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A groan arose from the apartment the instant she walked through the door.
"Historiaaaaaaa."
The corners of her lips twitched up at the sound. She couldn't help it; after being called "Krista" all day, it was nice to hear someone call her by her name. Especially that someone - even if her deep, melodious voice was pitched up in a probably-overdramatic whine.
She didn't bother locking the door; there was no need with Ymir around.
Abandoning her supplies on the kitchen table, she strode into the living room with a gentle jibe on her lips. It was rare for Ymir not to walk her back from her evening art class. She could look after herself well enough to handle the walk from campus to her apartment, but she would be remiss to skip out on an opportunity to tease her girlfriend. Especially since it was usually Ymir doing the teasing; her opportunities to turn the tables were made that much more precious by their rarity.
"Yes, you'll see that I have successfully-"
Her words died off as she stepped into the living room and took in the sight before her. Ymir was sprawled across the couch, shirtless and with her hair falling loosely over her shoulders. Historia would have deeply appreciated the sight were it not for the gaping wound in her shoulder.
Only inches away from her heart.
"Ymir!" Historia cried. One hand flew up to cover her mouth, although it did nothing to stop the pickling in her eyes. Horror, sadness, stress - and maybe, if she was honest with herself, anger.
"Historia," Ymir repeated, lifting her head to shoot her a look that was somewhere between a pout and a scowl. "You wouldn't believe what happened to that shirt you gave me."
“Nevermind the shirt!” Historia exclaimed. “What happened!?” She rushed forward as she spoke. Now that she was closer, she could see that Ymir had draped a towel down across the couch. It was spotted with a few bloodstains, but most of them seemed well on their way to drying. Unsurprising; vampires generally didn't bleed much.
So the fact that she had been bleeding that much at all...
Ymir started to shrug, then winced when she jostled her wound. "Turns out slayer one isn't totally incompetent," she said.
Historia's heart skipped a beat as the chill of dread began to wash over her. "The slayer," she said, mouth feeling dry and ashy. Then, "you were provoking the slayer."
"I wouldn't say provoking," Ymir said. A tiny shift in her eyes made her suspect that this was a blatant lie. That and the simple fact that she knew Ymir. "More like testing the waters," she continued. "Big boss vampire like me lurking around, she was about to find out about me eventually. I'd rather it be on my terms than hers."
Historia allowed her expression to fall into something icy and serious. This whole situation was hardly a surprise. She knew that Ymir had been wanting to try her hand against a slayer for a while, and if there really were two of them now, then she wouldn't be able to resist tempting fate for long. That didn't make the situation any less painful and disappointing.
It didn't make it any less dangerous.
"Did you tell her that you don't kill people?" she asked.
Ymir snorted. "I don't think there are many slayers who'd believe that."
"She might," Historia insisted. "You could explain that-"
"-that I don't kill people because my girlfriend would be disappointed in me?" A harsh bark of laughter left Ymir's mouth. "I think that might actually make it worse."
"Ymir, she almost killed you," Historia snapped. "We have to do something to keep her from hunting you down."
For a moment, it looked like Ymir would respond with confidence and bluster; a reassurance about how she could take on a slayer if it came down to it, how she'd been anticipating a fight like this since she was turned. Or maybe she would take a different angle, place emphasis on how she'd be able to handle it quickly and easily. How, aside from this one incident, Historia wouldn't even know it was happening. How it would never place her in danger.
For a moment, it looked like Ymir would rattle off an inflated excuse or empty words. Instead, she took a long look at Historia's face and faltered.
"I'll figure something out," Ymir finally relented. "But I don't want to play my hand too early. Something's going on, and I'm not going to let it catch us off guard."
Historia frowned. There was a lot that she wanted to say. However, before she could give voice to any of it, her gaze was drawn back to Ymir's wound. Not that her attention had ever actually left it. That was rather impossible, given its sheer size, the ragged nature of it, and what it represented.
"I'll be right back," Historia murmured.
As she walked away, Ymir called, "gonna patch me up?"
Despite everything, Historia smiled. "As if you weren't waiting for me," she called back.
"I mean." Ymir's voice grew fainter as she entered the bathroom. However, it was still loud enough to resonate through the little apartment. She could even picture the expressions she was sure she was making. "Who wouldn't, if they had a cute girlfriend to play nurse for them?"
Where her girlfriend's voice seemed to resonate effortlessly, Historia had to strain a little for her reply of, "lazy!"
When she looked into the bathroom mirror, her smile had grown from the small exchange. She felt it fade when she pulled the little door the mirror was on forward to reveal the shelves tucked behind it - and the first aid kit resting on one of them.
Vampires. Slayers. For all of their differences, they were very much the same in one regard. Even the very strongest of them could be just down if they had just one bad day.
And there never seemed to be anything Historia could do to stop it.
She grabbed the first aide kit and closed the cabinet door. With the mirror back in place, her own expression stared back at her. Her smile had been replaced by a look that was tired and haunted.
After a moment of staring, she forced a smile back into place. Bright, cheerful, warm, perfect, it was the exact sort of smile that people would expect from Krista Lenz. Which meant that Ymir would see through it in a second.
That was fine. Right now, Historia needed to know that she at least tried not to let her girlfriend see that it was getting to her more than she needed her to actually believe it.
Unsurprisingly, Ymir's expression, bright and playful in spite of her wound, faded into something concerned and suspicious the moment she saw her face. Historia felt a whisper of guilt for a moment, then immediately pushed it back down.
"What do you think's going on?" she asked as she approached the couch.
Ymir sat up, sweeping her legs to the side so that Historia could sit down, and angled her torso so that she could easily access the stab wound. Historia sat down, smile widening ever so slightly, and placed the first aid kit in her lap.
As Historia rifled through the kit, Ymir said, "it's the second slayer. Leonhart."
Historia paused. "Both of them were there?" she asked, struggling to keep the tenseness out of her voice.
"Nah," Ymir said. "I've just been watching both of them. The guys Leonhart lives with... I've met them before. I don't know if they'd remember me, but we've met before." She paused, pursing her lips and narrowing her eyes; a sort of suspicion that edged in on condemnation. "They're vampires, Historia."
A jolt of shock ran through Historia. Nonetheless, she forced herself to open and disinfectant wipe and start cleaning Ymir's wound. There would be no need to worry about the wound getting infected; one of the benefits of being a vampire. However, she'd noticed that she had failed to clean the dried blood off the wound, and it wouldn't do to bandage her but leave that mess underneath. She cleaned in delicate swipes, careful not to inflict any further pain, although she knew that Ymir almost certainly wouldn't show it if she caused any. That required a certain degree of focus, and that focus made her take a moment to respond.
"You mean Annie Leonhart, right?" Historia eventually asked. "And the guys she lives with are Reiner Braun and Bertolt Hoover?" She shook her head, although it was more an expression of general surprise than genuine disbelief. The past five years had taught her better than to dismiss anything as outright impossible. Even so, she pointed out, "I've seen Reiner in the sunlight before."
"Yeah," Ymir said. "That one threw me for a loop as well. He's definitely a vampire though. I didn't think it was real, but... I think he got his hands on the Gem of Amara."
"The Gem of Amara?" Historia asked.
"Magical, legendary gem that grants a vampire invulnerability," Ymir explained, her tone caught somewhere between envy and distaste. "It lets a vampire walk in the sunlight, take a stake to the heart, prevents decapitation - as long as they're wearing it, they're unkillable."
"Oh," Historia murmured. "That... sounds like it could be problematic." Disastrous.
"Oh? I thought you were against hastily judging people?" Ymir teased.
"You're the one saying you're suspicious," Historia shot back.
The blood was more or less washed away now. It wasn't perfect, but it was as close as she could get without being more forceful. She leaned over to set the bloody wipes on the side table before opening packets of gauze and padding.
Meanwhile, Ymir's expression fell away into something more somber. "For good reason. Those guys are bad news. The people they work for..." She glanced up at the ceiling as she trailed off. Historia suspected that it was to keep her from getting a good look at her eyes. From what little she could see, they had a distant, almost lost quality to them, the sort that Ymir hated letting people see. Even her. She frowned, but focused on getting the wound dressing together instead of calling her out.
It was when she was about to press the dressing to her wound, fingers hovering centimeters away from her skin, that Ymir started talking again. "I don't know much about them, but last time I got involved with them, I died."
Historia sat there, frozen. She barely dared to breathe. But she had to. She had to breathe in order to ask, "they're the ones who...?"
"No," Ymir said. "A friend of theirs, and I took him down with me. They aren't even the reason it happened. But if they're here, it's bad news."
For a moment, all Historia could do was stare. Ymir was extremely guarded about her history. She'd never told Historia exactly how she was turned, only that it was violent. She'd certainly never told her that some sort of organization was involved, or that she'd apparently managed to take out the vampire who turned her in her final, dying moments as a human. It made her yearn to ask for more information. However, the very fact that it had taken almost three years for her to tell her this much told her that she wouldn't be getting any more. Not until Ymir was ready.
"You know the disappearances around your campus?" Ymir asked, breaking her out of her stupor.
"Of course," Historia said. As she spoke, she went ahead and pressed the dressing to Ymir's wound. She carefully ran her hands over the bandages to make sure that the adhesive edges would hold up. Once she was sure they would, her hands went still, but she didn't pull them away.
"I think they're the ones responsible for it."
"What?" Historia asked, horror leaking into her voice. "Shouldn't we do something then?" She let her hands drop to her lap, but Ymir caught one of them at the last minute and gave it a gentle squeeze.
"Fuck no," Ymir said, her harsh voice a stark contrast to her gentle touch. "Ackerman's a slayer; let her figure it out. We don't need to put our asses on the line."
Historia frowned. "But you picking fights with the slayers won't."
"It's what they'd expect, and it'll let me keep an eye on the situation. Besides..." Ymir grinned. "I've only picked a fight with one slayer, and it wasn't a deathmatch or anything."
Historia's gaze drifted toward Ymir's wound. A wound obtained in something that was apparently not a deathmatch. "And do you plan on having one?" she asked.
Ymir's eyes softened. "Maybe once," she admitted. "But I wouldn't do that to you."
A painful smile tugged at Historia's lips. How broken and lonely was she if Ymir could so easily tell that she wouldn't be able to handle losing her? Still, she supposed she should be grateful. She knew how eager Ymir had been to fight a slayer, once upon a time. If her happiness was the incentive she needed to give up on that suicidal dream, then she would accept that.
With that, a thought drifted to the forefront of Historia's mind. Not one that she felt any sort of genuine hope for, if she was honest with herself, but one that felt worth voicing nonetheless. "Maybe Annie isn't with Bertolt and Reiner's group. Maybe they really are friends."
Ymir scoffed. "A slayer and a pair of vampires? Not likely."
Historia frowned. "Frieda thought humans and demons could co-exist," she murmured.
"And how long did Frieda last? A year and a half? Two?" Ymir's voice, while blunt, was not unkind. That didn't stop Historia from feeling a twist of grief in her chest.
"Nice slayers don't last long," Ymir continued. "And trust me, Ackerman and Leonhart aren't nice. They aren't going to be reaching out to any vampires any time soon." She leaned against the arm of the couch with a slight huff. "Besides, you need to remember that vampires aren't the sweetest creatures either. Even if they are friends on some level, there will have been an outside force that brought them together."
Historia stared at her girlfriend. She wanted to frown - the combination of the pain still rolling in her chest and what she had just said made her feel like she should be frowning. Even so, the slightest of smiles tugged at her lips. "You say that," she said, "and yet..."
"I'm not sweet," Ymir huffed. "And you aren't a slayer."
"Maybe," Historia acknowledged. "But-"
"But nothing," Ymir said. "I love you; the rest of the world could burn for all I care. Let the terrible trio ravage everyone else on campus if they want. I'm keeping an eye on this situation because I don't want us caught in a battleground between two slayers if it goes sour."
Historia stared at Ymir for a long moment. Aside from the bit about loving her, she couldn't tell how much of what she said was true and how much was a lie.
She supposed it didn't matter in the end. Historia was part of the world. Letting it burn would be counterintuitive to Ymir's priorities.
"Alright," Historia said, a small smile playing at her lips. "But for now nothing's burning, so... get to bed."
Ymir smirked. "Oh?"
"For rest," Historia deadpanned. "You aren't in the condition for anything else."
"You're no fun," Ymir sighed. "Join me anyway?"
Historia's smile widened and softened. "Of course."