Archive of Our Own

You put your hands in your lap in order to minimize the fidgeting you were sure everyone noticed, everyone being Commander Erwin and Captain Levi. It was mentioned earlier that both Section Commander Hange and Section Commander Miche would be running a little late. You took a deep breath to calm yourself.

The commander sat behind his desk writing his statement and the dark-haired captain stood near the window behind him. How you wished there was someone in the room to lighten the mood so you could stop feeling like your heart would beat out of your chest. The sound of Commander Erwin’s pen running over the paper wasn’t helping either. The hurried scratching noise filling the silence gave you even more anxiety.

Erwin noticed you looking uncomfortable in your seat as he finished writing your recommendation. He looked up at you every so often and noticed how much shifting you were doing in your seat.

“I apologize for how long this is taking.” The commander spoke, breaking you out of your thoughts.

“Please don’t rush.” You quickly gave a small smile, adjusting your hands in your lap again.

“Usually a promotion to section commander comes at the recommendation of the commander alone.” He smiled without looking up from his writing. “For you, however, there have been a total of seven recommendations.”

“Sir?” You sat up straight in your seat, worried that maybe you broke some sort of rule.

The door to Erwin’s office opened and Hange came in, closing the door behind them quickly and walking to stand behind Erwin.

“Sorry, I’m late,” they apologized.

“Miche?” Erwin asked, wondering where the other section commander was.

“He’s busy with something personal.” Hange explained.

“No matter.” Erwin shuffled his papers, reorganizing the order and standing. “It’s his day off and we have more than enough witnesses present.”

Commander Erwin moved the papers to the conference table and spread them out one-by-one. Captain Levi and Section Commander Hange lined up behind him, preparing to sign. The commander’s office door opened again and Nanaba walked in. You smiled at her and breathed out a sigh of relief, thankful that someone you were closer with was finally there. She smiled at you and walked closer to where you were seated.

“I was sent to stand in for Section Commander Miche.” She told Commander Erwin and he nodded.

Nanaba tapped your arm to stand up and you stood, just now noticing Eld and Moblit taking a place behind Captain Levi and Section Commander Hange. Nanaba took her place next to them.

“Are you ready?” Commander Erwin asked.

You walked over to their side of the table and watched as each of them signed their recommendation as well as the oath that you made your way over to sign. You took a deep breath, picking up the pen and signing your name at the bottom.

“Congratulations… Section Commander Y/N.” Erwin put his hand on your shoulder as Hange, Moblit, and Nanaba clapped their hands, finally Eld patting your shoulder. You couldn’t help but smile, feeling their support.

Levi was tasked with showing you around. It wasn’t like today was your first day, but being a cadet and being a section commander’s second was very different from being a section commander and there were parts of headquarters that you never really even visited as a cadet.

So far, he had moved over the system of paperwork and how often it should be completed and which ones were most important for you to go over. Schedules also seemed to be pretty important to Levi, he spent quite a bit of time explaining daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly deadlines and tasks, also providing certain textbooks given to him by Commander Erwin to have you study.

You didn’t have cadets yet, but being prepared for when you did get them assigned was important and Levi spent some time going over that as well. Since you were newly promoted, chances were you would be getting new recruits as your cadets so he also wanted to be sure to show you the training grounds and where to find equipment just in case you needed it.

As you exited the building, you slowly took everything in. You slowed your walk, smiling to yourself as you lifted your head up, taking a deep breath. You’ve walked around the grounds, especially through these very same doors so many times before, but this time was different. This time you were a section commander of the survey corps. There was so much potential, so many opportunities, so many ways you could help humanity.

“Are you following?” Levi’s voice brought you back to what you were doing. He was a good twenty feet in front of you and you quickly dropped your head down, embarrassed that you let yourself get caught up in that moment for so long.

“Yes, Captain—”

“Levi.”

“Yes, Levi.” You nodded. It was going to be a struggle to drop formalities, having used them for so long. You scurried towards him, looking around and hoping no one saw you lose yourself in that moment of enjoyment. Someone did notice though.

Miche’s eyes followed you as you crossed the field. You waved a little, realizing that might be inappropriate since he looked like he was in the middle of something, but he smiled back either way, continuing to watch you.

The woman he was talking to looked indignant and you weren’t sure if she was in the survey corps. You had never seen her before, but she was beautiful. She had long black hair and the fairest skin you had ever seen. The contrast of her skin with her red lips gave her an ethereal look.

You watched her slap Miche’s arm and roughly grab his jaw, forcing him to look at her and you quickly looked away. She was definitely not in the survey corps and it was none of your business what he did during his personal time.

Back in the office by the training fields, Levi showed you the equipment lockers and forms for ordering more.

Eld came into the office slightly out of breath and you both looked over at him.

“Section Commander.” He nodded and smiled at you. “Captain Levi, sir, Commander Erwin has asked for you.”

“He is the one that asked me to do this tour.” Levi carped.

“He is aware of that, sir.”

Levi sighed and looked to you.

“I guess we can finish this up another time.” He stood from the desk.

“I can show her.” Miche walked through the office doors. Levi nodded and followed Eld back to Erwin’s office.

“Section Commander Y/N.” Miche smiled. “It does sound nice, doesn’t it?”

“It feels pretty nice, too.” You stood up from the table, facing him.

“I saw you enjoying your little moment outside the south doors.” He teased. Your face got hot and you were about to explain yourself, but he just laughed. “Don’t worry, I think I was the only one who noticed.”

Miche moved around the desk to lean against it closer to where you were standing. He crossed his arms over his chest, smiling before dropping them again and moving closer to you. His eyes were closed now, eyebrows drawn together as he sniffed the air.

You knew that he was known for being able to sniff out titans, but surely there weren’t any titans around here at this point. You looked out the window quickly, checking for chaos but everyone was moving around as they usually did. You looked back at Miche, he was moving closer to you, still sniffing.

“Section Commander?” You felt yourself stepping back slowly the closer he got to you. You didn’t really like being touched or being too close to people and he was definitely invading your bubble.

“Wait.” He grabbed your arm, holding you close to him and bringing his face to your neckline before breathing in deeply. Your eyes were wide and beads of sweat collected on your forehead. You didn’t know what else to do except look straight ahead as he kept his face in the crook of your neck.

“Sir?”

“Didn’t they tell you to stop calling us that?”

“Miche, sir.” He chuckled, puffs of air tickling your neck.

“You smell…” He breathed in again. “You smell… so…”

Smelled? You smelled? You bathed that morning, maybe you were nervous in Erwin’s office and you were sweating a bit, but this wasn’t necessary. He didn’t really have to point it out to you like this.

“If I smell bad, you don’t have to smell me.” You pulled your arm away from him, slightly annoyed and stepped back.

He laughed at your reaction, grabbing your waist and pulling you in between his legs so your chests were nearly flush. He dropped his face to the crook of your neck again, breathing in.

“You smell so good,” he said, still laughing.

“Oh… well, thank you, I guess.” You stepped back a little so you could see him. You had never been this close to him before, but now that you were here, you realized just how light the blueish-grey color of his eyes were.

It was a good twenty seconds of him staring at you at this point and you were wondering what you should do. He wasn’t smiling anymore, wasn’t laughing, wasn’t even smelling you. He was just sitting there, your hand being held by his, and staring at you.

You were going to open your mouth to speak, but honestly had nothing to say so you just cleared your throat and looked around the office, hoping something would make him speak and look away from you. Instead, it just made him chuckle. You turned quickly to look at him, hoping he was laughing at something he saw outside, something to divert the attention from you. There was nothing, he still just stared at your face, his hands still playing with your fingers.

“You’re a weird guy.” You finally spoke.

“I’ve been told.” He nodded, still smiling.

“Maybe we should continue the tour.” You suggested, pulling your hand away from him.

“If that’s what you want.” He was still smiling at you. You nodded and both moved to the door to head back to the barracks.

There was an odd comfort you felt being near Miche, sniffing aside. He was quite tall and it made you feel like you were home. You, yourself, were 175cm and you were considered the small one in the family. Your father stood at 193cm, your brother at 190cm and both sisters stood at 180cm.

You felt relaxed as you walked next to him, almost completely forgetting about him sniffing you intently just ten minutes before.

“After you.” He held the door open and smiled at you.

“Thanks.” You walked into the mess hall and went for the staircase. You knew the commander and section commander’s rooms were on the second floor. It was going to be a weird shift for you since you were so used to going to the third floor where the section commander’s second’s rooms were.

You reached the top of the steps, unsure of which room would be yours and waited for direction. Miche came up behind you, his hands resting on your shoulders and guided you down the hall. When you reached the end of the hall, he turned you both around to see the doors to all the rooms.

Your body stiffened as you felt his hands slide down to your waist and his face dipped back to your neck, sniffing again.

Prohibiting fraternizing prevented you from spending a lot of time with the section commanders before today so you haven’t had many interactions with Miche previously. Nanaba had sort of warned you about how physically friendly Miche could sometimes be, but you honestly weren’t prepared for this much.

Miche couldn’t stop himself. He was sure his lip was going to bleed at how hard he was biting it. Never in his life had he smelled anything as pleasant, as appealing or as enchanting as you smelled. He tried his best to hold back, knowing a lot of people didn’t like his habit and very much sensing your discomfort at his close proximity, but he literally couldn’t stop himself. Seeing you shy away almost made him want to pull you closer.

“So the room at the end on the right is Levi’s.” He put his hand up to point at each door. “That one there is Hange’s, this one is mine.”

You nodded along with what he was saying, not really sure what it had to do with you finding your room, but it could always be useful information to know where to go to find them. He was smelling your neck again and you made a mental note to make sure you were really clean each time you had to see him.

“That door until the far end of the hall is Erwin’s room.” He switched hands, pointing to the door on the left. “This room is yours. Right across from mine.”

“Perfect.” You sighed. “You aren’t going to come in and sniff me in my sleep, are you?”

He squeezed your waist, dropping his forehead to your shoulder and laughing loudly.

“He won’t do that, but don’t worry, he will find other ways to annoy you.” Hange came walking down the hallway, heading to you with a smile on their face.

“Hange’s not lying.” He laughed, standing up and opening the door to your room. You stepped inside and looked around. It was a really small office, a desk to your left up against the wall and another door straight ahead. You started looking through the desk, barely hearing their conversation outside.

“Miche, could you please be quieter at night. I thought you said you would move your bed.” Hange seemed a little annoyed.

“I did move it.”

“It’s still loud, my books keep getting knocked over.” Hange looked over to you while you searched the desk. “Well maybe we can have a rule like no noise after ten or… I don’t know.”

“Don’t worry. It’s over so there won’t be anymore noise.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Hange put their hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t even lie.” He teased. “You’re happy about it.”

“Well maybe now I can get some sleep.” They laughed.

Miche walked into the office watching you look through the desk.

“That used to be Erwin’s desk,” he said, “he probably cleaned it out pretty well.”

“Yeah, it’s nice still.” You looked up and smiled at him. “I’ve never had my own desk. Or my own office.”

You stood up straight, looking around the room. Miche leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, smiling at you.

“Let’s look at your room and then I can show you everyone else’s.” He opened the door to your bedroom and you both walked in.

It wasn’t a huge room, about the same size as the room you and Nanaba shared on the third floor, except now you don’t share a room. This room was yours. You smiled to yourself again, looking around at everything. The room was empty except for a bed, two nightstands and two dressers. You walked over to the window and looked outside. This was your window, and your bed, and your room.

Miche caught you smiling again. He didn’t want to interrupt your thoughts so he stood back by the wall, crossing his arms and smiling at your face as you let yourself get lost in your head. Damn, has she always been this cute?He thought.

You noticed another door and assumed it must be to the bathroom. You looked to Miche who was in the corner smiling at you again. He guessed what you were wondering and moved over to the door, opening it.

“Probably the best part.” He smiled.

You stepped into the bathroom. Your bathroom. Like the bedroom, it was small, but it was all yours.

“Oh…” Miche was in the doorway rubbing his chin. “Your bathtub is way bigger than mine.”

“It is?”

“Yeah, I’ll show you. Come on.” He held out his hand, but you just stared at it and he noticed. “Come on.”

He grabbed your hand and pulled you across the hall to his room. You weren’t sure what to expect seeing his room. It was different when you were a cadet. Having a shared space meant you couldn’t offer much personality. Even when you shared a room with only Nanaba, there was a little more personality, some drawings or books unrelated to being a scout, but not much.

He pulled you through his office which looked basically the same as yours except the desk had a lot more paperwork on it. He continued through to his bedroom.

Walking into Miche’s room made you feel like you were walking into Miche’s room. It very much felt like him. He also had a big wall of windows, similar to how your room was. His bed was placed in the center of his room and looked awkward with how large it was. It made sense though since he was so tall.

He led you to the bathroom and dropped the hand he was holding, guiding your lower back until you were inside.

“Please tell me you see the difference.” He told you, standing in the doorway.

“Your bathroom is nice.” You smiled.

“It’s basically the same as yours, you just have a bigger tub.” He walked backwards to the bed, laying down with his arms behind his head.

You moved back into his room, looking around. He had some letters on his dresser, maybe letters from home. You noticed there was an opened bottle of wine on his nightstand and you raised an eyebrow.

“I give it a week before you are storing one on your nightstand too.” He laughed.

“Well now I know where to go when I want a drink.” You raised an eyebrow.

“You are welcome anytime you want.” He smiled and sat up. “Ready to see everyone else’s room?”

“Isn’t it sort of private? Won’t they mind?” You fiddled with your fingers lightly.

He shrugged. He pulled you into Hange’s office and opened their bedroom door, but before he could make it through to their bedroom, you pulled back, holding yourself outside the door.

“I really don’t think we should do this,” you said, “Let’s just go back to my room.”

He sighed, dropping your hand and moving back to the door behind you. You turned around to exit first. “Yeah, this is better. We should respect their privacy—”

Miche picked you up from behind and threw you over his shoulder.

“You worry too much,” he said, pushing the door to Hange’s bedroom open and carrying you inside.

“Miche, please!” You tapped his shoulder. “Tall people aren’t supposed to be carried!”

He was laughing at you. It was like a whole different world up there. You were tall, but nothing like this. It didn’t help that you had no footing to balance yourself and he was just swinging you around all willy-nilly the more you complained.

“This is Hange’s room.” He turned you around quickly. “Here is the dresser.” Another spin. “And the bed.” Another spin. “Finally, the bathroom.”

“Okay, Miche. That’s good. You can put me down.” You kept tapping his shoulder as if it would encourage him to let you go.

“We still need to see Levi’s room.”

“I’ll walk. I’ll walk.”

“Are you sure?” He asked. “I don’t often give free rides on the Miche train.”

“Oh God,” you groaned, “I really hope you don’t call it that.”

He laughed, closing Hange’s door and setting you down in the hallway, then gestured you to walk to Levi’s room. You stood there, smiling a little bit and he slowly dropped his hands, knowing you were up to something. You quickly turned around and started running back to your bedroom.

“Wow.” He laughed loudly, chasing after you. It took him barely three strides before he reached you, not quite making it to your bedroom door. He grabbed you from behind in a back hug, lifting you slightly off the ground. You were both laughing loudly and you started gasping for air in between the laughs as Miche started tickling your waist.

“Wait—Wait!” You squirmed in his arms. “Not fair!”

You were wriggling in his arms, only able to get away slightly by squatting down. A figure caught your eye at the end of the hall and you stopped laughing, seeing Levi staring at both of you. Miche noticed your mood change and looked over to Levi. He stood up, lifting you up with him and you adjusted your shirt and jacket, now twisted and messy from being tickled.

“Captain—”

“Levi.” He corrected.

“Levi, sorry.” You adjusted your jacket again.

“Dinner will be ready soon.” The small captain said plainly, turning around and walking to the end of the hall.

You both stood there watching him leave until he reached the staircase and was out of sight. Miche slowly lifted his hand to tickle you again.

“Don’t even think about it.” He just laughed and you both went downstairs for dinner.

Before you were a section commander, during mealtimes you would sit with Eld and Nanaba. It’s not that you were no longer sitting with them, but it definitely felt different. Now you sat on the edge of both groups. Miche pulled you to sit next to him and Eld sat on the other side of you. Section commanders on one side, seconds in command on the other.

You were pulled between two conversations and couldn’t really fit in with either of them. Instead you just looked down at your food, letting yourself get lost in thought. Miche noticed and leaned closer to you.

“What are you thinking about?” He stuck a fork in one of your potato chunks in your soup and ate it.

“Nothing in particular.”

“It looks like it’s a really good nothing in particular.” He took another potato.

“Not really.” You looked up at him. “Didn’t you get enough food?”

“Yours tastes better.” He took another bite and smiled at you.

Nanaba asked you a question and your attention turned to her, but you could still feel Miche leaning towards you, his hand resting on the bench on the other side of your body.

If this day gave you any indication, you quickly realized that Miche was going to be sticking around you. You weren’t sure why he was, but you weren’t complaining either. He was fun to be around and he helped out a lot with things you didn’t understand.

You had a couple days of onboarding, Miche doing most of the showing around, but occasionally Levi would pick back up and even then Miche would still tag along. For the most part, everything was pretty similar to the way it’s been for you. The hardest part came a week later.

You were walking with Miche to the stables. He was teasing you about something when someone ran past you talking about Wall Maria falling.

“What?” You looked to Miche. He looked just as confused. “My… my family is there. They—They’re in Shiganshina. Do they know where the breach is? Oh my God, was Shinganshina attacked?” Miche could see the panic in your eyes.

“We need to see Erwin.” Miche grabbed your hand and you both ran up to his office.

Hange and Levi were already inside talking. Erwin motioned for you both to come in and sit down.

“The breach—” Miche started, “—do they know where it is?”

Erwin looked at both you and Miche. They knew where you were from, they knew where your family was.

“It was Shiganshina.”

“No, no, no, no,” you whispered. You could feel your heartbeat in your throat, water was dripping down your face and you couldn’t tell if it was sweat or tears, probably both. You could see Erwin still talking, but you couldn’t hear the words. Miche’s voice was muffled next to you. Everything felt like it was in slow motion, but spinning so quickly at the same time. You felt dizzy and nauseous.

You went to sit down, but there wasn’t a chair under you and you started falling to the ground. Miche grabbed you, his arms around your waist as he held you up. He was yelling, you could feel the strong rumbling from his chest as he squeezed you tighter against him. What was happening? You couldn’t focus.

You felt yourself being lifted up and moved. You were being carried somewhere. Not for long though because then you were set down, you were sitting now. Suddenly you felt a splash of cold water on your face and you gasped, coughing and blinking your eyes.

“Y/N…” The voice was muffled, but you could hear it.

Another splash of cold water sent you coughing again.

“What...?” You coughed, wiping your eyes to see. You blinked, your vision clearing until you could see Miche squatting down in front of you.

“Can you hear me?” He asked wiping the extra water off your face. You nodded.

You were in your bathroom.

“Erwin said they’re preparing a list of survivors and posting it in Trost. You can go when the list is posted.”

You were still struggling to focus, trying so hard to concentrate on his voice, but losing. He cupped your face, warm hands holding your cheeks, those light blue-grey eyes looking at you. Just focus on those eyes.

“Do you want me to go with you?”

You nodded, your eyes filling with tears at the realization of what was actually happening. Miche pulled you into a hug and you both sat on your bathroom floor until you stopped crying.

It took a couple days for names to be collected of who survived and was living as a refugee within Wall Rose. Your family wasn’t on the list.

Later that night, you stood in the hallway, outside his door. You weren’t really sure the protocol for this sort of thing. Were you allowed to just go in if it’s just his office? You knocked lightly on the door and waited for an answer. When there was none, you opened the door a crack and peeked through. There was no light in his office at all. It seemed safe enough to move to his bedroom door.

There were a lot of other options for how to deal with how you were feeling, but this one seemed to keep tugging at you. You knocked lightly against the bedroom door. This time you heard some shuffling before his voice called for you to go in. You opened the door a crack, seeing some light coming from the candle on his nightstand.

You opened the door the rest of the way and saw Miche sitting in his underwear on his bed, reading a book. You quickly looked down.

“I’m sorry.” You started closing the door.

“Well, wait. What is it you needed?” He asked. You held the door opened just enough so he could hear you.

“I—uh, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

“You didn’t.” He laughed. “Hang on.”

He moved to his dresser and grabbed a pair of pants, putting them on and going to the door to open it, stepping back to let you in.

“What was it that you needed?” He asked again, closing the door behind you.

“I was hoping to have some of that wine.” You forced a smile. “I… uh… I could really use it.”

He moved to his bed, sitting down and grabbing the wine bottle.

“Take a seat.” He smiled, but the smile slowly faded as he saw your face, concern washing over him as he set the bottle on the bed and started to stand up.

Your face was hot now, so much pressure from holding your feelings in, trying to keep it together. Your sobbing came out before any actual tears did and he quickly moved to you.

“I…I—ca…It—they—not…” You struggled making any sort of coherent sentence. Even if your words made sense, the sobs breaking them up made it entirely incomprehensible. Miche held your shoulders and pulled you into his chest.

“I’m so sorry, Y/N.” He rubbed your back gently as you cried into his chest. You moved your arms to wrap around his back and he shifted so he could pick you up and carried you to the bed to sit in his lap. He continued rocking you and rubbing your back until your sobbing became quiet hiccups and you pulled back to look at him.

“I should have been there to help them.” Your eyes were red and filling with tears again. “I was here just laughing and they were…”

“Don’t think like that.” He held your face. “You didn’t know that was going to happen. None of us did. It’s not your fault.”

“But I—”

“It’s not going to help you to think like that, Y/N.” He smoothed the loose hairs from your face and wiped the tears from your cheeks.

“Miche…” the tears continued running down your face and your bottom lip curled. You looked lost. Miche’s heart was breaking as he watched you.

“Oh my—” He clenched his jaw in an attempt to control himself and pulled you back into his chest, rubbing the back of your head and rocking you back and forth. As soon as you were able to stop crying, he laid you down on the bed and snuggled you into him.

It would happen occasionally in the future when either one of you were feeling bad, but that night was the first time of many times to come that you slept cuddling next to Miche.