same as he remembers.

“Like this. I want to see you.” Her statement surprises him. She always had an aversion to missionary.

Her hands slide under his shirt and lift it up over his head. The way she looks at him makes him nervous. There’s nothing between them anymore, keeping them apart.

Her hand reaches for his sweats, hastily pushing them down. He continues touching her for a few minutes, listening to her sigh against his lips, until she says she’s ready.

Eren leans over her, taking his underwear off. He lets the familiar weight of his dick rest on her, running his cock through her folds. It’s a calculated move, one that makes her moan and bend her legs back to feel him more.

“Missed you so much,” Eren says, voice low. “Missed seeing you like this.”

He presses the tip of his cock against her entrance, slipping inside of her, slowly. They both sigh when he does so, like they’re relieved. Mikasa pulls his face down to hers, kissing him.

He doesn’t miss the fact that it’s another thing she’d usually be opposed to. Her nails dig into his shoulder a bit as he moves further, deeper than she’d felt in a while. When hips press against hers she scratches him, and apologizes. “I like it,” he says. “Am I hurting you?”

She keeps her eyes on his. “Just go slow.” He listens to her, pulling his hips back before going back in slowly. The feeling makes her jaw slack, makes every intimate memory of them like this come back to her.

Eren leans forward, brushing some hair off of her face and kissing her forehead, waiting for her que. “Alright, I’m okay,” she says, rubbing his shoulders a bit. He starts to fuck her a little faster. “Fuck, Eren,” she sighs closing her eyes.

“Look at me,” he says, and she does. The eye contact is too much, for her, too intense, so she kisses him again.

Her sighs against his lips slowly turn to breathy moans. Eren fucks her how he always has. Paced and telling her how she feels like she was made for him. Like he loves her. It feels so good when he fucks her, something she can’t describe.

That’s all she says to him, for a while, how good he feels. It’s all she’s thinking. She’s spent the better part of the year trying to bury that feeling.

He knows exactly what she needs, and gives it to her. That’s what scares her about him, how well he knows her, his eagerness to take advantage of that, physically and emotionally.

She’s sensitive; Eren reaches down and presses his fingers against her clit, making her walls flutter around him. “Oh god,” she whines in his ear. Cautiously, he picks up his pace. She buries her face in his neck to stifle her moans.

Eren shifts his position so he’s sitting up more, and instead takes her legs in his hands. He puts his palm on her thighs, pressing them back towards her.

She feels him even more that way. “Eren,” she moans, feeling him everywhere. “I missed you so much.”

He smiles. “Yeah? No one else was doing it for you?”

“No, not like you,” she says.

“Yeah? Tell me.” She hesitates at first. He lets go of one of her legs and brings his thumb to her clit again, giving her what she needs.

“Not Liam. I used to think about you while I was with him.”

He applies a little more pressure and Mikasa shivers. He fucks her right through it. He doesn’t give her enough to make her come, just to keep her on edge, saying his name in that desperate way he loves.

“Knew you did,” he says. Eren gives her a little more, rubbing circles. He slows his pace fucking her, making her whine.

“So fucking wet,” he curses, feeling how easily he glides in and out of her. Eren continues slow, and hard. “I’ve thought about you with every girl I’ve ever fucked,” he says. Maybe it’s wrong, but his words turn her on more. “Only you, Mikasa.”

She parts her lips to speak, and he pulls out of her, turning her over before she can even think. His hands press down on her back and he starts fucking her again.

The angle lets him hit the same spot over and over again. Mikasa’s moans get louder and more broken, and he presses her face into the mattress to quiet her.

Her hand curls around the sheets in front of her, ruining how neat they were. Eren leans forward to speak in her ear. He gives her a few hard, slow strokes and she whimpers.

“I need you to be quiet, Mikasa,” he says. “Do you want your friends to hear us?”

“No,” she says. She presses her lips together as he starts to fuck her harder. The position allows her to feel him in her core. She feels every part of him, how hard he is, the way the curve of his dick lets him hit the same spot over and over again. She squirms a bit as pleasure racks through her, trying to run, but his hands hold her in place.

.Mikasa can feel her thoughts slip away, the ones she so desperately wanted gone.
She whines quietly as she approaches her orgasm and her legs shake. “Come for me” he says, almost a plea, she does. Eren can feel it, the way she gets tighter and more wet. It’s addicting to him.

“Fuck,” he curses under his breath, slapping her ass in the heat of the moment. “There you go.”

She enjoys the harsh feeling. “Shit, ‘Ren,” she moans. It’s overwhelming. Her hand reaches back to push against his abdomen and he slows down.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Mhm,” she whines.

Eren listens to her body language. He lets go of her waist and pulls her back towards himself by her shoulder. “Is that better?” he asks, and she closes her eyes, enjoying the feeling.

“Yes,” she sighs. He turns her head and kisses her gently. She works to hold herself up, but he tells her to relax.

“I’ve got you,” he says, wrapping his arm around her waist while he fucks her. His fingers dip down to touch her clit and she sighs in pleasure.

“Again?” she says.

“I don’t want you to forget what it feels like this time,” he says.

“I didn’t forget,” she says. “Thought about you when I was alone, too.”

“Yeah, how many times?”

“God, I don’t know,” she says, words becoming breathy. “Whenever I feel the urge.”

Her words made him lose his focus. She feels so good, warm and wet and drinking him in. He can't help but notice some of the many things he loves; the line down the center of her back, the sound of her moans, how perfect she looks like this. “Fuck, Mikasa,” Eren groans. He fucks her a little harder as he gets closer. “You feel so good.”

“So do you,” she moans. She hears his shaky breaths and moves her hips, fucking him back. He pulls out and comes on her back with a low groan. She likes the warm feeling and relaxes. Eren releases his grip on her and she lays down on her stomach.

He gets up to get them a towel from her bathroom, before laying down next to her. Eren cleans her skin gently and kisses her on the cheek. Mikasa shifts so she’s laying on his chest and wraps her arms around him. They both cherish the moment, endorphins flowing through them.

After a few minutes, she speaks. “I don’t want this to be like last time.”

“It won’t be,” Eren says. Mikasa smiles and kisses him. For her, it's a vulnerable action. Within a few minutes, they fall asleep.

Chapter Text

Mikasa wakes up a few hours later. Her face is pressed to his chest as she lays on her side, his arms wrapped around her. The arm underneath her has fallen asleep, but she doesn’t care. The few hazy moments of bliss before her alarm goes off are worth it.

Eren’s eyes flutter open as Mikasa groans at the ringing. He kisses her sleepily, and she kisses him back, ignoring the sound for a few seconds.

All she can feel is him, his lips on hers. His hands find her hips, and he turns so she’s on top of him. Eren reaches over and turns her alarm off. It takes Mikasa a few minutes to remember why she’s awake. When she does, she groans, sitting up. “I have to get up.”

“In an hour,” Eren says, sound of his tired voice cutting through her, deep and gravelly. “Didn’t get to do everything I wanted to last night.”

He’s good with his words, she knows that. She’s just not used to it anymore. Enough that she almost gives in. Eren turns the two of them over. “Eren,” she says hesitantly. Even in the dark she can see his eyes. His gaze makes her nervous.

Eren sits up, giving her forehead a gentle kiss that makes her relax. “I’ll help you pack,” he says, before kissing her again, on her neck. “You won’t be late.”

She sighs, closing her eyes and enjoying the feeling for a few seconds. Despite the previous night, in her mind running still takes precedence over him.

“I have to,” she says, sitting up, the warmth of his body leave hers. She gets out of bed and considers how much time she has until she has to leave. The sun isn’t up yet; her clock reads five.

Eren starts to get up, but she tells him to stay in bed. She only turns on her bathroom light, not to disturb him, and closes the door while she gets ready.

When she comes out, she picks up her backpack, puts it on, and takes her suitcase to go.

Eren grabs her when she walks by the bed and pulls her down to him, kissing her. “You’re leaving right now?” he asks.

“I have to,” she says, again, kissing him one more time before she stands up, though, a part of her knows she doesn’t, not that second. “You can stay. Go back to sleep.”

“Good luck,” he says, letting go of her hand.

“Thank you.”

When she closes the door, he can’t fall back asleep. Eren sits in her bed, laying in the sheets that still smell like her, closing his eyes.

For once, he doesn’t wonder what she’s thinking— he knows. What he doesn’t know is how long they’ll be this good, this honest to each other. If it’s over already. She’d left quickly, like she used to.

Eventually he gets up and puts his clothes back on, driving home. Eren runs a shower. Washing his hair takes less time now.

After getting dressed he walks down to the kitchen. Armin and Brandon are sitting at the table, eating cereal. Eren pours himself some and joins them.

“Are you coming to lift today?” Brandon asks.

“Aren’t we done now?” Eren replies.

“It's optional,” Armin says, observing Eren as he nods.

“Yeah, I’ll go. Don’t have much else to do after my class.”

“Why’d you run out so late last night?” Brandon asks.

Eren didn’t realize anyone had noticed he was gone. Sometimes— oftentimes, Brandon would fall asleep on the couch downstairs.

He shrugs. “Same reason I always do.”

Armin gives him a look, but he doesn’t say anything else. He’s the only person Eren trusts to talk about her to.

When Brandon leaves for class, and he’s sure Flint won’t come down, Eren tells him everything.

“You always say it’ll be different, and it never is,” Armin says calmly, avoiding Eren’s eyes.

“She said it, Armin.”

“Oh,” he says, Looking up. “Shit.”

“Yeah, shit.” Eren runs his hand back through his hair. “I don’t know if she meant that.”

“For someone so reserved, I’m sure she did.”

“I don’t know. She’s different when we’re— being intimate. Sorry.”

Armin shakes his head. “It’s fine. How is she different?”

“She’s more willing to express herself. Always has been.”

“I don’t know that side of her, but I’ve known her for a long time. I don’t think she would say something she didn’t mean.” Eren thinks back to all the things she’d said to him during or after sex. That she needs him, that she loves him. His chest tightens. He confirms, then, that this never meant nothing to her. “You think too much.”

“ I hurt her. That was because of my own issues.”

“So it’s both of you,” Armin says. “Eren wonders about him and Annie. He hears them arguing sometimes, even through the wall It's not a heated conversation like him and Mikasa would have, it’s more than that. He figures everyone has their thing.

They’re both silent for a while. Eren puts his head in his hands. “If you think it won’t work, Eren, let her go.”

“It’ll work,” he says, without hesitation. Letting her go isn’t something he knows how to do.

Mikasa wakes up to the jolt of the plane landing. She sits up as people start to jostle around, taking their backpacks from underneath the seat in front of them.

She gets her things together and zips her bag. Sasha folds up the blanket she had on and puts it under her arm.

Mikasa drinks some water to shake the haze off, and gets up when they get to the gate. The rest of their teammates, all dressed in the same attire do the same. They walk into the airport and out, onto the bus.

In the hotel, Mikasa takes a shower to wash the day off. She lets the hot water run over her scalp, scrubbing it with shampoo and softening it with conditioner. After, she slicks it back, into two braids.

“Your hair looks nice,” Sasha says when she comes out of the bathroom, putting her phone down. Her cautious tone of conversation isn’t lost on Mikasa. Sasha knows it comforts her not to think too much about her race. “Can you do mine like that?”

“Mhm. Tomorrow. Before we go to the stadium.”

“Will you have time?” she asks. Mikasa nods. Sasha nods back. “You seem calm today.”

Mikasa shrugs, exhaling. “I feel good.”

“Yeah? Had a good nights sleep?” Sasha prods a bit more. Mikasa freezes up for a few moments before she answers.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Sasha stares at her for a few seconds. “Course. I’m gonna go shower before dinner.”

She turns to leave, and Mikasa relaxes in bed. When she hears the water running, she calls Eren. Dialing his number almost feels like a reflex.

Seeing her name on his screen relieves him. “Hey. Everything going well?”

She lays flat on her back, staring at the ceiling. The texture of the paint reminds her of her childhood home. “Good, we got in about an hour ago. I did my routine. Now I'm in bed.”

If she closes her eyes, she can almost imagine that he’s there with her. “I’m not part of your routine?”

“You are,” she says, smiling softly. “I don’t think I’ve gone without talking to you for more than a few days since I can remember. Save the last few months.”

“What time do you have to be up tomorrow?”

“Around six. Not too early. I get to walk the course at nine, warm up, then race at eleven.”

“Your mom there yet?”

Mikasa swallows, hard enough that Eren can hear it. “I asked her not to come. Last night.”

“Ah, I see.” Eren speaks. His confidence about her feelings fades. “That was before you called me?”

“Yeah, it was.” He’s silent for a few seconds, and she can tell he’s thinking. “But that wasn't the reason.”

“You seemed kind of panicked when I got there. How you used to be.”

“I was, but I’m trying to be different. Work my own shit out.”

“As opposed to using me as a distraction?”

“It wasn’t like that. You know it wasn’t.”

“Do I?” he asks, hoping for more.

Sasha comes out of the shower, dressed and wringing her hair out. “Are you ready?” She asks. “I’m starving.”

“You should. Me and Sasha are heading to dinner,” Mikasa says to him.

“Alright,” he says. “Bye Mikasa.”

“Bye.”

“Who were you talking to?” Sasha asks, putting her hair up. She picks her phone up off the bed and walks towards the door. Mikasa follows.

“Eren,” she says.

“Mm. Makes sense.”

Sasha holds the door open for Mikasa and they walk down the hall. “Why does it ‘make sense?’” she says.

“You know, big race tomorrow.”

Mikasa sighs. “It wasn’t like that.”

They stop in front of the elevators and Sasha presses the button. “You can be honest with me. I tell you everything.” Mikasa sighs. She doesn’t even know how she feels. Mikasa shakes her head. “Alright,” Sasha nods, letting her think. “You seem calm.”

“I feel calm.”

Sasha looks at her, nodding. “I mean, you were so dead set on just being friends with him. You changed your mind, Why?”

Mikasa shakes her head. Part of her just wants to say, ‘It’s Eren’. To try to articulate why it feels right, how she’s drawn to him. How he calms her mind, makes her body feel. “I had to.”

The elevator comes and they step on. Sasha leans back against the railing. She understands, to an extent. They don’t look at eachother. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The two of them get off the elevator and turn the corner to have dinner with the rest of their team. It’s the same every time, catered pasta or chicken. Mikasa always gets the same meal and drink. Routine is calming.

Her brain hums with calm thoughts of what she’ll have for desert, listening to her friends laugh at sometning Sasha said. Afterwards she clears her plate and goes back to her room.

After a shower, she gets in bed, right at nine. Sasha, as she usually does, stays up on her phone until she falls asleep.

Mikasa is faced with insomnia. She gets up groggily, picking up her room key and her phone. Down in the lobby she finds the cups and the hot water machine.

She rips open a packet of hot chocolate, dumping it into the cup and stirring it.

Mikasa sits in one of the lobby chairs, sipping her drink. She picks up her phone and messages Eren, again, asking if he’s awake. It makes her feel embarrassed, how often she’s reaching out to him. When he doesn’t answer, the image of him in the doorway, bruised neck and all, flashes across her mind. It dawns upon her then how much she cares, again. Her stomach turns.

When he messages her back a few minutes later, the image is still fresh in her mind. She doesn’t feel at ease, so she calls him, wanting to hear his voice.

“How was dinner?”

“Good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I wish you were here.”

“I can be there,” he says. “I can come.”

Part of her wants to egg him on, just to see if he’d do it. The insecure, needy part of her that seems to be at the forefront right then.

Mikasa smiles softly to herself. “That’s okay.” She takes a few more sips.

He’s silent for a bit. He can’t help but rehash the same topic. “You seemed— anxious this morning. I didn’t give you what you needed?”

She can hear the unsteady tone in his voice. Something she doesn’t hear often. “You did,” she says, without hesitation. “I just wasn’t— that wasn’t all I was looking for, you know. I didn’t just want that quick relief.”

“Yeah? What did you want?”

“You,” she says. She doesn’t know where the words are coming from, but they spill out. “Just— just you, there, with me.”

Eren smiles. “I just wanted to be there with you.”

His simple words make her insecurity fade away. Hers the same.

“I wasn’t using you, Eren. If I need to say it.”

“I know, Mika,” Eren says, untruthfully. He looks over at the clock in his room. “It’s late. You should be asleep.”

“I can’t sleep. I’m in the lobby having something to drink.”

“Are you anxious?”

“Not how I usually am, no. Not in my mind. But my body feels it, I think.”

“Can I help you?”

“You are helping me. Your voice makes me calm. It makes me feel like I'm back in bed with you, like I was this morning.”

They talk for a bit more, until Mikasa finds it hard to keep her eyes open. She heads back upstairs, and pauses outside her room door. “Can I see you when I come home tommorow?”

“Please,” Eren says.

Mikasa smiles. “Goodnight Eren.”

“Goodnight Mikasa. Good luck tommorow.”

_____

Eren watches through his TV screen as Mikasa stands at the starting line, hands loose at her sides. A few of his friends buzz around the living room, the ones that bothered to wake up before nine on a Friday morning.

He watches the camera pan across the runners, stopping on her. Her name pops up on the screen and she smiles and waves, green bows at the top of her two braids. She looks pretty, he thinks first.

When the camera passes her, her mind feels strangely quiet, at ease, though her heart beats out of her chest.

It calms when the gun fires, and she starts running.

Eren sits on the couch, watching her get out front. It’s as routine for him to watch her as it is for her to run. She passes by a few girls. Lane stays in front of her by a few strides for a while.

Mikasa catches up keeps pace with her. The southern humidity makes sweat drip from her brow bone onto her cupids bow. The salty taste on her lips makes her push herself harder. She hears the bell ring when she enters the second mile.

Eren can see two girls in front of her and a lot more behind. Mikasa can’t see much of anything at all, focused on just what’s in front of her.

She’s doing better than she was expected to, but he knows all she cares about is not being beaten.

Mikasa ignores the pain that starts to creep up in her hip and passes Lane as they enter the woods.

“There we go,” Eren says quietly to himself. She’s better in the second half of a race, she always has been. At least since he started watching her in high school. Her hair and her strides are identical to how they always have been.

Mikasa enters the third mile with a gap between her and lane, as well as the girl in front of her. She focuses on keeping her pace.

Eren stands up, standing right in front of the television.

“I can’t see anything,” Flint complains, but he ignores him.

“He always does this,” Armin says.

“Shut up,” Eren says. Mikasa enters the last 400. She starts to close the gap between her and she short girl in front of her. She used to hate being tall, he remembers, until she realized the advantage it gave her.

It’s always the last part of the race where she feels like she can’t breathe— now especially in the heat. She focuses on putting one foot in front of the other, ignoring the heavy feeling in her legs and arms, until she crosses the finish line.

“Is second good?” Brandon asks.

The camera shows Mikasa looking up at the scoreboard. She smiles. “Yeah,” Eren says, smiling. “It’s great.”

At home, not long after she lands and walks through the door, she runs a bath. Mikasa takes her medal out of her bag while the water fills, shiny and silver, and sets it on the dresser. She gets in and relaxes. In the moment, everything feels worth it.

An hour later, when the water has grown cold, she gets up to dry off and drains the tub. Mikasa rings her hair out and gets dressed before she calls him.

After a few minutes, she finds Eren at her door. She leans into him, and he supports her full weight. His arms snake around her and pull her close. She breathes the easiest then. “I’m so proud of you,” he says. She lets her head rest against his chest, relaxes.

“Thank you,” she says quietly. They don’t move for a few seconds that turn into a minute. “I’m so tired.”

“I know,” he says. “Do you want me to stay?”

“I’d like it if you did,” she admits. He follows her up the stairs. Eren turns to Mikasa in her room, reaching in his pocket and handing her a blunt. She smiles.

“You can have this now, right?” he asks as she walks over to the window.

“Yeah,” she says, opening it. She puts on her coat and crawls through the opening. Eren follows her onto the small, flat part of her roof.

She puts the paper between her lips, and looks at Eren as he lights it for her, eyes lingering on each other after he’s done. The first drag feels so good after so long. Mikasa closes her eyes as she exhales. “Fuck. This is good.”

“Thanks. I put a little tobacco in it, how you like.”

“Thank you,” she says. “I know you think it’s gross. But I like the taste every once in a while.”

“Why not more often, if you enjoy it so much?”

“It’s bad for me,” she says. “I mean, I’m already smoking, but the tobacco makes it worse.”

When she was much, much younger, and her father hadn't quit, Mikasa never minded the smell of menthol he would leave outside the back door. Her mother surely did.

“But eventually, you’ll have another one.”

She turns to look at him. “I don’t know, I guess so. I’m good with self control.”

“Are you?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says, taking another drag, ignoring his implication. Eren takes the blunt from her and starts to smoke it. She looks forward to the television. “You know, when I want to be.”

“Are you going to want to be when we finish this?” he asks.

“Mhm,” she says. He doesn’t believe what she's saying, and he doesn’t think she does either. Sex is one of the few things she lets herself enjoy, especially with him.

The weed lets his mind wander, to the image of her on her side, moaning with her eyes closed. He wants that.

Eren passes the blunt back to her. “I’ve missed you the last few days.”

“Days or nights?” she asks.

“Does it matter?” he asks. She nods. “Both. I mean, we always used to do both, when we had time.”

He’d wake her up with his head buried between her thighs, and she’d be halfway to coming before she woke up.

The memory graces her, making her tense a bit. “Yeah, we did,” she says. Mikasa takes her time with the blunt, inhaling and exhaling slowly, letting a good amount of the paper burn away before she gives it back to him. “It was good, when it was working.”

“Pieces of it always worked,” he says.

“Yeah, like what?” she asks, though she knows his answer.

“Like the sex,” he said.

“Yeah, it works, in the moment,” she says.

“And then?”

“And then we can’t draw the line between sex and emotion. Then we don’t talk for a few months.”

“I think you’re missing a few things.”

“Alright. I couldn’t express my emotions so you fucked someone else.” The statement still hurts her more than she expects it to.

“What couldn’t you express?” She sighs, handing the blunt back to him. Their eyes meet for just a second. Eren keeps his eyes on her face as her gaze shifts in front of them, to the ocean.

Her throat tightens. “Think it’s obvious.”

“We’ve been talking around it for long enough, now.” Eren says. He wants her to say it. He needs her to. He keeps a calm expression, but can feel every beat of his heart. It isn’t because of the weed.

“You know, after you cheated on me, when I was done crying, and talking to Sasha about it, I put my coat on and I left the house. It was still freezing, like it is now, but I walked down onto the beach, onto the sand, and just stood there. I couldn’t even understand what I was feeling. I'd never cared so much about anything. About someone. I mean, you know how I am.” Running requires less emotion; it’s more of an obsession. Her chest lurches. So does his.

Mikasa takes a deep, shaky breath that she doesn’t hide well. It took her years to admit to herself how she felt about him. The warmth in her chest when he was around, the comfort he brought her. Her eyes start to sting, then water. When she blinks, a tear falls from her eye. It rolls down her cheek and lands on her jacket. She watches a few waves crash in the distance. “It was never just sex, for me. Hasn’t ever been, the more I think about it.”

He looks at her for a while, without saying anything. She looks to him for a response. A few more tears fall. “I didn’t know,” she says, voice shaky, then swallows. “How you felt about me. And then, I felt like another girl who thought she was different. Then you showed me I was.”

Eren’s heart sinks, deeper than he thought it could. “You weren’t another girl, Mikasa you were– you’re everything, to me. I thought I was giving you what you wanted.”

“You were,” she says. “That’s what I thought I wanted, for a while. I mean, I’ve always been like that, you know. A little cold.”

“I don’t think you’re cold.”

Mikasa smiles. “Thank you.” She lays her head on his shoulder. He nods and turns to her, wiping the tear from her cheek. Eren kisses her briefly, before he lets go. Suddenly, she feels warm.

Looking back, he never made it hard to tell how he felt about her. When he pulls away, she smiles a bit, eyes relaxed. Her gaze stays on his face, studying every inch. Something breaks inside of her.

She puts her cold hand on his face, rubbing his cheek gently with her thumb. “You know I love you, Eren,” she says. “Don’t you?”

Her voice is soft and saccharine, but it cuts through him. He feels as though she’s holding his soul in her hands for those few seconds. She doesn’t break eye contact with him. “I love you too,” Eren says.

She smiles softly before she kisses him, tells him how much she needs him. For Mikasa, time seems to move slower when she’s high. The sound of the waves fade into the background and all she can hear is his heartbeat when she leans on his chest. The sun casts gold over the ocean as it sets.

It's a heavy feeling, sometimes, how he loves her. Sometimes it feels like he’s drowning in it. Letting his actions be dictated by his estimations of her thoughts, clinging onto the pieces of herself she gives him.

It's different for her. A light feeling that makes her let go of everything else– her reason, her guardedness, her anxiety. Something that often seems impossible for her.

When she pulls away, he asks if she wants to go inside.

“Not for a bit,” she says, wrapping her arm around his. “If the weather isn’t bothering you. I'd like to just— stay this way.”

“I don’t mind,” he says. He puts his hand on her cheek, skin cold, and turns her face towards his.

Later on, they lay in her bed in the dark, staring at the ceiling. Mikasa missed the way her brain feels when she’s high. It’s easier for her to say what she’s thinking. “I don’t know how to do this,” she says, and without further explanation, he understands what she means.
“You know, there are plenty of girls you could be with. Then you wouldn’t have to deal with that.”

“You’re doing just fine.” Eren smiles to himself. She doesn’t understand. “There’s no one else for me, Mikasa. Anything that comes with you is worth it.”

“You really think that?”

“You can’t tell?” he asks, he sits up so he’s leaning over her a bit, and kisses her.

She breaks the kiss for only a moment to respond to him. “I can,” she says.

Mikasa lays on her back and closes her eyes, yawning. He kisses her forehead. “You should go to sleep. I’m sure you’re exhausted.”

“I am,” she says. “I’m exhausted.” He lays down next to her, and she turns to him, laying on his chest, only taking a few minutes to fall asleep.