a/n: Triple drabble for the day 07 prompt: What Could Have Been
The last time they spoke, he was already a man. Clammy and gaunt in the Paths’ sunless sky, the strength he once possessed whittled away into servitude of the Founder’s mindless advance. His clothes clung to him and he’d lost his shoes. No resemblance to the cadet she’d once called a training partner.
He loomed over her frame, looking at her and then away. As if she were something brilliant, blinding. He said, in a deeper voice than her memories, “I should have visited.”
“It wouldn’t make a difference.” A harmless platitude was more than he deserved. Jaeger’s expression trembled at the edges. Nausea coiled in the pit of her stomach until she spat the words, “You can’t even convince yourself.”
He looked resigned. An eerie gleam to his eyes, like he was prodding around inside her skull without a conscious desire. “You’ll have a nice, boring life. You won’t live to see the worst of it.” Tears prickled her eyes, unshed. She ought to sweep out his ankle and start kicking but it wouldn’t end the conflict any faster. “Your father is—”
“Don’t tell me.”
Her father’s last moments were spent on the side of the ocean, waiting for her body to come back in a box. Annie Leonhardt, war hero and child of the Devil, friend to none but the dead. Victim to her own inscrutable frailty. The whims of a monster playing soldier.
In the Paths, she hid against his sternum without a witness. The dark ring around his throat bled into her hair. Burns under his cheekbones and eyelids. Arms at her sides, a tacit compromise to his weary embrace.
“In a few centuries, we’ll catch up again.” His lips brushed her hairline. “I’ve seen it.”
Poisoned by his resolve, she whispered, “I’ll look for you.
Triple drabble for the prompt: paths connection. This one's more gen/platonic but I liked the idea of it enough to tune up and share!
She found him waiting, the white sand turned blueish in the Coordinate's glow. Leonhardt's will to end this conflict faltered at the sight of her enemy, unscarred and innocent. He couldn't be older than ten. He took a step back as if anticipating his own displacement. "Oh. I thought you were someone else."
Her throat constricted. The boy picked at a loose thread on his sleeve. His fingernails crusted with dried blood.
"What happened to your hand?"
The boy pulled a fist, frowning. "Dunno."
Leonhardt crouched down. She tore a strip from her tattered, dirty sleeve and wrapped it around his palm, cradling his hand like a dead animal. She stood up before she had to look into his eyes. "You shouldn't let it bleed."
The linen was loose and the boy tied it properly. "Are you waiting for someone, too?"
"Yes."
"Is it a friend?"
Leonhardt bit her tongue. The boy sensed his blunder but not the cause.
"Sorry." He offered his bandaged hand. "I'm Eren."
Leonhardt shoved her hands into the pockets of her hoodie. She didn't need a weapon.
"Annie."
At the horizon the first ray of sunlight cast over the sand, closer to blood than daybreak.
"Is it someone important?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"I don't."
She scoffed and began walking along the dune's edge, the boy tagging along. "I didn't ask to be followed, Jaeger."
"You know my name?"
Pinpricks in her mouth, kneeling in the white sand. The boy not yet a corpse crouched down, eye-to-eye.
"Are you OK?"
A scream clawed its way towards her throat. Leonhardt wrapped her arms around him in a futile gesture. "I shouldn't have taught you to fight," she whispered. "I'm sorry."
The boy slipped from her weakened grasp and left her applogizing to the dead.
The iron key was returned to him after his discharge. Eren pulled it from around his neck and placed it in her palm, the cord pooling, worn down to fibers.
“It’s not like I can use it anymore.” His eyes averted to the painting on the wall; a verdant plain against sky, indistinguishable from Valle or Paradis. In a tight voice he asked, “Do you have anything from your parents?”
Annie considered it. Birth records, bloodwork. Her Warrior’s certificate and faded yellow armband. The trick ring as a reminder of lives cut down and deceived. Her father’s final request.
a/n: double drabble for day 04: post-rumbling | aftermath
The riots chased her out of Liberio, into Valle. Hidden among the Eldians dispersed into the countryside, balding sleeves and hollow gazes lingering on her face as she fingered the note in her pocket.
Jaeger stood across the street. Plainclothes and brogans, a black scarf around his throat. She could have turned away, content that he was alive.
"I thought it was you," he called.
She was fixed where she stood. Heart in her throat.
Closing the distance, his arms encircled her. They were just a couple of Eldians from the war.
"They told me you were dead," she whispered.
In the cabin the world fell still.
The remnants carved over her cheeks and chin. A thinner line from her nape to the small of her back, branching over her scalpulae.
His own inheritance stood out starkly. She was careful around his nape. Kissing his chest, the inside of his wrist. She draped across him.
"Does it hurt?" she whispered.
"No." He brought her hand back to the base of his spine. "It doesn't feel like much." She placed a timorous kiss into his clavicle, along the side of his throat, until he said, "Maybe I should show you."
Double drabble for Day 3's prompts: violence | consumption.
He'd been injuring himself to keep up the ruse. Kicking him around was an advanced interrogation technique. Venting all of her sorrows, his silence the perfect excuse.
He took the brunt of it without a word. He was panting when she stopped, doubled over, wrists at his back. His mouth trailing vapor, cheek to the polished floorboards, his long hair in a pool of his own blood and a few missing teeth.
The toe of her boot pressed against his stomach until he looked up.
"This isn't necessary," she said. "Just be sensible."
His mouth curled into a grotsque half-smile.
She'd held him for a moment in the Titan's mouth before he was ripped away to safety.
Each time she was unable to kill the enemy, Ackermann or Arlert or Bodt. Jaeger stood apart, easiest to justify as her ticket back home. Ingestion was the only kindness offered to an imperfect Warrior. She could have ended this back then, in the forest. Imbued him into her spinal fluid, his memories, taking a little of that fire for herself. He wasn't a monster or a Warrior or an icon of humanity, just unlucky. She'd rather see him dead than a revenant.
Triple drabble written for the first Day 2 prompt: old age.
Non-linear narrative, inherent psychological horror of Titan Shifter inheritance, Eren's suicidal ideation and crippling survivor guilt in the face of The Rumbling.
As a boy the path was obvious: join the Scouts and die in his early twenties. His mother would grieve, curse his foolishness, but Eren's sacrifice wouldn't be for nothing.
In Ymir's realm, he reached a different conclusion. A life where his father never pressed the needle to his arm. Decades to scrounge. A dog and a hunting rifle and a cabin deep in the wilderness. Solitude he'd always dreamed of in youth.
Subsisting as the world continued to devour itself. A slave to mortality, until the day he turned the gun on himself and the dog ate what remained.
In another life, he promised to protect Annie and her father. They boarded the train and fled into Valle.
Wilhelm gave his declaration.
The Scouts launched their offense. The Warhammer countered.
In a month, Paradis was gone. Annie's father sent letters up until his death.
They had two children. A son living in Odiha, and a stillborn.
Despite the curse, Annie lived to be thirty. Eren buried her beside their child, leaving flowers. She'd never told him which kind she preferred. He kept the trick ring in a box.
One day he'd be buried next to her. A nice dream.
In the night he woke with a pain in his leg. Anchored by the weight in his chest. Dreams indistinguishable from shellshock. Paradis razed. Devastation upon Marley's shores, unto innocents he had never met. They begged for forgiveness. For absolution. The Colossi broke through the waves. Paradis and its enemies were destined to annihilate each other.
Whenever he couldn't sleep he'd watch the sunrise. Shadows from the treeline that stretched towards the cabin.
He'd surpassed his father's age. The bed was empty. He couldn't picture her face, just Dina's.
He laced his boots and went outside to clean the grave.
a/n: Written for the second Day 1 prompt: secret meeting. Thanks to @lunarcrystal for MORE BRAINWORMS >:)
He was sitting on the bench when she found him. His right eye perforated under gauze. Turning his head, there was Leonhardt in her freshly-shined boots and uniform and crimson armband, alive and sallower than his recollection.
“Krueger.”
“Vice Captain.” Their roles had reversed, but the nature of deception was no different. He stood up. Into her pocket he pressed a neatly folded paper with an address and time. “I’ll explain everything soon.”
Their eyes met. Her mouth thinned. It was a lie. But she would come, whether to correct her mistake or some other divination he could not say.
We welcome all few & far Ereannie Shippers, or just fans of Eren and Annie to participate in this fun ereannieweek starting this Fall in September! Use Tags: #ereaniweek2025 #ereannieweek2025
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Commissioned for an AoT fic coming in the not-too distant future (it's also technically a reboot of an older project; if you know, you know). Big thank you to @oak-n for translating my rough idea into this absolute mastaPIECE.
A year has passed since the Battle of Heaven and Earth. P. Galliard and P. Finger are married. Vice Captain A. Leonhardt steps down, waiting for her ailing father to outlive her. Eren Jaeger is exiled from Paradis as a renegade to spend his days in Liberio as an expat. Without the threat of Titans or a country to divide them, what comes after the armistice?
Rating: M
Pairing: Annie/Eren, Pieck/Porco
Genre: Drama | Hurt/Comfort | Romance
Can also be read on ao3 | ffnet
a/n: ft. commissioned art by lunarcallisto! thank you for helping to make my wildest dreams come true :)
Ironically, putting in a notice of leave was easier than getting his papers sorted out. "A week’s leave should be no trouble at all. We've got someone to cover for you in the meantime." The superior even shook his hand and congratulated him on the engagement.
The main had never looked so beautiful or cold. Sunlight beamed against the polished floors, the glare blinding as he passed. The occasional pair of eyes followed him. A grinning man who Eren recognized as one of the camp-de-aides nudged his unhappy colleague who shoved a ten mark note into his waiting palm. "Must be one of the Warriors. He’s close enough to one and who else would be interested?"
“There’s one who isn’t taken.”
"Leonhardt? My God, she's inhuman. He’s probably found another Eldian."
Amused, Eren saw no reason to correct them.
He walked out into the warm sunshine and a future bright and impermanent.
This vestige of civilian life, always denied in words, finally within reach. As a boy he’d clamored for what was beyond the Walls, never caring whether or not it existed for the possibility itself was more tantalizing than the truth. If he’d survived, not as a Titan but a civilian, his options were to start a family or climb the political ladder and send money back to his aging parents while less fortunate soldiers died for the same platitudes that had once preoccupied him. Better to give one's life for a cause than squander it in safety. He’d sworn with a child’s conviction to eradicate all the Titans, but it was never about one enemy. The ocean just another obstacle beyond himself and the intangible forces wishing for Paradis's destruction, an end to the mistake immortalized in history books.
In Marley, he clung to the last vestiges of sanity, grounding himself in this day-to-day routine of survival without an outlet. In every outcome the Progenitor laid before him, there was only one in which Paradis survived untouched. Very little of what Eren had been shown in these flashes had come to pass in the way he’d foreseen. Poisoned by his resolve, he had never stopped to question what was in front of him. His survival was not imperative, for his allies would never forgive him once he succeeded, which made his situation all the more damnable. From the moment he woke up to stitches in his neck, Mikasa and the Corporal carving him from the Titan’s blistering remnants, he’d already failed. Exile was worse than death itself. Without the Jaegerists or his inherited abilities, he was barely a threat. Just a fool who’d wielded power beyond his understanding or capacity.
Despite ample time and opportunity, Marley and Paradis seemed disinterested in continuing the war he had initiated. As a matter of fact, there was talk of Paradis sending their ambassadors over directly to Central Marley—survivors from the Battle of Heaven and Earth.
On a day such as this, Eren had no desire to dwell upon the past despite its habitual ease. He’d been invited to meet the other Warriors in person. The letter in his pocket, written by Pieck, provided the name of a street within walking distance.
Echelons of Marley's second class were still packed into rows upon rows. The domiciles in Shiganshina had been built horizontally, a consequence both of the island’s elevation as well as limited materials and technology, and yet Eren had nicer memories of living in a two story home with his mother and father and Mikasa than his limited existence within Liberio’s tenements. He passed the street once, then took the letter from his pocket to verify his placement, then rounded the street again.
"Hey," the man called. "You've rounded this corner a couple times, are you lost?" The man from the pub had a cigarette. Eren walked up the steps.
They moved into the entrance hall and left their shoes by the door. Eren noted a boy's pair of brogans and a girl's boots. He could smell something cooking. The closest to home he'd been since ten years old.
"The kids just got back from running an errand with Ms. Braun."
A dark-haired girl came over from the kitchen and blenched at the sight of Eren. "Mr. Jaeger," she said, with a slight flinch before offering a hand, "I'm Gabrielle Braun."
Aside from using her as bait, Eren supposed they never had been formally introduced. Falco followed in her wake, already a little tense. The formality was part of the charade. A muscle jumped in Falco's jaw. "How long have you been living in Marley?"
"Almost a year."
"Ms. Braun said you'll be going abroad for a while."
"Marley's a big country. We'll find a place to go."
Gabi said, "Miss Leonhardt must mean a lot to you." The unspoken tension that hadn't been settled since his betrayal under the tenements. A perpetual lifelong undercurrent, questions better left unturned. The war was settled and there wasn't any point in discussion. "I don't think she's ever been friendly to another Warrior."
"I know what you mean. I used to train with her."
Falco and Gabi exchanged a glance. "Isn't she supposed to be here?"
"Annie will be here shortly. She stopped in to speak with her father this morning." Pieck noticed them and smiled. "Oh, hello again."
She bade Eren follow her into the living room while Falco and Gabi watched over the food. Pieck was telling him about the news that was coming out. Representatives from what was left of the Titan Research Society, herself among them, had come to consensus. Beyond doubt, the severing of the Progenitor’s direct ties was not simply a victory for humanity. “Many of the injected Eldians and surviving Warriors are expected to live past their designated term of service, potentially up to half of their natural lifespan given proper treatment.”
“How many of these candidates are going to receive treatment?”
“As many as our medical facilities can safely hold. Unfortunately, the brunt of that expertise was entrusted to the Titan Research Society which has since been fragmented. We’ve been tracking down the doctors and convincing them to pass along what they know, but it’s hardly straightforward. I expect we won’t see the results of this endeavor within our own lifetimes.”
Of course. They’d always be Eldians, even without the devil in their bloodstream or a reason to wage war. For what purpose had they accepted him and their failed subjects of Ymir, if not to write them neatly out of history within the next generation? He’d simply have to live with it, like every other disaffected citizen caught between their learnt contempt and their own powerlessness. Self-loathing was not a trait reserved for Eldians alone.
So really, what good was there in hoping to cross paths with anyone from Paradis? They’d just as well abhor him for what he attempted. They’d lacked the will to carry through.
He’d break the news to Annie if she didn’t first. There would be plenty of time to discuss the future.
“There should be a letter for you.” Pieck sighed. “I’m sorry. It must be in the guest room upstairs. I’d have brought it down with me, but I didn’t want Falco or Gabi asking too many questions.”
Eren, left to his own devices, looked around the home for a sign of recent life. He found a door ajar, perhaps a guest room. The bed along the wall was freshly made, and a wooden chest at the foot. Scores along the wood flooring that had once bore furniture. The curtains clean. No recent sign of activity. Atop the dresser's surface was a small figurine and a faded yellow armband. Stitched under the Marleyan star, he could make out the name: R. Braun.
The floorboards creaked. Eren turned with a start. An older woman with blonde hair stood by the threshold.
"I'm sorry," he started to say, "I was looking for the guest room."
The woman's expression faltered, as if he'd spoken in a foreign language. An instinctual glance at his forearm before returning to his face. She seemed to collect herself as he moved past her, closing the door in his wake.
"I was in the middle of cleaning when the children dragged me off on an errand. Gabi’s been helping with the cooking." Her eyes, amber, fell on his hand. In a strange, brusque tone, she said, "You must be Eren."
“Ms. Braun?”
Her expression cooled. “Is there something you were looking for in particular?”
Standing before the mother of that soldier-turned-traitor, the last four years weighed heavy between them. Both of them strangers, sharing nothing but their devil blood and contempt for the enemy be it Marleyan or Titan. Eren's ties were severed. Reiner never spoke of his family back home. A hometown, once or twice, only with Bertholdt close by. Never a name. All that had mattered back then was supplanting his grief into anger. A justification, however childish, was easier to accept than the bigger picture. He'd had time to think things over but never to apologize.
He said, "I knew your son." Karina froze where she stood. "He was the second best of the cadet corps. He would have made you proud."
Her face contorted. She grasped his arm. “Then—you must have seen him. Please, you must tell me what happened to him. This is all I have left of him.”
“He’s dead.” Eren held her gaze until it averted. “He sacrificed himself to protect his comrades. There wasn’t much left to bury.”
Karina let her hand drop. She covered her mouth, her eyes welling. She wasn't hurtling insults at him. Perhaps that would come later. Eren longed for a drink.
“I’m sorry, ma’am.”
She looked away, her voice tight and controlled from a lifetime of smothering her grief into apathy. “There’s a letter for you. In the other room.”
Eren followed her. On the desk was a manilla envelope which he scanned and pocketed to read away from prying eyes. As he moved away, he could see Karina through the slit of the door. He moved onwards.
"There's no council to disappoint," Galliard was saying, "and two more Eldians who've outlasted their regime. Why shouldn't we celebrate?" On the porch, Galliard hid his feelings under a terse, short conversation about what Gabi and Falco would be enrolling next year. He smiled around the unlit cigarette. Eren did not smile back. "Well," he said, "best of luck to you."
On the train out of Liberio, onward. Annie eyed the other seats for wont of something to do.
"Who d'you usually send after defectors?"
"They're brought in and dealt with like any other political criminal." She glanced out the window, but there was not much to see apart from Liberio's architecture. "That was back when I was in training. But they're not interested in us. And I doubt you'll attract any attention unless you do something foolish."
His brow furrowed as he seemed to work over the words in his head. Then he sat back straighter as if to make up for the weariness of his eyes.
"Did you sleep?"
"I haven't been sleeping much."
Annie frowned.
Eren bristled but didn't answer. What should she do? Take his hand? Say something reassuring? What did one say to their fiancé who still woke up miles across the ocean, at home?
"It's all right," she said, "I'll be here when you wake up."
He nodded off. Leaning on her, their arms interlocked. She reached for his hand, catching his wrist. Annie laid her head against his shoulder. Her heart fluttered.
They rode on through Marley into the heart of the country. Liberio’s cramped and opulent sprawl giving way to an untouched wilderness broken up by settlements and outposts. The sky unbroken and clear.
They stopped at a small hotel for the evening, the settlement reminiscent to what Eren had left in Paradis. They used gas lamps and crystal torches in tandem.
A short man eyed them from behind the reception. He came over and greeted them warmly. “Halil!” the man called. A boy about Falco’s age came out with a broom. This he set against the wall as the man spoke to him in a tongue Eren had heard during his days in Fort Slava.
“We don’t get many tourists,” the man said. “When I was a boy, there were a lot more of them. During the course of the war they moved on from here.”
The boy offered to take their valaise and bags. Eren nodded at the boy and then looked away.
Halil clambered up the steps. He set their bags aside and said, “I’ve seen you before.”
Eren froze.
“Miss? My father says you helped stop the war on Paradis.”
Annie blinked. “Yes.”
Halil was beaming. “I knew it! Ramzi won’t believe it.” He noticed Eren and his expression changed. “Thank you, sir.” He didn’t speak again but nodded to Annie and left.
Neither their annihilation not existence held any significance to him, apart from failure. The images repeating, always the same no matter how he bent his will. Without the constant threat of war and annihilation on the horizon, the idea of enduring one slow day to the next became suffocating. Standing at the window he could see only the settlement and the flat plain beyond.
It wasn’t yet evening.
“Eren?”
His breath stuck in his throat. A flicker in her eyes. She could sense the pain but not its reason. He didn’t want to permit that sepulchral mood into this moment. Least of all to his wife. Strange to permit himself this distinction and yet effortless to accept it. From comrade to enemy to spouse.
The Founder’s will pushed him into a singularity — the dead and the dying along the shores. Ruins all that were left of this civilization would be washed away.
He moved outside in the hall and paced like an animal down the length and back. He counted to fifty, but he couldn't stop trembling completely as he opened the door.
He sat on the bed and she went along, side by side.
"What happened?"
He looked at her, struggling to explain. "I haven't been here in a while."
She hesitated. "We can stay in."
He breathed evenly. She was only trying to help and he'd made it complicated. He had no interest in explaining right now, it wouldn't fix anything. She laid a hand along his neck and he reached to caress her hand. Delicate and vulnerable. He felt a terrific surge of affection for her. One of the toughest soldiers he’d ever known. Perhaps he didn’t deserve her, yet she refused to let him go.
“What is it?”
He touched her face. “You’re beautiful.” Smoothing his palms down her sides. His lips on her brow. His mouth curled, an unfamiliar sensation. “I can’t believe it.”
Her eyes softened. They fell onto the bed, chuckling.
He was too weary to speak. When he laid his head along her thighs, she didn’t push him away. Her hand slowly passed through his hair.
He dozed. When he stirred, the pattern of shadows over the room had altered. She stirred.
“Did I wake you?”
Like before he was too keyed up to relax. He reached up to caress her face.
“No.”
Annie kissed the inside of his wrist. His cheek moved to her abdomen. He kissed her clothed stomach. Hands slipping under the dress.
“How many?”
Annie hummed.
“Children.” He rucked the dress over her thighs. “How many would you want?”
She was looking at him in a naked and nervous way. Her mouth opened and closed. When she finally spoke her voice was small, “I’m not sure.”
Eren was relieved and disappointed in equal measure. But then, if he’d lost his mother that way he might feel different.
“We can wait.”
He placed a hand on her shoulder. Annie tensed.
“I’m not saying I wouldn’t.” Eren could glean the edge in her tone. Her mouth trembling at the edges. He let his hand drop. “It would be a year, at least. Maybe more. I can’t promise that, and if something happened to me—”
“—don’t say that—”
“—you’d never forgive it.”
Her eyes bored into him. Eren wasn’t expecting this to be a simple conversation but he’d failed, in his desperation to be free, to consider she was just as pinioned as him to this future and its limitations, not just as civilians or Eldians. Both of them needed time to adjust, but he had no idea how to console her.
“My dad was about the age we are now, when he had his first son. Years after he was injected, he had me. It’s probably not that different for us.” A short, sharp snort of laughter escaped her. “Hey.” Running his hands over her shoulders, forearms. She couldn’t stop trembling. “Hey. Talk to me.”
“Even if I can conceive,” she said, in a soft, high voice he didn’t recognize, “what effect would it have on the baby?”
Eren paused.
“Is it something you’d want, if you were able?” Her expression faltered. Bracing herself for a worse reaction. He felt powerless to assuage her. “I can’t go back to my old life. That much is true.” He took a breath and let it out. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to us. But I’m sure that you and I are not our fathers.”
Annie turned, pushing her shoulder into his chest. He pulled her into a hug. With her head to his sternum she began to relax. She didn’t return the embrace but she didn't squirm away.
“It can’t be like it was, for us. This has to be different.”
He swallowed dryly. “It will be different.”
He leaned in and gently kissed her scalp, and she grasped the side of his neck and pressed closer. Without thinking, he kissed her shoulder, working on undoing the buttons of her blouse. She reclined onto the bed and he went with her. His lips brushed her neck, running a hand over her chest. He put his mouth to her ear. "Don't get up. I'll take care of you."
She leaned back, curious rather than pliant. His hand swept up her calf to thigh and his stomach tensed at her state of arousal. He rucked the skirts up, falling in a heap about her midriff. Improprietous and beautiful and urgent. Her mouth lifted into a wan smile. Relief and desire and fear, all resolving into the same intention. He knelt down and unfastened the garters and slid them down her legs.
He shrugged out of the suit jacket and hung it up in the closet.
She'd drawn her legs up to her chest. Her hair cascading like gold across the sheets.
"Take me like this," she whispered.
He was already hard and so he pressed into her. Annie bit her lip, brow furrowing. The angle was a little tight but she didn't appear to be in any discomfort. The skirts pooled between their bodies. He should have taken his shirt off first. She placed small kisses on his jaw, mouth, and cheeks, wrapping her arms around his neck.
Pulling out until just the head was inside of her and thrusting. Annie made a soft noise. Her eyes blue and lustful and a bit distracted. He leaned down and kissed along her lips to her neck. He braced a palm under her spine, keeping pace. Tension gathered behind his navel. Rather than struggle against the inevitable, he concentrated on pleasuring her. Mouthing the ridge of her clavicle, the swell of her breast popped out of her blouse and she gasped. Her fingers tangled in his hair, restless and urgent.
He sat up and lifted one leg under the ankle, fitting it over his shoulder.
The skirts fell back into her face. He uncovered her, gathering the fabric against her belly. She let her head fall back against the pillow with a snort. "I feel like a barmaid."
The idea clicked in his head and he sucked in a breath. Annie chuckled low in her throat. He could feel that too, in the rise and fall of her ribs and her muscles fluttering around him.
"Oh—is that what you like?" she whispered. "I can—wear this if you."
He pressed his forehead to hers. She got a hand on his nape, the other already snaking down her front until the skirts got in the way.
Amused, Eren simply bunched it up, pushing it aside to thumb the little twitching pulse. Whimpering, she caught his wrist. He glanced at her and she took a deep breath. He relaxed his touch and let her steer, tight, slick little circles. It didn't feel like he was doing much, yet her expression clouded, mouth upturned at the corners. Her eyes falling shut as she began to undulate. The skirts whispered over the bed. She bit her lip as he braced a hand beside her head and began to move.
His mind short-circuiting. He undulated into her before he came to crisis, slumping across her and slowly regaining composure. All in all he was the happiest dead man in Central Marley. Kissing a path to the corner of her mouth and brushing their noses together. Even if he didn't deserve this peace, he desperately wanted to hold on to it. Memories and a life beyond this vestige of hell.
She sat up. "The position. For my delicate constitution."
"I've never heard of such a thing." He frowned. "Are you OK?"
She nodded. "I never imagined this happening to me."
Eren understood all too well. The setting sun on her hair and lashes, the first time they'd truly been free. "You don't have to imagine anymore."
She looked at him in a way she rarely had. Pity for an ant under her boot, or simply endeared. She kissed him on the cheek. She brushed his hands away and stood. Hanging up her clothes in the small closet. She moved over to him, radiant in the light, warm and a little surer.
"Perhaps we could try some more, just to be safe."
He shed the rest of his clothes, joining her.
They got to know each other's bodies. It was different from the desperate rendezvous in Liberio or their fooling around before. No inevitable deployment to the front lines, where they'd be fighting to the death in an unwinnable circumstance.
He stayed with her until her breathing calmed. Then he got up and redressed, leaving her to sleep. He closed the door carefully behind him.
I'm trying to keep the peace between the simpler B plot + romance and political intrugue to avoid narrative imbalance/incongruity. I wish I had drawn out IV a bit and introduced Eren's time in Marley more gradually, but I don't want to throw all my ideas into one fic and then scramble in the nedt one. V will be the start of the juicier conflict. Here's a rough cut as an example:
It wasn't yet afternoon.
Eren looked at her. Delicate and vulnerable. He felt a terrific surge of affection for her. One of the toughest soldiers he'd ever known. Perhaps he didn't deserve her, yet she refused to let him go.
"What?"
He touched her face. "You're beautiful." Smoothing his palms down her sides. His lips on her brow. His mouth curled, an unfamiliar sensation. "I can't believe it."
Her eyes softened. They fell onto the bed, chuckling.
He was too weary to speak. When he laid his head along her thighs, she didn't push him away. Her hand slowly passed through his hair.
He dozed. When he stirred, the pattern of shadows over the room had altered.
She stirred.
"Did I wake you?"
Like before he was too keyed up to relax. He reached up to caress her face.
"No."
Annie kissed the inside of his wrist. His cheek moved to her abdomen. He kissed her clothed stomach. Hands slipping under the dress.
"How many?"
Annie hummed.
"Children." He rucked the dress over her thighs. "How many would you want?"
She was looking at him in that naked and nervous way. Her mouth opened and closed. When she finally spoke her voice was small, "I'm not sure."
Eren was relieved and disappointed in equal measure. But then, if he'd lost his mother that way he might feel different.
"We can wait."
He placed a hand on her shoulder. Annie tensed.
"I'm not saying I wouldn't." Eren could glean the edge in her tone. Her mouth trembling at the edges. He let his hand drop. "It would be a year, at least. Maybe more. I can't promise that, and if something happened to me—"
"—don't say that—"
"—you'd never forgive it."
Her eyes bored into him. Unlike her aura of indifference she was easy to read. Eren wasn't expecting this to be a simple conversation but he'd failed, in his desperation to be free, to consider she was just as pinioned as him to this future and its limitations, not just as civilians or Eldians. Both of them needed time to adjust, but he had no idea how to console her.
"My dad was about the age we are now, when he had his first son. Years after he was injected, he had me. It's probably not that different for us." A short, sharp snort of laughter escaped her. "Hey." Running his hands over her shoulders, forearms. She couldn't stop trembling. "Hey. Talk to me."
"Even if I can conceive," she said, in a soft, high voice he didn't recognize, "what effect would it have on the baby?"
Eren paused.
"Is it something you'd want, if you were able?" Her expression faltered. Bracing herself for a worse reaction. He felt powerless to assuage her. "I can't go back to my old life. That much is true." He took a breath and let it out. "I don't know what's going to happen to us. But I'm sure that you and I are not our fathers."
Annie turned, pushing her shoulder into his chest. He pulled her into a hug. With her head to his sternum she began to relax. She didn't return the embrace.
"It can't be like it was, for us. This has to be different."
He swallowed dryly. "It will be different."
Her mouth lifted into a wan smile. Relief and desire and fear, all resolving into the same intention. He leaned in and gently kissed her scalp, and she grasped the side of his neck and pressed closer.
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