"in the closet" for Rivamika if you're feeling it :)
I felt it. :)
*
“Seven minutes in heaven!” Sasha yells in her face, the scent of beer invading her nose. Mikasa thinks she must have spit on her face as well, but the thought doesn’t get far: the closet door slams just inches from her nose. She recoils. Before she can even form another thought, there’s a click. She grabs the doorknob and tries to turn it to no avail.
As she bangs on the door with a closed fist, she cries, “What kind of psycho puts a lock on the outside of a closet door?!” There’s laughter on the other side: Connie and Sasha, drunk off their asses, obvious in their enjoyment of this cruel prank. She slams her forehead to the wood, still tugging at the doorknob.
“Someone you’ve decided to be friends with,” comes a deep voice behind her. Mikasa jerks away from the door - heart thudding in her throat, half-convinced that she’s about to be stabbed - when she realizes what Sasha said: a game that requires two players. She turns, but her eyes haven’t adjusted to the dark. There’s a thin stream of light coming from under the door, barely illuminating the space.
She does recognize the voice after taking a breath: Levi Ackerman, star athlete, top of their class, and thorn in her side. To be honest, they rarely interact, but there’s just something about him that made her skin prickle. She has the same feeling now, especially when she turns and finds him leaning against the wall but a few feet away. His arms are crossed over his chest, shoulders tense: his entire being radiating the irritation she too felt.
There are many questions she could ask in this moment. She decides on - and snaps -, “What are you doing here?” Her eyes adjust to the low light; she sees the scowl marring his attractive (damn it) face, a piece of hair hanging just between his eyes. He reaches up to rake a hand through his hair, pulling it back in place.
“I decided I needed a break and thought this closet would be a nice place to do it.” For a moment, she believes him: he isn’t the social type, and her question was meant to also apply to the fact that he was at a party at Sasha’s, of all places. Sure, it was a good location (out in the country, away from neighbors who would call the cops on them), but not a place where she’d expect to see him. Of course, it only takes another moment to realize he’s being sarcastic. She mirrors his scowl. He huffs and continues, “Isabel dragged me here. Told me I needed to stop jerking off alone in my room on Friday nights.“
As soon as the words leave his lips, his face shifts. She can tell he didn’t mean to say that second part. Mikasa snorts and claps a hand over her mouth to stifle laughter. She then lowers it enough to ask, "Does that mean you sometimes jerk off with someone else? Your friend Farlan, maybe? Or -”
“She has a shitty sense of humor,” Levi snaps. His arms tighten across his chest and his jaw clenches. He opens his mouth like he’s going to say more before closing it again. He turns his head, and she allows herself to appreciate the line of his profile.
“Then what do you do?” She leans against the door, arms at her side, fingertips brushing against the grain of the wood.
“We’re stuck in here for another five minutes,” he says. Mikasa blinks, confused. She realizes that he’s trying to change the subject. Why, she has no idea. No point in pressing him about his Friday nights.
“Probably more. Sasha and Connie will probably forget that they forced us in here.” Levi huffs out a sigh in response, raking a hand through his hair again. He says nothing and crosses his arms again. She finds herself mirroring his posture, slouching and sliding down the door a bit. Silence falls between them. Someone shrieks when walking past the door.
She realizes that, without meaning to, the slump moved her just close enough to barely brush her tights-clad need to nudge against his jeans….and thigh. The pants are fitted, so she can feel the heat of him through the material. If he notices - he has to have noticed - he doesn’t make a move. She decides, then, to keep it there. Maybe slide down the door more to press it more firmly. She’s just cold: that’s all it is. He doesn’t react. She knows he feels it, but he doesn’t do or say anything.
It happens then: the prickling underneath her skin, starting from the top of her head and shimmying through her limbs, lighting up her fingertips and curling her toes. It’s more intense than it’s ever been. She shivers from the feelings skittering along her spine. Her fingers clench into fists, and she wants to leave, to run away, to get out of the suddenly stifling space, because it frightens her: the reason why she never gets close to him.
There is a very long moment where neither of them move, one where she scarcely takes a breath. Then, it happens: the brush of something against her bare forearm. She tenses before realizing what it is, and then it’s gone. An instant of the simple touch of fingertips, warm yet enough to feel like it left a brand on her arm. She breaks out in goosebumps and draws in a gasp that she hopes is soft enough to go unnoticed (while hoping at the same time that it didn’t).
“You’re always so tense around me,” he says in a low voice. “Why is that?”
She swallows, her mouth suddenly dry. She tries to wet her lips with a quick swipe of her tongue. “I’m not,” she whispers, as though they aren’t alone and someone could hear them over the noise of the party. The words came out before she could think of a better response. She cringes at how terrible of a response it is.
“So you’re always like this,” he says, the words sounding louder this time. Not because he’s raised his voice, Mikasa realizes, but because he’s closer. She takes in another breath through her nose and pushes it out with great effort. If she held it in, she would likely never let it out: not here, at least. Even so, exhaling does not lessen the tension imbuing her body.
The words hang between them after that, the air starting to crackle as well. ‘I’m not,’ she wants to repeat, but the words would be even less convincing than before.
His touch returns to her arm, heightening her senses so suddenly that she feels dizzy. When Levi says, “Sasha had some interesting things to share in her grossly drunken state -” she can’t bear to hear the rest. She cuts him off: not with a hand to his mouth or words of denial, but with her own lips.
It isn’t soft like she might have imagined - oh, fuck it, had imagined - late at night when she was alone (along with many other actions that would stem from a simple kiss): it’s a clash that he welcomes, meeting her with the intensity she gives and he accepts. His hand wraps around her arm instead of a simple touch, the feeling hotter than before against her skin.
But it’s all shorter than she anticipated, shorter than the scenes created in her mind, because the door behind her is ripped open with a loud laugh. They tumble out together, falling back into Sasha, who is too uncoordinated to even think of catching them.
So they fall, him landing on her, in front of all the people there. Someone cheers - Isabel, probably, she thinks - though the room doesn’t go completely silent like she expects. Then again, the roaring in her ears and the beat of her heart in her throat would drown out everything if she let it: silence or otherwise.
And…that’s it. He gets off her, brushes himself off, and walks away. She wants to get up and hit him for doing all of that but has no chance to as Sasha helps her up. The smell of beer on her breath invades Mikasa’s senses again, her loud voice distracting, and she doesn’t catch the brief look he gives her over his shoulder.
