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It starts when Jean makes a crack about Armin, something about a pervert fucking Armin up and Armin – flinches, this barely perceptible movement, his face contorting before sliding back into his despairing grin.
Shou’s tongue flicks out, his eyes flicking from Armin to Jean. Jean’s cat daemon, Tilde, is out of sight, beneath the table just like Eren’s wolf daemon Asena, but Mikasa knows Shou is calculating, however idly, how long it would take him to find her, how easy it would be to bite her.
Danger.
Mikasa unconsciously straightens, watching Eren do the same, and the tension radiating off Armin is so thick she wonders how no one else has caught it. Medea scuttles down Armin’s arm, onto his hand and he touches her abdomen with a gentle finger.
“No, no.” Eren steps in, and if he wasn’t always rushing to speak they might have noticed how hurried he was. “Armin’s been the dark, devious sort all along.”
Not true, Mikasa thinks, glancing at Eren for half a second. Armin has never killed anyone. Armin is smart, yes, and cunning, but he is not dark, not yet, and she will go through hell and back to keep him that way.
She plays along immediately, as she was meant too. “I certainly don’t remember raising this kind of kid,” she says dryly, and the conversation moves on. They start talking about the moral greyness of what they’ve done and Mikasa promptly stops listening.
A waste of time, Shou declares in her head, the same way he said to you, everything is prey all those years ago.
Mikasa does the equivalent of a mental shrug and watches Armin carefully, until Levi announces Krista – no, no, Historia – is going to be the next Queen, and then she is too busy to worry.
*
Now, the vomit Armin produced after saving Jean’s life by shooting another woman is congealing in the grass and Connie is smothering their fire. Levi sits on the grass and watches him, his bird daemon on his shoulder. He looks cool and collected despite having been shot only hours earlier, and he even volunteers to take first watch.
“Me too,” Mikasa volunteers before she can stop herself, drawing a questioning look from Armin and, she assumes, Medea.
She waves at him, trying to cram it’s alright and I love you and get some sleep in the single gesture. Armin nods after a minute and turns, following Jean, Connie and Sasha into the stable.
Levi is watching her too, Mikasa realizes. The moon is full tonight, and the light makes him look harsher than usual.
“Ackerman,” he says. “We’ll watch from that tree.” He points at the oak tree near the stables; it is at least a hundred feet tall.
Mikasa puts a hand on Shou, reassuring herself he is still there and warning him, and then draws her blade handles. Levi stands and does the same, striding over towards her. Between one step and the next he fires into a bough that is up high enough to give them a proper vantage point. Mikasa copies him.
She will never get used to it, the feeling of flying, her cloak billowing behind her like wings, Shou wrapped tight around her neck.
Then she has landed on the bough; it is solid beneath her. She disengages, putting away her handles and folds down onto the tree, watching Levi do the same.
He has elected to lean against the trunk. She does not begrudge him, wants to ask about his shoulder, about the cut on his face.
She doesn’t. They are too similar. He will lose his temper and eat her alive, or ignore her for the entirety of their shift.
Levi is watching her, not the ground, and she ignores him, turning her attention onto the wastelands.
Her heartbeat slows. The land around them is still, splashed with moonlight. The bark of their tree is painted silver by it, the surrounding forest cast in shadow.
Shou moves, worming his way under her scarf. She huddles into her cloak, Shou’s scale cold against her skin. The bark is rough beneath her fingertips. As if from far away, the river gurgles. The sounds of the night fall away.
Overhead, the moon moves. Levi shifts his weight, and Mikasa tunes back in, once again aware of more than dark landscape around her.
She sneaks a glance at Levi. He catches her looking, but his body language is loose, his head leaned back against the trunk of the tree, his eyes and the circles beneath them very dark.
“Captain,” she says, voice hoarse from disuse. “What happened to Armin?”
Levi stares at her. The bird on his shoulder, silver in the moonlight, jumps from his shoulder to his knee, fixing one beady eye on her. How similar they look, with the same eyes.
“You waited two hours to ask this?” Levi says finally, wearing his usually blank expression.
Shou, nestled inside of her scarf and cloak, stirs.
Only a bird, he thinks. Not a threat.
Not true, Mikasa tells him silently. She says nothing to Levi, merely matches his blank expression with her own.
He sighs.
“You have to ask him,” he says finally. “Because he won’t volunteer it.”
Mikasa swallows. “How bad is it?” She wants to look away to ask this, has never truly forgiven Levi for kicking Eren so hard teeth flew from his mouth onto the stone floor, but Eren is gone and they have no way of getting him back. Levi is here. Levi is her Captain.
(It hurts, to think about Eren. She clenches her jaw, pushes him from her mind. He will survive. He will.)
“It is unacceptable,” Levi’s voice is like breaking glass. “It is unforgivable.”
“But…it happened on our mission. I don’t understand.”
“There was no way of knowing,” his voice is cool again. “There was no way to prepare. It is – ” his hand clenches, and Mikasa feels her eyes widen. “I owe Arlert an apology,” Levi says finally. “This has been a lot for him – this, and finally getting his hands dirty.”
Mikasa stays silent. She had liked that conversation because it had comforted Armin, had understood its necessity in a theoretical way, but in practice? How do you grieve over people who would have hurt you?
We never had time to do that, Shou whispers. We never had time to even think about it. We only had time to survive.
“It’s a luxury,” Levi speaks like he can read her mind, like he can hear Shou. “Feeling bad about protecting yourself. Being conflicted about it. It’s something you and I don’t have.”
Mikasa looks away.
“I know,” she says, making her voice as cool as his. “It doesn’t bother me. I know what I am.”
The silence between them grows. Mikasa looks up, finds the Big Dipper in the stars above and traces it with her eyes.
“I had a little sister,” Levi confesses quietly, and his voice is…fond. “We lived in the underground together.”
“What happened to her?” Mikasa asks finally, turning to look at Levi. He’s petting his daemon with two gentle fingers.
“She died,” his voice is bland again. “On my first mission with the Survey Corps. Her, and my brother.”
Mikasa tries to imagine losing Eren and Armin and going on without them, tries to imagine becoming the best without them.
She cannot.
“I’m sorry,” she offers, aware of how inadequate the words are.
Levi nods. And then: “She was raped, when we were living underground.”
Shou hisses violently against her chest and Mikasa forgets to breathe, feels the boot on her ribs, the fist against her face and draws in a ragged breath.
“She didn’t tell us,” Levi continues, watching her carefully. He’s no longer leaning his head against the tree, is holding himself upright with a trembling, delicate tension. “She wouldn’t talk about it. But I knew, because they cut her hair.” He waves a hand. “The black market of the underground, anything sells.”
“I know,” Mikasa snarls without meaning too, the words leaping out of her mouth. Shou is suddenly outside of her scarf and half upright, mouth gaping open.
Levi doesn’t flinch, but his eyes grow darker.
“Yes, I suppose you would,” he directs this at Shou, whose mouth and fangs are still on full display, still calm. His voice is frank. “I didn’t mean to remind you.”
“I’m fine,” Mikasa snaps, and after a minute Levi shrugs.
“She told us that they cut her hair to sell it,” he continues, and his voice…drops. “She was so proud of her hair, even though it was short. She loved wearing it in pigtails.”
“What color was it?” Mikasa asks despite herself, trying to imagine this sister and coming up with a female version of Levi.
“Red,” Levi replies. “She was – adopted. None of us were blood related.”
“You killed them, didn’t you?” Mikasa whispers as Shou slowly relaxes, settling back around her neck. “Her rapist, and whoever helped him cut off her hair.”
“Yes,” Levi says, and there’s a dark satisfaction around him. “I did.”
“Eren did too,” Mikasa says without meaning too. “Two of them. I killed the third.”
Something flickers in Levi’s eyes and Mikasa realizes, in a rush, that he’s looking at her with gentleness, gentleness she hasn’t seen for years except from Armin or Eren. It is clumsy and it is foreign to both of them – they are people who kill much more easily than they love. Or perhaps that’s not right, perhaps they kill so easily because they love.
Regardless, she meets and holds his eyes for a single moment and then it is gone, the world thudding back to meet them.
“At the trial, they said you were children,” Levi looks away, down at his bird daemon. He strokes it with two gentle fingers.
“We were nine,” Mikasa answers, and she’s lost in it – the wreck and the ruin of it all, the blood on the floorboards and the beating on the roof. “It was raining,” she adds, unnecessarily, a half formed thought with the intention to explain why she hates the rain, why she regrets it, hides under her cloak and scowls.
Levi pauses in petting his daemon, and Mikasa sees his jaw clench. At what? She wonders, because there is so much to feel horror at. Armin is nestled inside her chest and Eren is a knotted, thorny vein that wraps around both of them. But perhaps it is only her that his thorns drive into, and they are driven in so deep that she cannot tell where she ends and he begins; she knows it is not right. She knows Eren is dangerous, is not normal. She knows no normal nine year olds would be capable of murdering three men.
But: but, she does not, cannot care, loves Eren so fiercely, loves him more than she could ever love herself. And Armin, who was not there – oh! She is so glad he was not there, holds him up to the light to determine where to move next, wants to keep him safe forever.
She could not today, and that is both a reality and a personal failure. But oh, she loves him. How could she not, when she met him and saw how much he loved Eren? He became something necessary then, like a lung. Something like Eren – to be protected.
But perhaps, if Eren and she are the savage ones, Armin is the one that brings them back to humanity. She has to find what is eating him from the inside and cut it out with soft words and a sharp sword.
Shou twitches around her neck, twines so close he feels like a noose.
Three children watch everything around them die, he hisses in her head. One becomes a snake in the grass, a knife in the gut. One becomes the alpha wolf, the righteous, the hopeful and the brave. And one becomes a spider, a builder.
He pauses, tongue flicking out against her neck. Who did the right thing? Who will survive?
And Mikasa thinks back at him, a familiar refrain: all of them, all of them, all of us.
Levi looks back up at her, eyes once again unreadable. He is pulling himself back together even as the skin on each side of his wound knit toward each other.
Healing? Or survival?
She doesn’t know, only knows that it’s only because he’s exhausted and overwhelmed and hurt that Levi told her anything about his past, that he expressed any emotion. They like each other least.
“You are the best person to talk to Arlert,” he says in his normal, flat tone. “Go and do so.”
“The watch shift isn’t over, sir,” Mikasa replies, placing a hand on Shou and stroking his scales with her thumb.
Levi looks at her and Mikasa’s heart thinks about stuttering in fear. She does not let it.
"Send Kirschstein in your place,” he orders, voice shading rapidly towards nasty. “I want to talk to him.”
Mikasa smiles.
Three months ago, Jean would have gotten up only because he knew he was being graded for the top 10, and he would have bitched about it the entire time. Now, he gets up promptly, muttering almost inaudibly to himself. His daemon, Tilde, takes her time stretching. Mikasa crosses her arms and taps her foot, very deliberately, and Jean sighs and opens his arms; Tilde jumps into them. He nods at Mikasa and sets off towards the stable entrance, buckling Tilde into the special carrier of his harness at the same time.
Mikasa relaxes and turns around. She doesn’t try to look for Armin, just lets her eyes adjust to the darkness while Shou pokes his head out of her scarf and quests with it, tongue flicking out.
There, he directs her and she obeys, heading towards the very last stall on the left side. Sure enough, Armin is asleep in his bedroll in it, though he wakes up when she unlatches the door.
“Mikasa?” He murmurs, voice scratchy. It’s deeper than usual from sleep and it sends a thrill down her spine; the idea of him, of any of them growing up is bizarre to her. Bizarre, in the sense it’s a miracle. Bizarre, in the sense that so far, she’s done it; she’s kept them alive.
Eren, she thinks for the thousandth time since he’s been abducted. Eren, I will find you. Eren, you have to survive.
“Ssh,” she tells Armin, quickly setting up her bedroll so it’s right next to his, and spreading her cloak over both bedrolls. Armin has taken off his 3D Maneuvering Gear; Mikasa just unbuckles the sheaths, gas, and wire components but leaves on the straps. She crawls into her bedroom, lying on her left side to look at Armin. He’s on his right side, looking at her, his eyes shining in the darkness.
Mikasa can see Medea, sitting in the middle of a web in the space between a wall post and the ceiling. Shou slithers down her body, across the bedroll and onto Armin, laying in the crook of his body, half spread across his shoulder and chest.
“Is watch over already?” Armin asks, petting Shou absently. It’s lucky for her that he’s half asleep; normally, Shou touching him would make Armin tense up. It only ever happens when things are bad.
“No,” Mikasa whispers. “Captain Levi sent me in early.”
“Why?” Armin asks, eyes bright in the dark, and Mikasa sighs to herself.
“Do you know what happened, when Eren rescued me from the traffickers?” She asks instead of answering.
She has never spoken about this with Armin. It is something that is hers and Eren’s, Asena’s and Shou’s – the moment where so much was decided. The moment everything settled. The moment Eren became her beating heart, and she became more soldier than person.
For a moment, the only sound is Armin’s shocked inhale and the steady, regular breathing of Connie and Sasha. Armin shakes his head.
“It wasn’t like it was with Historia,” Mikasa says. Her hand is clenched around Eren’s scarf and although Armin right there she is far away, the world narrowing until she is somewhere not in the present, but not in the past. For a moment, she is holding the blade of her sword against the throat of the ringleader of the men who kidnapped Historia, and Historia – Christa, then – had told her not to kill him, and she had obeyed.
There had been something deep and hungry within her, something that wanted him dead, something that let her ignore Eren’s cry of Mikasa! Because it wasn’t his call, wasn’t his burden, wasn’t his decision. He had never been kidnapped like that, had never been stolen so he could be violated.
Annie had been holding a blade against the other man’s throat – oh, Annie – and she had waited, trusting Mikasa on this.
But Mikasa could not be trusted, and she knew that, and she did not care.
To you, everything is prey, Shou had said, so many years ago. But then, he had said: do it, kill him, save them.
But Christa – Historia, now – had, and had still said no, don’t kill him, chin stubborn and blue eyes hot. And they had obeyed; Mikasa had stepped back. Because it was Christa’s decision, and they had been warriors then, not children. Things had been different. No one had to suffer.
Christa had still cried, for days after, deep wracking sobs muffled by her blanket and pillow, and they hadn’t known what to do.
Until Mikasa did then, what she was doing now.
“It wasn’t like it was with Historia,” she says again. “With Historia, they took her because she would sell, but they wanted your gear, right?”
“Mhm,” Armin nods.
“With me…it’s because I’m an oriental.” The words hurt, scraping her throat. Mikasa instinctively rubs the ribbon on her wrist. Armin’s eyes follow the movement. He doesn’t ask. She is grateful. “They killed my father. They wanted to take my mother alive – she was more valuable, because she was pure oriental instead of half, like me – but she fought too hard, was too much trouble.” Mikasa pauses. Shou slithers away from Armin, wrapping himself around her neck, pressing his head against her cheek. “She was trying to buy me time so I could escape, but I was in too much shock. I didn’t move. And they killed her.”
“Mikasa –” Armin begins.
“Don’t,” she snarls, and he quiets, but reaches over and takes her hand, their callouses aligning, his pulse beating against hers. That grounds her; the walls around her fall away and she’s back, there in the bedroll with Armin by her side.
“For a long time, I blamed myself,” Mikasa says when she can talk again. And the idea of talking about it in past tense is – hilarious, really, because the only reason it’s behind her is because she hasn’t really had time to think about it. She hopes she never does. “For being an oriental, for not running when I could have. I thought it was my fault, somehow. Like something about me was to blame for three men killing my family and wanting to sell me for money.”
“It wasn’t, though!” Armin interjects hotly, and then pauses. “Oh.”
Mikasa watches him carefully. Armin is the nice medium between her and Eren; neither stoic nor hyper expressive. She is deadly, and Eren is righteous, and Armin is cunning; cunning enough to keep a bland exterior over the gears running in his head. But right now she can see what he’s thinking – she’s not sure if he’s letting her, or he’s too shocked to hide it, or if he just doesn’t hide it around her and Eren anymore. Maybe she’ll never know.
Armin is eyeing her with a mixture of mistrust and irritation, and Mikasa keeps her expression neutral and stares back.
“That was sneaky,” Armin says carefully. Out of the corner of her eye, Mikasa can see Medea descending on a length of silk, dangling a few inches above the top of the wall that separates the stalls.
Shou laughs in her ear.
“I learned from the best,” Mikasa says. Armin makes a small noise, some mixture of acknowledgment and pleasure and distress. “Armin, were you going to tell me?”
“No. I don’t know.” He’s not looking at her now, is staring up at the roof. “How did you find out?”
She doesn’t need to see his face to know he’s analyzing every single memory, every single option, trying to figure out where she fits in. If she keeps silent long enough, he’ll figure it out.
“That joke that Jean told,” Mikasa admits.
Armin lets go of her hand, reaching up with it to catch Medea as she descends from the stall wall. Mikasa can just barely see her, a smudge with long legs that scuttles up Armin’s arm rapidly. Shou moves then, too, slithering into the slight hollow between Armin and Mikasa, the valley between their bodies.
Medea emerges from Armin’s bedroll and scuttles onto the top of Shou’s head, where she perches. It’s something she’s done hundreds of times before. It still makes Mikasa worry, to see something so small and vulnerable so close to Shou’s mouth.
“I thought no one had noticed,” Armin’s voice is small. And then: “Ah. Is that why you made Jean take your watch?”
He’s changing the subject, Shou points out silently. Mikasa glances at him; he’s looking at her, eyes shining in the darkness.
I know, she replies.
“No,” she says aloud to Armin. “Captain Levi wanted to talk to him.”
“Is that why you volunteered to take watch with him? To talk to him?”
“Yes.” Mikasa says, and sees Armin flinch. “He didn’t tell me what happened, Armin. He told me I should talk to you.”
“Oh,” Armin says, very softly. “He knows, though.”
“Yes,” Mikasa agrees. She glances at Shou and Medea; they’re clearly having their own conversation, but keeping it amongst themselves. Mikasa knows better than to ask Shou about it. If he wanted her to know, he’d clue her in immediately.
“Mikasa?” Armin asks, and Mikasa looks back at him. He’s still not looking at her. “Do you want to know?”
Mikasa forces herself to relax, to be gentle. She pretends she’s hanging in the harness for the first time, balancing just above ground. “Only if you want to tell me,” she replies after a minute, and it’s the right answer because Armin relaxes.
“Not yet,” he replies, the words gusting out of him. Then: “I miss Eren.”
“I know,” Mikasa answers, falling into line smoothly. “Me too.”
He reaches for her then, and she pulls him against her chest, one arm under his head, the other flung over his side.
Shou and Medea move to avoid being crushed, Shou draping himself over their bodies, Medea still balanced on his snout.
Armin is short enough to press his face against her neck and the toes of his boots against her calves.
“I feel better,” he whispers into her scarf. “Thanks, Mikasa.”
She doesn’t know what to say to that, so she rubs his back and listens to his breathing slowly even out. Medea falls asleep too, dropping a little. Shou raises his head off of Armin’s head and looks at her.
She’s missing Eren, wants him to be on the other side of Armin, nestled up close with his hands brushing Mikasa’s body. She wants Asena to be curled up behind her, the wolf’s breathing lulling her to sleep.
Armin is precious, Shou says to her, tongue darting out. She blinks, refocusing.
Yes, she agrees. And, unable to really make sense of her thoughts: Do you think he knows? How much we care? How much I’ve tried to –
Yes. Shou says simply. He knows. Medea knows. His tongue flicks out again, tasting the air. Go to sleep, little one.
She obeys.
Levi wakes them up the next morning by shaking Mikasa’s arm. He even leans back when she goes to punch him by instinct. He doesn’t remark on it; he never does. Mikasa wonders if he does the same thing when Erwin tries to wake him up.
(It’s sort of a running bet, if he and Erwin are together. No one actually knows. But she’s pretty sure they are; he looks at Erwin the way she looks at Eren and Armin.)
He disappears soundlessly and she wakes up Armin in turn; they arm up and pack up in silence before tending to their horses.
Sasha and Connie are making breakfast outside, both bleary eyed and arguing quietly. Jean is standing off to the side, shoulders hunched against the morning cold. Levi is sitting down and looking at the map spread in front of them.
Seeing the map, Armin begins to walk towards Levi, only to be intercepted by Jean.
“Can I talk to you?” Jean asks, looking uncomfortable. Tilde is twining around his ankles, her tricolored fur puffed up.
Armin hesitates, and then nods, reaching up to make sure Medea is still on his shoulder.
They wander off, still in sight but out of hearing range and Mikasa goes to stand by Levi, who is watching them carefully.
Sasha looks up after a minute, peering at Jean and Armin. Jean is gesturing, head bowed, and Armin is looking up at him and nodding. Sasha whistles; her wolverine daemon, Jarek, sneezes.
“What’s he doing?” she asks, careful to keep her voice quiet. “Jean, I mean. He’s never like that unless it’s around you, ‘kasa.”
Mikasa twitches. She hates that nickname.
“He’s probably apologizing,” Connie points out, poking the sausage links with a stick. Skylla, his little dog daemon, is watching attentively. “For that dumb joke he made, don’t you remember?”
Mikasa stares at him, as does Shou. Connie, feeling her eyes on him, looks up at her and shrugs.
“What? It bothered him; he just tried to hide it. I’m just glad Jean is apologizing.”
“I had no idea!” Sasha declares, eying the cooking sausage links with intent. “I knew Armin was upset –”
“Yeah, well, what happened was fucked up.” Connie replies, and then glances at Levi guilty.
Levi ignores him.
“I’m just saying – if Jean wants to be a leader, like Marco was always talking about, he needs to get his head out of his ass.”
Levi snorts.
“Okay shut up, they’re coming back!” Sasha hisses. It’s true; Jean and Armin are walking back to the group, both relaxed. Jean is smiling furtively and Armin is laughing, apparently unaware that Tilde is walking so close to him.
“Hi!” Sasha calls, just as Connie removes the pan of sausages from over the fire. “Want some breakfast?”
Armin and Jean, still smiling, accept; Armin catches Mikasa’s eye and smiles, and then nods at Captain Levi. Mikasa looks around just in time to see Levi nod very slightly at Armin before returning to his map.
The others head over to the copse of trees to eat, wanting something to lean against and Mikasa moves to stand by Levi and bends down over the map.
“Nicely done,” he tells her, one slender finger tapping the city of Trost on the map idly.
“You too,” Mikasa replies without thinking. Levi looks up sharply, staring at her, and she adds, with Shou laughing in her head, “Sir.”
The corner of Levi’s mouth twitches. His bird daemon shuffles its wings, cocking it’s head to peer at Mikasa.
Levi makes his tch sound and returns back to studying the map, and Mikasa allows herself to smile.