jeankasa prompt! woohoo. jean's thoughts during the years as he falls in love with mikasa (bonus points if it's sad) (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧*:・ﾟ✧.
But the real question is how many more bonus points?
*~*~*
He doesn’t think it started with her hair.
No, not really.
That was just an excuse – a string of words he blurted to her under pressure, a fast yet true compliment to give to her.
He just wanted to be under her orbit.
And her response was like someone shot him in the foot. Not enough to kill him, not yet, but could still hurt.
*~*~*
It got worse after she cut it all off.
Jean loved to talk but he just couldn’t talk to pretty girls.
He couldn’t handle himself around pretty girls, and she was more than pretty – she was beautiful, she was smart, she was strong.
Her existence brought the sweat under his arms and the shaking in his hands as he tried to speak in coherent form to her. But, man, did he sound like an idiot every time he opened his mouth.
Jeager wouldn’t let him off easy for it either, pointing out his holes in speech and how he would trip over his own feet, which was just plain torture considering she went where ever he did.
That was another annoying fact about his crush on Mikasa Ackerman – her obvious affection for a boy who didn’t even notice it was there.
Affection Jean would die for.
*~*~*
He liked her laugh.
It was like a bell, sweet and clear.
He liked her voice.
It was smooth and held the nature that everything she said was true.
He liked her hands.
They were small but powerful and calloused and hands that mean hard work and gentle touches.
He liked her incredibly and he was too deep, too far in to stop the fall.
*~*~*
He kissed her for the first time behind the mess hall, and instead of the slap he was expecting he got her hands in his hair and the taste of her tongue in his mouth.
She was red when they pulled apart for air and he laughed and that’s when the slap came.
*~*~*
She was fire and he was the forest she set ablaze.
She was the slick road that caused his carriage to slip.
She was the tornado and he was the house she lifted off the ground.
*~*~*
He loved Mikasa Ackerman and the words hung heavy on his tongue as she reached for his hands under the table or touched him lightly on the shoulder as she passed by or as she pulled on the belt loops of his pants as he kissed her in the shadows of the cabin.
He loved her so much it would swell everywhere and fill every poor and every fiber of his being and it suffocates in a way that gives him air to breathe.
*~*~*
She followed him. She always follows him.
Everywhere he goes she goes.
It was natural.
It was a habit, to wrap herself up in Jeager’s own dramas.
It cost her life.
*~*~*
Why.
*~*~*
Why.
*~*~*
He still loves her.
It doesn’t swell anymore, just pulls at his organs and scratches his throat.
It brings the shadows under his eyes and the bones that peak beneath his transparent skin.
He doesn’t think it started with her hair.
Because its been so long that now he can’t even remember what shade it was.
do you still take prompts? (i'm so sorry to bother you if you don't) but if you do could you possibly do a jeankasa hunger games au? like god, i've really wanted to see what the circumstances would be like if this happened (plus your writing is super cool ok ilu)
I’m so happy you requested this because Jeankasa and THG are honestly my only two obsessions at the moment. So much so, that I feel like I went way too overboard with this (its like 9 pages long), and I still feel like I could’ve put more into it. That being said, would anyone actually be interested in a full on, chapter story of this AU? I could definitely dig it.
Anyway, here we go.
By the way, Mikasa is from District 4 (get it, because of the ocean?), and Jean is from District 7.
*~*~*Her name is called and she doesn’t even flinch, but she can hear Eren yelling in outrage from his segregated section, and she really wishes he would stop because he’s making a scene, and the cameras will stick to her even more like glue because of it. Her only concern lies in hoping he won’t volunteer himself when the boy’s name is called. The odds must be in her favor in that regard, because when the boy tribute is picked, another, stronger career’s hand is up and his body is on stage before Eren can even try to open his mouth to volunteer.
*~*~*
His name is called and everything inside of him is screaming and none of his older brothers are doing anything about it, they just watch him climb the platform and shake the girl tribute’s hand and try not to throw up on camera.
*~*~*
Eren’s the first one through the door in the Justice Building and he’s saying things that would get him in trouble if overheard. Armin’s crying so hard and so silently that she can’t look at him. Now’s not the time to cry, she tells them, they need to stay strong and persevere no matter what happens to her. Eren winds his scarf around her, and she swallows the lump in her throat at the realization that this will be her tribute token. His eyes are angry and his voice is urgent as he forces her to promise him she’ll try to win. She’s strong, she’s smart, she’s powerful; she can win this.
It takes everything in her not to break down when the peacekeepers come in and usher the only two people that matter to her away.
*~*~*
His brothers don’t meet his eyes, and he can tell they’re ashamed of themselves. His dad’s eyes are tired, his calloused hands shaking as he pulls him into a tight hug. He tells Jean he has to try to win, though his voice is so brittle that anything genuine in it trickles through the cracks, making him feel even worse about it.
He will try, damn it, but the nagging thought that trying won’t be enough just laughs in his face.
*~*~*
She was told that the mermaid theme in their costumes this year was inspired by her long, dark hair. Seashells, rope, and actual marine life (such as crabs, shrimp, starfish) are weaved through her hair, making it smell of fish and not helping the tumbling of her stomach. The prep team tried to lessen the smolder of her stare with bright teals and yellows and shimmering golds that elongate her almond eyes and carve out her cheek bones.
Seashells and the tumble of her dark curls barely cover her bare breasts, while a long, tight skirt resembling the shimmer of silver scales run down her legs and flutters out at the floor, making it hard to walk properly without looking like a penguin. Her bare skin is painted with designs that look like waves and seagulls and lighthouses and it makes her miss home and Eren and Armin even more.
*~*~*
He’s a tree, of course.
It’s never anything different, no matter the year.
He’s tall and skinny, his hair deep rusted; the perfect tree.
Long, brown, pinstriped pants elongate his already lanky legs, his bare torso painted with delicate hands to resemble branches littered with leaves. The branches run up his chest and throat, and down his arms to his fingertips. They shimmer when he moves. He’s trying hard not to lick the glittery green goop they put on his lips off, because he’s already been yelled at once for doing it.
He’s petting his horse, a tall beautiful mare with fur as brown as the branches painted on his body. He has a plate on his reigns that reads “Modesty”, and he wants to laugh at the irony of the horse’s name, given where he lives.
Looking around at the other tributes with their own carriages, its then that he sees her for the first time.
She looks like a goddess plucked freshly from the sea.
She’s standing straight, and even from here he can see how rigid she looks, her arms folded across her chest. She looks bored, underneath all the makeup plastered on her face. He’s thinking about going over to talk to her when it’s announced its time for the tributes to mount their carriages.
The girl tribute from his district hops up with ease, her legs long like his. The designers must have had a ball, this year, he supposes, which is unfortunate for her because her costume is an exact replica of his, right down to the shirtless tree branches, her bare breasts visible for the world to see. He doesn’t look at her out of respect, because the look he saw on her face when she got in the elevator with him and their mentors was enough for him to give her that much privacy.
They’re told to wave and the carriage jerks forward without warning and his heart is sinking into his chest.
*~*~*
They’re the fifth to the training center and all she can think about is how hot it is. The male tribute from her district, the career who quite possibly unintentionally saved Eren’s life, splits from her immediately to make allies with the other careers. She doesn’t care very much, because he’s beefy and kind of intense and she wouldn’t put any trust in him for not turning on her.
Instead, she wanders alone around the room, mostly stopping at the basic survival set ups that include stuff like making fires and identifying edible from poisonous plants. Her fingers itch to dig into the weaponry but she wants to hold off on that as long as she can, for two reasons. She doesn’t want to put attention on herself, as well as she knows that weapons are where everyone is going to go first, so to avoid territory disputes from the get-go would be for the best.
She sees home in each one of the stations she visits, which makes avoiding the weaponry even more difficult. She sees Armin, and his smart know-it-all facts that he reads from the leather bound book he bought at the market, in the identifying plants station. She sees Eren when she’s tying knots into thick nets, for he was the one who taught her how to weave nets, to which he learned from his mother.
This makes her work harder, the determination to win burning in her heart.
*~*~*
He works the nerve to talk to her on the second day.
He watched her circle through the stations, making a point to avoid the weapons on the far side of the center, until his fellow girl tribute pulled him into the archery section. The girl tribute from his district, her name Mabel, was his ally and only companion in these games, so for the most apart he followed her where ever he dragged her and vise versa.
She was nice, but she had a sharp tongue that could cut through stone, and knew more cuss words than he did types of trees.
He pulled her towards the fire making station, but she refused to follow, stating that they’d already been there. His persistence broke the tie and she opted to go try her hand a throwing knives; that she’ll meet him up again for lunch.
The girl from four was crouched over a pile of logs, he her small hands rubbing the sticks together.
“You’re going to want to slide your hands down while you work.” He said behind her, making her jump and throw the stick across the floor.
She looked him.
No, wait, that’s not right.
She glared at him.
He tried to shake off how the deep set of her stare made his heart pound more than anything his experience as a tribute so far ever could.
“Just…uh, trying to help.”
She doesn’t say anything, just collects her sticks and tries again. He stands there awkwardly, watching on as she takes his advice, and sure enough, lights a spark. Soon, without enough prodding and babying, the spark turns into a warm fire. She examines her work and turns to look at him curiously.
“How did you know that?” Her voice is quiet and flat.
“I went through here yesterday, plus I’ve had to light my fair share of fires back home.” His voice drops suddenly at the mention of home, and he casts his eyes to his shoes.
She’s just as quiet, and when he looks at her she’s turned back to the fire. He takes the hint and joins Mabel, who’s in the middle of hitting the foam dummy spot on in the chest with a thrown knife.
*~*~*
The dress has sewn in sequins that pinch the pale skin under her arms, leaving them red and irritated. It’s tight and long, much like her skirt in the opening ceremonies was, flaring at the bottom in what the designer called a – wait for it – “mermaid” style. Her hair was given extensions, despite how long it already was, with tips dipped in blue dye, which flows over her shoulders like tendrils of mini ocean waves. Her prep team sprayed it with some sort of mist, which added the essence of having wet, shiny looking hair without actually being wet.
Everything is uncomfortable, as she balls her hands up into fists at her side. She can feel the other tributes stares. They’re envious, threatened; maybe even impressed.
She scored an eleven in her evaluation.
It wasn’t hard, really. She climbed, she wielded weapons, she threw knifes, she ran, she dodged. It must have been impressive, even though she felt cliché doing it.
The mean looking girl from two made a show of “accidentally” bumping into her as she stepped out onto stage, and Mikasa almost fell because of it, since leg movement in the dress she was wearing was limited.
When its her turn to get on stage, the lights are white and hot and they bounce off the damn sequins which then bounce into her damn eyes and she almost trips getting into the chair.
After a whole day with her mentor, she decided the best route to go was the cold, quite, and reserved route, so that’s what she did.
She rebuffed everything Caeser Flickerman said with alluding answers and confidence.
Until he mentioned Eren.
That’s when her eyes dropped her hands and she pulled at the tight fabric of her dress, and he skimmed over her response by saying something about the importance of her winning for and she nodded and that’s when he made everyone clap for her and she walked off the stage.
The other tributes were looking at her in pity now, and she was sure she hated that worse than their jealous stares.
She looked at all their sad faces, and stopped when she reached one: the boy who taught her how to light fires. His face was sad, but he smiled when her eyes landed on him.
He gave her a thumbs up.
*~*~*
The boy, it turned out, was from seven.
His name was Jean.
And the crowd loved him.
He smiled, and she swore she could hear the girls in the crowd’s hearts melting. He joked and the roar of laughter from the audience was enough to make her ears ring.
He was handsome in his pressed suit, she’d give him that.
He thanked Flickerman when his three minutes were up, and waved as he got off stage, high-fiving the girl tribute from seven behind the curtain.
His eyes land like a magnet to hers, and she blushes deep scarlet.
She gives him a thumbs up.
*~*~*
Boom.
Boom boom boom.
It’s loud and it rings in his ears and he’s trying to push away the fact that there’s a reason it’s loud, that there’s a reason it hurts his ears, and it’s because Mabel screamed and Mabel drowned and Mabel’s dead.
He bits his fist to hold his own scream back, choke back his own vomit, because she’s dead now and there’s no tip-toeing around it.
They were just walking!
That’s all they were doing…just walking…
Through a field; with grass long and golden that swayed around the ankles of their boots.
A field that turned mushy and muddy over time as they walked.
A field that sank beneath their feet, swallowed by a large lake of water that flooded around their legs and up their torsos and up to their necks like an elevator and he could swim but she couldn’t she couldn’t she couldn’t and then boom.
He kneels on the bank, his fist pressed into his mouth and he’s still screaming because he can’t stop because if he does he’ll throw up and he can’t afford that right now.
He throws up anyway.
*~*~*
She’s perched high on a boulder when she spots him walking by bellow, his shoulder slumped and his gait loud and sluggish. She could kill him if she wanted to; her knife tucked secure against her hip.
She could wound him badly; bring him down, fire the cannon, grow one death closer to winning. There were only six of them left now. It’d be so easy.
But she can’t.
Instead, she slowly climbs down from the rock, approaching him as quietly as the brush under her feet would allow.
“Jean.” His name leaves her lips and the knot in her aching stomach make her aware that there’s not turning back now; she’s put her trust in this strange tribute already so deep into the games.
The nagging thought that just because she won’t kill him, doesn’t stop him from doing so to her.
He turns, and the look on her face tugs at her heart. So exhausted. So hollow. So hopeless.
Little does she know, her face mirrors his own.
*~*~*
“I’m sorry about the girl tribute from your District.” She says it so quietly, while they chew on rolls one of his sponsors graciously sent.
She’s seen Mabel’s face light up the night sky.
He pauses mid chew, the thought of throwing up tugging at his stomach, and he forces himself to swallow.
“It’s fine. Thanks.” He murmurs. And then he answers the question he knows is burning in her mind, but she’ll never say, “She drowned.”
Mikasa just nods, ripping off another chunk of bread.
*~*~*
It’s down to five.
Jean and Mikasa, the tributes from one, and another male tribute from two. Mikasa suspects the other three are moving in a pack, and it’ll be soon before they successfully hunt Jean and her down, or are forced to find each other by gamemakers. Never the less, Jean and Mikasa are sure to not stay in one spot too long.
The duo survive off the bread Jean’s sponsors send, and Mikasa thinks about how fortunate it was he went the crowd pleaser route during his interviews.
He must know this as well, because those times he randomly takes his shirt off are much too frequent to mean he’s warm.
Sometimes she thinks about Eren. She finds Jean notices when she does; she must make a weird face. He’s even asked once, but the expression she must have had made him shut up.
One night, she jerks awake because Eren was there in the games with her and he was covered in blood and it’s too much.
Jean’s there, already wake from taking watch while she slept, and somehow his hand slips through her own, his palm swallowing her hand and it shoots warmth up her arm that circles her whole body.
“’m fine.” She mumbles, even though they both know she isn’t.
The clasped hand moves from hands to waists, and soon she’s shaking and pressed against his side, her fingers clinging to his shirt as she tries to erase the sight of Eren in deep red.
“He’s like my brother,” her voice is hoarse, “I don’t want him to watch me die.”
“Who?” Jean asks, his arm tight around her.
“Eren.” She ushers his name the first time since the games started and it feels like a ghost exiting her lips, and she closes her eyes and suddenly she can’t stop saying it, “Eren. Eren. Eren. Eren.”
“Alright, alright!” Shes laughing, punching his arm playfully, “I get it! I get it!”
“Told you! I’m like a walking stereotype.”
“Who taught you all those types of trees?” She asks as he holds back a tree branch for her. They’re walking and walking and it’s all they’ve been doing. She figures the careers must be up to something exciting, because it’s a wonder the gamermakers haven’t thrown them together yet.
“My dad, mostly, and his logging team, those old farts,” he smiles and then looks as if he’s off in thought, possibly thinking of his family. “It’s stuff that his dad told him and so on.”
“Interesting.” She allows, because it kind of is.
“Yeah,” he agrees, “so…you got any stereotypical district hobbies?”
“Uh…yeah…I like to, uh, make nets.” She blushes, and he laughs.
“Make nets, huh?”
“Yeah, make nets.” She smiles, “Got a problem?”
“No, definitely not.” He smirks, raising his hands, “I’ll be sure to come to you first and foremost with any net needs I may have.”
“Damn right you will.”
*~*~*
She holds his hands so tight her knuckles are white but they’re still red and he’s smiling but its weak and it’s sad and she can’t breathe.
He fell.
He fell he fell he fell.
They were walking and he fell.
He fell and he landed on a spike and he’s bleeding.
He’s bleeding everywhere.
He’s dying and yet she’s the one who feels like she can’t breathe.
using the prompts below, write a drabble (or whatever) a day for the next 30 days. find someone willing to hit you if you miss a day. look back at the end and go ‘oh! i’m a writer!’.
you should know your jeankasa gives me life and i love it so much oh my god it's all so beautiful and well written and every time i see a jeankasa fic from you i get so fuckin excited.
oh my gosh oh my gosh ohgmyosh （=´∇｀=）
thank you so much that was so sweet of you to say alskhfsklafhskl
Which means they not only have to be able to connect to machine but to each other as well. The drift includes memories, emotions, thought processes and stuff likely that. Most pilots have an extremely strong relationship whether its romantically familial or platonic. The pilots also have training where they fight each other to see who thinks in cohesion with other and therefor most likely are drift compatible. They have to be able to fight and stuff too.
oooh wow that actually sounds pretty cool okayy wowwow
Okay, so pacific rim is a movie about these giant aliens (called kaiju) which are basically destroying the entire world. {they're huge} humanity is trying to fight back with these giant robots called jaegers. Anyways, the jaegers r piloted by two people who basically rare connected to the robots by their brains. The neural load is too much for one person so it's a two person system (right hemisphere and left hemisphere) the pilots have to be "drift compatible"
Pacific rim AU (everything should have a pacific rim AU)
I’m sorry friend, I’ve never seen (or read? is it a book as well?) Pacific Rim, but if you want to elaborate a bit with it, I’d be happy to give it a shot (*´∀`*)
I thought it was hella cute even though it took me like 4 years to finish sdklfjslj okay anyway here…
*~*~*
It’s gotten to the point where she doesn’t dare look in a mirror; that the ones in her apartment are covered with bed sheets and trash bags, just in case.
She leaves the house with her shirt buttoned incorrectly, or hair in disarray, or with lettuce stuck between her teeth, or with her zipper undone and would never know until someone would sheepishly point it out to her.
Of course it was hard.
It was hard to resist looking at any reflective surface; she was a girl, after all. It was natural to want to check your appearance, to fix anything out of place. But then she’d meet his eyes, so sad and worn and desperate, and her voice will catch in her throat and the wind would get knocked out of her, and she’d turn around to look behind her but he wouldn’t be there.
He never was.
*~*~*
The first time it happened she was washing her face in the sink. She glanced up to reach for the soap. It was times like this where sometimes she was hesitant to look up. She’s seen enough horror movies to know that there could be a face right beside hers in the mirror above her sink.
She just never thought it would actually happen.
As she looked up, glancing hesitantly up at the mirror, the scream ripped through her throat before she even registered what was happening.
There’s someone in your bathroom!
That was the natural instinct; the only thought.
But when she turned, there was no one there.
And when she turned back, there was no one there.
*~*~*
The second time it happened was much more terrifying than the first.
It had taken less than a week for the incident to slip her mind; to get to the point where she could comfortably shake it off and start sleeping with the television off. Eventually, she learned to laugh at herself. Retelling the story with co-workers in the coffee room, jokingly saying things like, “I guess I’m a walking opening to a horror movie,” and “Seven more days until I die, I suppose.”
It was forgotten, buried underneath the piles of responsibility and fast-paced life. She had errands to run, friends to talk to, a living to earn.
He returned, though.
When she pulled the curtains back from her shower, and the steam from the hot water clung to her wet hair, slick and as black as tar. The mirror squeaked as she used her forearm to clear the condensation from it.
He stared at her and she jumped and her foot slipped in the small puddle under her feet. The loud thump her body made as it hit the tile floor was enough to shake the walls, and took the nail right out of the chipped, old drywall. The mirror shattered at her feet, and he was everywhere inside of it.
In every reflection.
Her bare skin, his burning eyes.
She stared at him in horror.
He opened his mouth, as if to say something, and then he was gone.
*~*~*
Her neighbors, bless their hearts, heard the crash and came knocking at her door, asking if she was fine.
She smiled, told them she slipped, that she really should start being more careful.
*~*~*
He was more frequent a visitor after that. She tried not to dwell on why.
She tried not to dwell on it at all, really.
He was there, in every reflection. Sometimes he’d smile at her kindly, offer a hand, gesture to her. Sometimes he looked like he was reaching for her, and that terrified her.
She was positive she was being haunted.
*~*~*
She learned pretty quickly that it was really hard to avoid your reflection.
She couldn’t use her toaster anymore, because he would be there. She couldn’t use her computer, because he was there in the reflection before she could boot it up, which would take forever because it was so old and she hasn’t saved up enough to get a new one. Looking out windows, which was an old habit of hers, was something she had to break. Walking downtown, she didn’t dare glimpse into any of the shops windows. She stopped going to the gym, for the whole room was practically a giant mirror.
It would happen by accident, and she lived in constant fear of the times it did.
People began to notice she was different. More on edge; less groomed. Eren gave her looks that make her feel ashamed and Armin makes her feel guilty without even knowing why. It’s obvious they’re concerned. They ask questions she can’t answer.
She longs to tell them about the man in the mirror. She needs to get it off her chest or she’ll explode. If she can’t tell her best friends, who can she tell? It’s a battle. If she tells them, they could laugh at her. But they could also help her. Maybe, if they tried, they would see him too…
She keeps her mouth closed.
*~*~*
Over time, she grows more comfortable with it.
If not that, than possibly just more tired of it.
Sick of living with her tail between her legs, she straightens her back and pulls the sheets off her mirrors, one by one. He’s always there.
He brightens when he sees her, with a smile so wide it could stretch for miles over his face.
She treats him as she treats her shadow; brushes him over her shoulder.
Mikasa Ackerman refuses to back down.
*~*~*
After a while, she grows curious as the fear evaporates.
It’s not enough to act on at first, its just morbid curiosity. She sits at work and thinks of theories, and questions, and ponderings. She’s so lost in thought at times it takes Eren’s hands waved multiple times across her face, or Armin’s snapping fingers, to pull her out.
One day, it festers and bubbles up her chest that the first thing she does when she returns home from work is stand in her bedroom doorway. She stares at the mirror, but stands at an angle where it can’t take her reflection yet. She’s learned that he won’t show up if she’s not there with him.
Slowly, she approaches the long reflector. Her eyes drop to the carpet at her feet as she approaches. She slides to the floor, sitting a few feet away. Hesitantly, she looks up, and he’s there, standing behind her.
He smiles a small smile at her. He brings his hands from behind his back to wring then in front of him, cross them over his chest, wring them again, and fold them in his pant pockets. His stance is awkward and unsure.
Slowly, she scoots to her left, patting the empty space next to her.
He vanishes, only to return beside her. She flinches, even though she feels nothing. No contact; no rush of air.
Nothing.
He smiles at her, the type of smile that reaches his eyes and his face lights up like a sunrise. For the first time ever, she returns it with one of her own.
He waves, and it’s a tiny motion. She waves back and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
This becomes a routine.
Every day after work, she sits in front of the mirror, and he sits beside her.
They usually don’t speak. She doesn’t know if he would be able to hear her, let alone if he could even respond if he did.
But one day she tries.
And it’s simple.
“What’s your name?”
He blinks, frozen for a moment, and the corners of his mouth turn up into a shy smile. He opens his mouth, and his lips move in a way that makes it look like he’s talking, but she can’t hear what comes out. Her eyebrows scrunch together and she shakes her head.
He frowns, and suddenly, his face sparks with desperation. He stumbles forward awkwardly on his knees, pushing forward, as if through her in the reflection, until his hand is pressed against the glass. In the reflection in the mirror, it’s as if he were kneeling in front of her, closer the glass than she, when in reality he’s not there. His eyes plead with her, and he speaks faster, his lips more rushed as they form quick words.
“I’m sorry, I…I can’t hear you.” She explains, her heart pounding in alarm.
And then he’s gone.
*~*~*
Since then, whenever he appears, his face is sad. Forlorn, almost. He feels distant. She sits more guarded, her knees tucked into herself like a ball, weary of his actions. Needless to say, he’s spooked her, even if it was only a little bit.
Sometimes he’ll press his palms against the glass, pleading her with his eyes, but he never tries to speak. She doesn’t know what he’s doing or what he wants.
She has a feeling he doesn’t know, either.
His eyes never leave her; and weirdly Mikasa finds it more comforting than creepy. It gives him a sense of reality, as odd as it sounds. It defines him as something real rather than a figment of her imagination. His eyes hold what essentially makes him a being; caters to delivering his emotions.
He rarely smiles and that upsets her. He looks miserable to the point where she just wants to make him happy. She’ll tuck hair behind her ears, a nervous tick she has that Eren makes fun of her constantly for. Sometimes she’ll reach for the mirror, hoping her touch can sooth him, but before her fingers can make contact he vanishes.
*~*~*
It’s hard to avoid the man in your mirror, especially when privacy is at stake.
Some days she’s just so dog tired from work and outings with friends and family gatherings that she doesn’t think twice before stripping her clothes or forgetting to put on pants.
She usually remembers too late, and turns to find him staring, his eyes silently ravaging her body. When he gets caught, however, he becomes obviously flustered. He disappears before she can even reach a piece of fabric to cover herself with.
She never blames him; mostly because she needs to learn to be more careful as well as the fact that she’s not quite sure how his appearing and disappearing works. For all she knows, he could just pop up with little to no control in knowing he’s doing so, so it just so happens he “walks in” on her in the nude. (For this point she tries her best to ignore the fact that he manages to pop up exactly on schedule every day…).
But then there’s that one day where she doesn’t immediately reach for her shirt, where she stands in full view before him, his hands cupped over his mouth in obvious mortification over being caught (again). She stands, bashful, her face flushed red, but feeling invigorated and electric. She smiles at him shyly, wringing her hands out in front of her. And he smiles back and then vanishes.
The glow that shocked her system from that smile followed carried her through the rest of the night.
*~*~*
She’s made it a game of waiting either fully clothed or practically naked in front of the mirror; relishing in the expressions he makes when he finally does appear. For both instances, they are rather entertaining.
She notices he doesn’t stay long when she’s stripped down to underwear, and she’s not sure if it’s intentional or just coincidence.
One day he pops up to find her in just her bra and panties, and instead of carrying that flustered look he usually gives her, his eyes shine with determination. He pushes forward to fast, that she swears she hears the plunk of the glass as his skin makes contact with the mirror. He’s pushing, pressing his whole body into the mirror with such vigor that the top of his brow breaks into a sweat.
She gasps, watching him for a beat before she jumps in to help, but before she can reach the mirror he’s gone.
That’s the last time she waits for him in her underwear.
*~*~*
Mikasa finds that on most days, the mirror man is a better emotional support than her own friends.
She’s a worrier. Ever since she was little, she’s worried about the people around her. She used to follow Eren like a shadow, watching out for him as he played, making sure to run straight to his mother if he were to fall and scrape his knee. Sometimes she’d hover so closely that she would become the reason he would scrape his knee, or fall off his bike, just to get her to leave him alone for a moment.
She loves so fiercely, that the toll often weighed on her shoulders.
When it came to matters where she couldn’t openly tell the boys her feelings, such as if she didn’t approve of someone they would talk to, or didn’t think certain decisions they made were the right ones, she would worry so much that it made her physically sick.
She would come home so mentally exhausted (because Eren would be talking to that Annie girl she didn’t like or Armin would work so hard and so late that lines would show on his face) to the point where her shoulders felt heavy and her feet dragged.
And he would be there, watching her.
She would sit, and the look on his face would break her resolve, and she would cry and cry and cry and he never ever vanished until the tears ran dry and she was done.
*~*~*
She wants to touch him so bad.
She wants to graze her fingers down his skin; cup his face in her palm.
She wants to dig her hands into his sandy hair.
She wants to feel him, to smell him, to taste him.
She thinks about it every minute of every day.
She thinks about what he would feel like wrapped in her arms; what the sound of his voice must be like. How it would sound if he would sigh into her mouth; his lips on every part of her skin…
Her thoughts race through images like a picture show of the millions of ways they could fit together like a puzzle; of the millions of nerves and cells and molecules his fingers could touch and stroke and caress.
She dreams of him a lot.
They’re sugary sweet visions of him with her. On the beach, walking in a park, in a bed. Stroking and hugging and kissing and holding hands and laughing and smiling.
When she wakes, it hurts bad like and ache she can’t fill.
*~*~*
She sits close to the mirror on her knees, her nose almost touching the surface of the glass. She’s waiting, hand poised to strike. She needs to know what will happen.
He’s appears for barely a second and her hand hits the glass so hard she’s afraid she’s broken it to shards, but instead it falls through, almost melted into the glass and something warm grabs her wrist and pulls and pulls and pulls.
And she’s screaming and pulling back, her legs sprawled on either side of the mirror on the wall, aiding in helping her pull back. It gets to the point where her arm feels like its being ripped from its socket when she pulls just enough to free her arm, along with another arm attached to her wrist.
She’s too spent to continue screaming, now only focused on pulling and pulling and pulling until the arm becomes a shoulder and then a head. Sandy hair. Deep set eyes.
His head.
Determination washes over her fear with such a furious transition it leaves her startled as she uses everything left in her to drag him from her mirror. She heaves and heaves and heaves until she feels like she literally cannot anymore and that’s at the precise moment where he falls through, their bodies crashing hard on her carpet, her landing on her back and he on his stomach beside her.
She coughs and inhales so deeply she feels as if her lungs will explode if she doesn’t get enough air in and he’s choking and hacking beside her, and its overall a pretty shitty moment for the two of them.
But then the realization hits her.
She has freed the mirror man.
He’s still coughing and wheezing when she threads the fingers in her right hand through his own, and he looks at her so sharply, his coughing fit ending. His eyes grow to the size of dinner plates as his hand swallows her own. Her toes curl into themselves at the look he’s giving her. He rolls to his side, facing her.
Hesitantly, he pulls her closer to him, his thumb stroking her hand slowly, making a warm path up her hand straight to her heart and down to her toes. Everything tingles as he pulls her into an embrace, his sinewy arms wrapping up her body and swallowing it into his own. She can feel him breathing hot and quick down the crown of her head and she shivers; it feels like everything she dreamed of and more. Everything is heightened; she’s hyperaware of him everywhere.
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