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It was nice to get some peace to himself, leaning back against the cool brick wall inside the tunnels below the training corps. The basement area was usually quiet at this time, all other cadets should have been showering and preparing for bed after their dinner. Bertholdt closed his eyes for a moment, deeply inhaling. He wished he could savor this moment. Just forever be a soldier on guard duty. That’s all he was at this time. Nothing else. Just a soldier who would later talk to his friends and go about his evening. No other burden. No other duty…
A whoosh went by his ear and his reflexes activated. Before having opened his eyes properly, Bertholdt was gripping the arm of a masked bandit with a potato sack over their head.
“H-h-HEY!” he stammered, pulling them against the wall in an attempt to corner them. The bandit went for a crotch shot but Bertholdt was fast enough to move, getting hit in his thigh instead. The bandit growled.
“Whoa!” Bertholdt gasped in alarm. That was close. Who would be THAT bold? Beads of sweat had already formed on his forehead as he and the bandit grappled at each other in the narrow passageway.
“I don’t want to hurt you!” he grumbled, trying to get a firm grip on the bandits arms, but they were wiggling like a worm sprinkled by salt. Bertholdt managed to pin their hands to the wall, but with that leverage, the bandit used it to kick upwards again, making Bertholdt just barely dodge another crotch shot. All while making what sounded like feral raccoon noises. Bertholdt's patience ran dry. He could either let whoever was trying to destroy his manhood go, or follow through and finish off the bandit here.
He thought back to his original mission. The cadet didn’t want to get into trouble and jeopardize his class ranking. He hated it when something ripped him out of this fantasy. This bandit was going to pay for breaking his peaceful dream.
Swiftly, Bertholdt pressed his much larger body against the shorter person. Using his legs to press against the bandit’s smaller ones, he managed to overpower them. Although the squirmy little sneak wriggled against him, he wasn’t going to let them win.
“Stay. Still!” he grumbled, before roughly pulling them off of the wall to turn them around and press them back up against it. Now he was in control. Bertholdt kept the distance between them closed while he once again gripped both of the bandit’s hands, using his legs to stop theirs from moving. After struggling for a few seconds, Bertholdt managed to have them immovable. Gripping the bandits hands behind their back. Finally, To unmask this idiot. Tugging up at the sack still covering the person's head, Bertholdt revealed who had been attempting to assassinate his manhood.
He was met with fiery intense brown eyes and a look of angry indignation.
It was Sasha Blouse.
“YOU!” They both yelled at the same time. Bertholdt went bright red as it dawned on him he had just been manhandling a girl. Sasha bright red over losing a fight when food was on the line. “Sasha?!“ Bertholdt startled, let go of her, and stumbled back. Sasha turned back around and started towards him. “I-I’m I! Why are –you– I’m so sorry!” Falling back into his old habits.
It didn’t save him from the inevitable hand that reached out to grip his collar, yanking him down to her level. “Open. The. Door,” she hissed, a determined pout sat on her face.
Bertholdt was frozen in fear and could only quiver broken noises as he loomed over her, threatening to collapse from embarrassment. Sasha stared into his eyes for a moment, before wandering down to his waist. She was searching for something.
“Sasha?! Why are you here?” Bertholdt stammered out, his brain slowly recovering from the situation at hand.
“Why do you think I’m here? Bertholdt?” she said, squinting at him and pulling him down to her eye level again.
“Uhhhh…” His voice went faint. He couldn’t even swallow properly in his position.
“Did they post you here on purpose? Because they thought I couldn’t get past you? Hmf! No one gets between me and my ham.” She grinned.
Bertholdt blinked blankly back at her. Sasha sighed, releasing her grip from his collar. Bertholdt sprang back up to his looming height once again.
“They put you on guard duty but forgot one detail, you’re much too nice Bertholdt,” she laughed “which works for me!” She pulled out a little mental fork, bent out of shape.
“Sasha…” Bertholdt felt his face still hot from the previous closeness. “… I can’t let you in there. I’m sorry.” Sasha paid no mind as she started at the wooden door lock.
“… Seriously Sasha… I-I can’t.”
She continued to ignore him.
Bertholdt chewed the inside of his cheek. He had to do something. He had to stop her. Why couldn’t he? He felt weak.
“If you don’t tell anyone I’ll share some,” Sasha reasoned.
“They will know I let you in because I’m the one on duty…”
Sasha pouted at that response. “But once it’s in your tummy, it’s not like they can do anything!”
Bertholdt sighed and walked up behind her, looming over her kneeling figure as she worked at the lock. His face caught between being tired and intrigued.
Sasha was always so driven. Nothing could get in her way, except Shadis, and even then she took risks. It was like watching one of those confetti canons go off back home, but in human form. Unstoppable and full of fun, even with the added risk.
“It could affect our grades,” he attempted to reason.
Sasha ignored him.
“Shadis might make you run for hours again.”
“I’ll take that risk! I’ve not had meat in so long…” Her pout deepened.
Bertholdt sighed. “Sasha…”
Sasha looked up at the tall boy looming over her. “You’re blocking the light.”
Bertholdt facepalmed, but moved out of the way. Sasha started giggling. He furrowed his brows. What’s so funny?”
“You’re so obedient. That’s all.”
“That’s not a bad thing.”
“I didn’t say it was.” Sasha grinned, the lock making a click. The door creaked up. “Success!” she cheered.
Before she had a chance to push open the door, though, Bertholdt's hand came over the hand and pulled it closed again.
“Eh?!” Sasha startled, looking up at a now frowning Bertholdt. She could see he was doing his absolutely best to look intimidating.
“I– I– I said no!” Bertholdt pushed as firmly as he could.
A staring contest started.
Sasha’s fiery brown eyes vs Bertholdt's deep green eyes of calamity. For a moment, Sasha could see a sort of determination she hadn’t seen in the tall boy before. Fortunately for Sasha, she was never intimidated by looming figures, whether that be due to her bravery or her stupidity. Bertholdt's grip on the door handle stayed firm as Sasha placed her hand over his.
“Open the door, Bertholdt,” Sasha calmly ordered, still staring off with him. He gulped, keeping firm.
It was time for Sasha to use her next tactic. Making the biggest puppy eyes ever, she kept looking into his eyes. “Pleaseeee? If you hurry up and let me grab something, I’ll be gone and you can go back to daydreaming,” she reasoned.
Sasha had been starting to win until she mentioned his daydreaming. She had indeed rudely interrupted his daydreaming, Bertholdt thought.
“Well…” he started, her big brown eyes still on his. “… it’s for that exact reason I can’t let you in.”
“EH–“ Sasha’s confused yelp was snuffed out by Bertholdt's free hand, engulfing her face.
“Shhh!” he hissed, face going bright red once more. Footsteps came towards them. “Cadet Hoover?!” A voice called.
Crap. With a grumble Bertholdt quickly opened the door and roughly pushed Sasha inside, closing it again. Just in time, as an adult officer arrived.
“Yessir!” Bertholdt saluted.
“I heard a noise, have there been any sightings of rats?” The officer asked with a raised brow.
Bertholdt shook his head, maybe a little too enthusiastically. Beads of sweat rolled down his face. The officer regarded him, unimpressed.
“You should get some fresh air after your shift, it gets stuffy down here.” the officer commented, brushing off bertholdt's nervous demeanor as normal. “At ease.” He waved off, continuing his stroll down the tunnel. Bertholdt stood still, until he saw the officer was out of range, before turning on his heels and bolting to the unlocked door.
“Sasha!” He hissed, opening up the dark room, he shined a lantern in to try find the little sneak.
And there she was, already having pried a barrel open. Sasha had found the cheese.
“Sasha no!” Bertholdt hissed again, entering the room with his lantern gripped in one hand, the other trying to gain the courage to reach out and grab her.
Sasha turned with a block of cheese in her hand. “This stuff is great melted on bread!” She grinned with no regard for the situation.
“Sasha…” Bertholdt tried again to be mildly intimidating.
Sasha turned up at the looming boy. “Open wide!”
“Huh?” Bertholdt asked, before having cheese pushed between his lips. His eyes widened.
“Don’t drop it! That would be a waste.” Sasha nodded, as she went back to checking other barrel labels. Red-faced and tired, he took cheese into his mouth and gently chewed it. It wasn’t fancy cheese, but the taste took him back home. Home. Where his father melted cheese onto bread over a stove for supper as a treat. When the warrior candidates were given ham sandwiches at lunch. Wh–
“Bertholdt, help me with this one?” Sasha asked, waving her hand in front of his face. “Hello? I know cheese is good but we have limited time here!”
Bertholdt blinked down at her. Oh,” was all he mustered before she pulled him along to the next barrel. The one she came here for. “Meat!” She exclaimed, her hands gesturing excitedly.
The barrel of meat was underneath another barrel, probably put there as a deterrent. “I need you to help me lift it!” she explained.
Bertholdt regarded the barrel, and then her. And then the barrel once more.
“Well?” she asked, folding her arms. “Fine, I'll do it myself! Just stay watch,” she grumbled.
The debating in Bertholdt's head on what to do was getting tiring. He didn’t want to jeopardize anything…
But.
Bertholdt sighed, placing down the lantern on a barrel next to him. “You’ll break your back if you lift it by yourself. I’ll do it.” Finally giving into her scheme.
“Really? That cheese really won you over Huh!” Sasha beamed.
“Yea…” He nodded weakly.
“Alright! Let’s do this,” Sasha said, in good spirits now she had got him on her side.
Together they lifted the top barrel, which felt as if someone had filled it with rocks. It was a good thing Bertholdt was there or else Sasha would have been caught trying to move it by herself for sure.
Then, finally, the barrel of meat was freed into the hands of Sasha, who hurriedly searched around for her desired ham. Bertholdt stood over her with a lantern.
A question came into his mind. “Sasha… What do you plan to do with this stuff?”
“Make a ham and cheese toastie, of course!” Sasha explained, pulling out some curved ham in its netted bag.
“Oh.” A distant memory of his childhood floated by.
“Never heard of them?”
“Oh– I have.”
“Then you know what we need to find next, correct?“
“Bread…?”
“Correct!”
He looked around the room.
“Oh not here,” Sasha shook her head, “we need to go to the kitchen for the fresh bread.”
“The kitchen?!” Now that was upstairs and there was no way they’d be able to make off with fresh bread without being caught.
“I don’t intend to waste meat and cheese on stale bread,” Sasha said unimpressed.
Sasha had a point, but it was going to get her in hot water. "It’s already risky that we’re doing this, we should quit while we’re ahead,” Bertholdt reasoned.
“We?” Sasha looked up with a sly look.
Bertholdt went red. “Wait–“
“Too late!” She laughed. “You’re now my accomplice.” She waved a finger up at him. “You were one since the moment you backed down on fighting a girl!” She nodded as she spoke.
“You tried to kick me in between the legs!” he retorted.
“It was a good way to test your reflexes!” she fired back before pressing the netted bag with meat and cheese into his chest. “Keep this safe for me,” Sasha ordered. “And meet me after your shifts over at the edge of the little forest by the barracks.”
“Wait hang on–“
“No one will suspect you! You’re good at looking innocent.” Sasha gave him the thumbs up before rushing out the room, leaving him to rearrange the barrels.
Bertholdt sighed.
But why was he smiling?
In a way, this whole situation felt like a daydream within itself.
No one will suspect you, you’re good at looking innocent.
Bertholdt felt a guilty pull to follow through with her requests.
-
Bertholdt was able to put everything back in the correct order before hiding the stolen goods inside his jacket. He hoped no one would notice the faint smell of cheese.
The rest of his shift went by fast. The next one to take over was Annie. He nervously smiled at her tired face. A raised brow. She sensed his deceit. Lucky for him, she didn’t care. So off he went to sneak away from the base.
By the time he made it to the edge of the forest, it must have been midnight, which Sasha deemed was the perfect time for a feast.
Bertholdt didn’t bring a lantern out of fear of being caught, so he squinted into the darkness, until he noticed a faint glow of red from within. A small fire.
Approaching it, he found Sasha toasting bread on sticks over the flames. “There you are, Took your time!” she exclaimed, beckoning him to sit down next to her. Bertholdt did as he was told and fished out the rations he had been hiding in his jacket. Sasha grabbed it with her bare teeth and took it from his hands. Bertholdt was just relieved he didn’t lose any fingers.
“You watch over the bread while I cut this up,” Sasha ordered.
Always so bossy, he thought, a smirk appeared on his face.
“What are you smirking at Bertholdt?” Sasha asked, tilting her head curiously.
“Ah… I don’t know… Nothing. Sorry.” Shutting it down quickly as he focused on saving a piece of bread from being burnt.
A quiet silence fell between them as the little fire crackled.
“Ah…” Sasha sighed happily. “Cheese is amazing. When my father buys that farm he keeps talking about, I’m going to request we get cows too.”
Bertholdt looked up in interest. “Where do they live?”
“In Dauper, it’s a village in a remote forest. We hunt to survive.”
Bertholdt nodded in thought. “So no cheese because you can’t hunt it.”
“Precisely! But even hunting has been harder since Maria fell, now we have even more people hunting those forests…”
“Ah.” Bertholdt quietly nodded. Sasha continued to talk.
“We need to reclaim Wall Maria. That way, we’ll have more land for cattle, and then…” Sasha took some bread off the fire and placed pieces of broken cheese over it. “Then we’ll have more cheese too!”
Bertholdt’s eyes stayed on the fire, deep in thought. Every time he tried to play soldier, there was always a distant reminder of the past. It was inescapable. Like a daydream being interrupted just as things where starting to feel normal.
“Hello? Bertholdt? Your toastie is going cold,” Sasha said, nudging him with a stick.
“Ah!” His face startled as he saw a toasted sandwich sitting on a handkerchief next to him. A couple of minutes had passed him by.
“Were you even listening?” Sasha asked, stuffing her face with her own toasted sandwich.
“Y-yea, sorry. Sorry.” Bertholdt nodded. “And thank you.”
“Ah, really, I should be thanking you, for not beating my ass back there.”
“I couldn’t do that.”
Sasha laughed. “That’s gonna be your downfall one day,” she teased.
Bertholdt was the one pouting now. “I couldn’t do that to a friend.”
Chewing on her sandwich, Sasha wasn’t finished teasing him. Mumbling. “Does that mean you’ll let me sneak in again?”
“No.”
“I think it does.”
Bertholdt tried his best to squint at her but chickened out as she started laughing again. He blushed and looked away, taking another bite of his sandwich.
“Maybe I can take you hunting sometime,” Sasha broke his shy silence. “Show you how to shoot down a wild animal with a bow.”
Bertholdt's ears perked up, “I know how to shoot,” he admitted, only to regret it as Sasha moved closer to him, catching him off guard.
“You do?! We should go hunting then!”
“Wait what, right now?” he asked in alarm.
“No, not right now silly!” Sasha laughed, but she had been completely serious. “We have training exercises coming up, it will be a good chance to show off our skills and bring home something good to cook.” Sasha nodded to herself, taking one last bite of her sandwich.
“Mm, yea.” Bertholdt nodded in agreement, taking the rest of his sandwich in his mouth.
Part of being a soldier was enjoying the little sneaky things, he thought. Little sneaky things, with Sasha. Bertholdt smiled.
After putting the fire out, they started to creep back towards the barracks, being very careful as not to make any noise. Sasha obviously excelled in this skill, but Bertholdt had a few close calls with some low hanging branches, which was when things got more difficult for Sasha as she started giggling.
Bertholdt shushed her, to which she in turn shushed him, while still giggling. This went on until some cadets on patrol duty passed by the edge of the forest. Bertholdt grabbed Sasha away from the moonlight casting its glow between the trees. A close call, he thought, before glancing down at Sasha who was in his arms and looking up at him with surprise. Bertholdt had brought her into a close hug as he leaned up against a tree.
Bertholdt let her go, thankful the shadows of the night kept his blush from being seen.
“I can take it from here,” she whispered. “Thanks for helping me tonight, and sorry about the crotch shots.”
Bertholdt regarded the vague outline of her face in the darkness. “It– it was worth it.” He nodded. “Better than your daydream?” She asked. To him, this felt like a daydream. “Yes.“ he affirmed.
There was an awkward silence before Sasha shifted in the darkness.
“Good! Well, now I’m off to have actual dreams. Have a good night!” she said, patting his arm before scampering off out the forest. Bertholdt's head peeked from behind the old tree as he watched her go. A shy smile formed.
Sneaking back into the barracks, the first person he came face to face with was Reiner, who looked rather disappointed in the disappearance of Bertholdt.
“You showered late…” Reiner started, looking him up and down. “Or you didn’t shower at all and something happened?”
Bertholdt weakly smiled, which answered the question. “We’ll talk about this in the morning.” Reiner sighed. He felt bad for disappointing his friend, but reasoned Reiner would understand when he discovered who was involved.
Bertholdt laid up in bed listening to the ambient sounds of the night, eyes staring up to the ceiling. His thoughts wandered back to the small fire, the feisty brunette, and the prospect of hunting with her someday soon.
He closed his eyes, smiling.