She fucking. Hated. Eren Jaeger.

She hated every Goddamn inch of his smug, grinning face, from his aggravating green eyes to his shitty unkempt hair to his asshole smile. Half the time she genuinely considered strutting right up to him, pinning him to the table (which would take no effort) and ripping his teeth out, right in front of the other trainees. Honestly, she had no idea how it had gotten to this point. Even the sight of him could set her blood to boil. And he wasn't like that other fucker Kirschtein, who practically went out of his way to make you hate his shitty fucking guts. No, Eren Jaeger was such a little shitstain he didn't even know how much of a prick he was. He did it on accident. If that didn't deserve a Goddamn medal, then Annie Leonhardt didn't know what did.

He was always spewing shit about eradicating the Titans, how he had hope for humanity, how they could make a difference if they just kept training—God, however the hell she kept her composure when he opened his fucking mouth was a mystery to her. She wanted to choke him with her bare hands and scream in his ear that his dreams were nothing but a fucking blind, ignorant fool's wish. She hated him so much she almost scared herself. Almost.

"He's a nice guy, Annie!" Mina Carolina, the one person in the whole fucking world that kept Annie sane, had commented to her one night. "You should give him a chance, I think you two might actually get along really well."

"…give him a chance?" Annie had seethed. "We can get along? Mina, do you have any idea how asinine the shit that just dribbled out of your mouth sounded?"

Mina just giggled. "Wow, Annie, just fuck him already."

The look Annie must have given her sent Mina into an eruption of gut-clutching laughter that took several minutes to burn out.

"…I'm just going to pretend we never had this conversation," Annie had eventually sighed, storming out of the room. She'd rolled her knuckles into her eyes so hard she saw explosions of color behind her eyelids, frustratedly trying to wipe away the mental image Mina had conjured for her.

She fucking hated Eren Jaeger.

And they had been just been assigned as partners on their latest maneuver gear exercise.

This was a nightmare.

They had been assigned, as a pair, to maneuver through the forest on their gear, stopping at three checkpoints given to them on a map to a small flag posted at each checkpoint and refill at the gas canisters supplied there, before bringing all three flags to the finish area in a certain amount of time. It was meant to test speed, sense of direction, and teamwork. What it was going to really test was Annie's fucking patience.

She and Eren Shitface Jaeger had been flying between trees on their gear together for the past half-an-hour, and she wanted to strangle Shadis for not giving them blades on this exercise. She felt the urge to slit Eren's fucking throat every time he tried to initiate conversation, which was every two damn minutes. Or better yet, she wanted to cut one of his wires and watch his slack-jawed expression as he snapped his neck against the side of a tree. That might even make her laugh.

"So, did you ever get to go into forests like this as a kid?" Eren's voice drifted over, raised loud enough to be heard despite the distance between them and the rush of wind in their ears as they catapulted around the enormous trees. Even so, Annie ignored him, because she was not about to give that asshat the pleasure of engaging her in conversation.

A few moments of precious silence went by, interrupted only by the snapping of their Maneuver Gear wires shooting into the trees.

"…er, Annie?" Eren called over, unsure of whether Annie had heard him or not.

"Focus on the mission, Jaeger," Annie deadpanned without so much as a passing glance, struggling to keep her voice from shaking with frustration at having such a Goddamn waste of air as Eren Jaeger as her partner. "We're here to do our job, not tell campfire stories."

There was a brief pause, and Annie dared to hope that she'd succeeded in shutting him up.

"…well, yeah, but there's no reason we can't do both," Eren finally responded, causing Annie to spit out a breath of aggravation. "It encourages camaraderie, and all that other shit Shadis tells us to work on. Y'know, 'You maggots had better work better together than shit and a toilet or you can expect to turn into the former when you and your inbred trainee family gets munched by a fifteen-meter freak!' …and all that."

Eren had a surprisingly decent impression of Shadis, but the fact that he was trying to be funny only pissed Annie off even more. She was seconds away from throttling him right here in the middle of the air—and if she so much as glanced over at what was sure to be a shit-eating grin plastered all over his stupid fucking face, she knew she wouldn't be able to restrain herself.

"So, the question still stands. About the forest."

Oh for fuck's sake.

Annie gritted her teeth, her knuckles paling as her grip tightened on her gear handles. "I'm not going to have a conversation with you like we're not in the middle of a military exercise, Jaeger. Which, as you clearly haven't noticed, we are. So feel free to shoot your mouth off to your heart's content, but don't expect a response out of me."

There was another blissful, brief silence.

"Okay, I will," came Eren's reply.

Wait—what the fuck did he just say?

Then, much to Annie's incredulousness, he began to shoot off a full retelling of the time when he'd gone into one of the giant forests with his dad as a kid. Annie wasn't sure whether to be shocked at his audacity, awed by his capacity for shit-spewing, or just downright pissed.

As they continued through the forest together, she decided on all three.

By the time they arrived at the first checkpoint, Annie was about ready to rip her hair out.

Eren had been talking nonstop since they he'd first brought up his forest story, and Annie'd found herself praying to all three of the Wall deities—even Maria, who had to be chewing on the inside of her coffin by now—to let Eren get struck by a bolt of lightning, or get crushed by a falling tree, or something; anything to end his pathetic, useless, shitty life.

The checkpoint was an abrupt clearing in the middle of the forest, illuminated by small patches of light that filtered through the trees above. It was entirely empty save for a red flag tied around a wooden post, and a deserted cart containing a single cylindrical gas pump to refuel. Annie strutted over to the cart as she holstered her gear handles and unfastened her gas canisters, pulling both canisters out with either hand. She sat down against the cart and pulled down the refueling nozzle, fastening it to one of her canisters and letting the gas flow into the small silver tube. Her pants of exertion came out in frustrated puffs, as she pointedly kept her gaze at the farthest point from Eren Jaeger as possible. He leaned against the cart next to Annie, waiting for her to finish so he could refill his canisters. What amazed Annie was that he'd actually shut up for a damn minute, his breaths sounding much more defined than normal due to the extended muscle-straining with the maneuver gear. Well, fucking good. Let him stand there and pant himself to death, for all she cared. As long as she didn't have to hear another word out of his mouth, Annie was fucking peachy.

For God's sake, why did he feel the need to torture her with all his shitty blathering? He had his sister and coconut-headed friend to drown with his vomit-inducing jokes and childhood stories. It was pretty damn clear they both wanted to ride his dick anyway, so he might as well give them something to listen to while they did it.

…Annie immediately regretted that line of thinking, as it brought back the imagery Mina had produced for her during their conversation the other night. The imagery of Eren and Annie doing very, very carnal things to each other, which Annie's treacherous mind refused to be rid of. She was genuinely tempted to rake her fingernails across her eyes. Her eyebrow twitched in annoyance as she tightened her grip on the canister, her fingertips going red as they were pushed against the hard metal. She was so intent on getting the images out of her head that, for a moment, she didn't even notice the subject of said images leaning over her and waving his hand in front of her eyes.

"Annie? Aaaannie. Miss Leonhardt? Look, I know you're probably enjoying not talking to me, but your canister's going to explode if you fill it up anymore," Eren said with a look somewhere between concern and curiosity, snapping his fingers in front of her eyes.

Annie flinched, batting his hand out of the way with a frustrated grunt as she yanked the nozzle off of the canister. "Excuse me, I think your presence must have started to make me stupid by association," she replied coldly, starting to fill the other canister.

Eren chuckled, scratching the back of his head as he stood back up. "Hey, I'm the first one to admit that I'm not exactly a genius, but at least I can tell when my gas canister's about to explosively decompress."

"Fuck off," Annie snapped, shaking her head to the side to get her bangs out of her eye. "If you can't tell when to shut your mouth, you sure as hell can't expect me to be able to concentrate through your uncontrollable fountain of bullshit stories."

"Oh come on, don't tell me you didn't like the part where I fell off the tree and broke my leg."

"It was certainly the highlight."

Eren laughed in earnest, pushing Annie all but an inch away from murdering him on the spot.

He grinned at her, giving her a very good excuse to not look up at him. "Why don't you tell me about yourself, then? What kind of embarrassing childhood memories does the infamous Annie Leonhardt have in store?"

That was when Annie snapped.

In a single fluid motion, Annie pulled her gas canister off of the nozzle and swung it at the back of Eren's knee, hitting him with enough force and surprise to knock him off his feet. She casually stood up, tucking a strand of citrine hair behind her hair as Eren crashed to the ground, the wind momentarily knocked out of his lungs.

She stared down at him, her eyes frozen over with a biting anger.

"First of all, I repeat: fuck off. Second of all, I never had a damn childhood, let alone any memories worth holding onto. And third of all, even if I did have any, never in all of my fucking life would I even consider sharing them with such a little shit like you."

With that, she turned on her heel and strode away, reinserting the filled canisters to their fastenings. And she didn't realize it, but Eren's piercing green eyes were fixed on the back of her head with a mixture of confusion and sadness.

The trip to the second checkpoint was permeated by a hollow silence.

Annie had to admit that she was a bit annoyed at herself for having temporarily lost her self-control, and she was very annoyed at herself for having said far more than she'd meant to regarding her past. But she certainly wasn't annoyed at herself for finally lashing out at Eren; the fucker had deserved it, and getting chewed out seemed to have worked wonders on getting him to fucking shut up. Honestly, Annie would have even preferred for Shadis to scream obscenities in her ear for days than listen to Eren Jaeger shoot his mouth off again. How the fuck the other trainees could stand him was far beyond her understanding, though she figured it was most likely related to the general lack of mental resources endowed to the rest of the 104th. Hell, even the Arlert kid drooled over Eren, and he was the smartest guy in the whole damn division. It fucking pissed her off.

The checkpoint finally came into view, evidenced by a short break in the ocean of trees. Annie swung down, gracefully landing into a brisk walk over to the refueling cart. She didn't even glance over at the wooden post adorned with the second flag; she knew Eren would grab it, if he wasn't too busy feeling sorry for himself back there. The sudden mental image of Eren crying himself to sleep over Annie's previous outburst was simply too delightful for her to ponder, given that she probably wouldn't be able to keep her lips from edging into a thin smile. And she wasn't the type to smile.

Annie paused in her tracks just before reaching the cart. The lack of any sounds of motion behind her gave her the impression that something was… off. She tilted her head just enough to catch a glimpse behind her shoulder.

Eren Jaeger was nowhere to be found.

Quirking an eyebrow, Annie turned around, glancing around for her least favorite chocolate-haired jackass. She'd not so much as looked at him on their trip to this checkpoint, but she'd assumed he had following behind her, too busy sulking at having gotten chewed by her out to bother starting a conversation. As happy as Annie would have been to be rid of that little fuck, she knew that turning up without her partner would get her in some deep shit. But where the hell had he gotten off to? Had he just fallen behind her? Yeah, that was probably it. It certainly wouldn't surprise her if his maneuvering skills had turned out to be as lackluster as they'd appeared the first day of training, and he'd gotten himself tied in a knot around some branch.

She had just started to turn back around when someone appeared from behind the cart.

Eren Fucking Goddamn Bullshit Fucking Jaeger had beaten her here.

"Hey," he greeted lamely, his grin appearing a bit sheepish.

Annie rolled her eyes, storming past him in a newfound surge of aggravation without so much as a "piss off" in reply.

"Wait."

Annie was so surprised by the tone in Eren's voice that she almost didn't register the fact that he had just grabbed her wrist, freezing her in her tracks. But she did register it, and spun around, eyes widening marginally in anger at the fact that he had the fucking gall to touch her.

Then, she noticed the look on his face.

Eren was giving her this look, this I'm-being-serious-for-once-so-you-might-want-to-listen look, his normally spark-filled minty eyes glistening with a much more mellow shimmer.

"Look… I'm sorry for prodding you about your past earlier, that was unfair of me," he started, his fingers almost imperceptibly tightening around the fabric over her wrist. "I'm fully aware that my uncontrollable idiocy got the better of me, and I apologize."

Annie could only stare at this point. And, in the back of her mind, hope that she hadn't just heard the sound of her jaw hitting the ground.

Eren offered a brief, small smile. "I guess the only thing I don't really get is why you've always had it out for me, even though we've never really talked before. Although, I guess today's 'talking' doesn't really count, since it was almost entirely on my part. You've… always just had this animosity towards me, this kind of ice in your glare that you don't have with anyone else— er, sorry if I'm coming across as a bit poetic. Armin's been rubbing off on me."

Annie blinked.

"I asked Mina why you seemed to hate me so much," Eren continued, "and she had no idea. And she's your best friend—maybe your only friend—and if she couldn't figure out why, then I knew there wasn't anyone else who could. So… maybe you could shed some light on the situation?"

Annie really hoped she didn't need to wipe any drool off of her chin.

Had he actually just dropped the 24/7 asshole to routine to be fucking sincere for once?

Well, whatever. She snatched her arm away from his grip, her surprised expression completely washed over in favor of a hard glare. "Because you're the world's biggest prick, that's why," she snapped, almost unbelieving that she was bothering to bestow a response upon him. "And honestly, I'd much prefer for you to fuck off and go back to sulking like you were not ten minutes ago, instead of getting touchy-feely with me."

Eren quirked an eyebrow, appearing genuinely confused. "I wasn't sulking.
I just figured you'd rather not have me try to talk to you right after you'd put me in the dirt."

Annie snorted. "Congrats on figuring that one out—"

"And anyway, I don't believe that."

Annie blinked, disbelieving for a moment that he'd just interrupted her. Which, like everything that Eren Jaeger did, pissed her the hell off. "The fuck do you mean, 'you don't believe it'?"

Eren stepped forward. "I don't think you want me to fuck off."

Annie's frown deepened. "And why exactly is that?"

Eren grinned—but this time, it was a very self-sure, I-know-something-you-don't grin. "Because… I think you like me."

… what the fuck did he just say?

Annie's nostrils flared, as she struggled to hold back the urge to strangle him that boiled just beneath her skin. "What the fuck did you just say?"

Eren grinned that damn grin again, with another step forward. Annie was too busy seething to notice that the gap between them had diminished significantly. "You know, maybe I do know why you've always hated me," he said softly. "I think it's because you actually like me, Annie Leonhardt. You just can't stand the idea of suddenly having feelings for another human being for the first time in your life, and instead of expressing it, you pretended to feel the exact opposite so you wouldn't have to face the truth."

For the second time in the past minute, Annie was too stunned at something that had come out of Eren's mouth to speak.

Instead, she punched him square in the mouth.

Once again, Eren was knocked backwards into the dirt, now reflexively clutching his lip. But this time, Annie was too pissed off to leave it there. She dropped onto his prone form and pinned him down, forcing his wrists into the earth with her hands and, her figure pressing down on his, straddled his waist with her legs to keep his own from being able to move.

She stared down at him with an animalistic fury in her wide, frozen irises. He returned her look with a halo of curiosity in his eyes. They stayed that way for several silent, intense moments, before Eren finally opened his mouth, a simple question on his lips:

"Now what?"

Now what? Now what? There were a million things Annie wanted to do—she wanted to punch him, kick him, bite him, rip out his eyes, break his neck, snap every bone in his body until he was nothing but a broken heap on the ground. She wanted to pound him for every time he flashed the fucking grin of his, every time he made some not-so witty remark, every time he so much as looked at her—but far more than any of that, she wanted to…

She wanted to…

Oh, sweet Maria.

The fury etched into her face was slowly replaced by the expression of dawning realization, and Eren, seeing this, grinned his damn grin.

"Maybe I can help," he breathed, and, without warning, he leaned up and captured Annie's lips in his own.

It lasted for only a moment, Eren's split lip adding a metallic taste to his fiery kiss. Annie stared at his closed eyes, frozen in place, as she suddenly felt a new, intoxicating heat erupt in her veins—it wasn't the anger or rage or hatred that she felt for Eren, but something entirely unfamiliar.

And she loved it.

All too quickly, Eren pulled away, a knowing twinkle lighting up his viridian orbs—before, suddenly, Annie felt herself being thrown off of his prone body with enough force to flip her onto her back.

She stared up at Eren as he stood and dusted himself off, the whirlwind of disorienting emotions within her making her unable to react. "If you want to get back at me for that, you're gonna have to catch up!" he quipped, his voice filled with the charm of a laugh. With that, he took off at a run and sprung into the air, the newly refueled maneuver gear shooting him off into the trees.

Annie slowly sat up, unconsciously bringing her finger to her lips, as though it would help determine if that had actually just fucking happened. She gazed after Eren, her mind spinning and her heart racing. She was confused, curious, disgusted, pissed off… and something else. That feeling that had sparked within her a moment ago was glowing in the pit of her stomach, a million different urges pulling her in a million different directions.

No… they were all pulling her in a single direction.

Annie stood, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. She grabbed her gear handles from their holsters and squeezed the triggers, hoping that half a tank of gas would be all she'd need.

She'd misjudged only slightly.

The final puff of gas was just enough to break through the tree line surrounding the third checkpoint, but not enough to allow for a graceful landing. She braced herself and collapsed her legs into a rolling motion as soon as she skidded into the ground, but she still tumbled for several more feet than she'd have preferred. After coming to a rest, she stood and brushed the dirt off of her sleeves. The gear had made it intact, which was definitely—

"All this time, and you still have trouble landing?"

Annie whirled around, her eyes narrowing at the source of the voice.

It was none other that Eren God-Fucking-Damn-Him Jaeger, casually leaning against a tree with his arms crossed.

"Though, you came really close to beating me here, so I'll give you that," he said, once again flashing that stupid fucking grin. "I had just enough time to recover from my not-as-embarrassing landing and make it look like I'd been here for a while before you—"

He was interrupted by Annie's hand, which had driven itself against his throat after Annie closed the gap between them far faster than should have been possible.

She stared at him, her teeth gritted and eyes wide as her blood boiled with conflicting emotions all over again. Eren simply looked at her through curious forest-green lenses. He didn't struggle, he made no movement to free himself from Annie's grip—not, in all honesty, that he could have. He simply let her clench his throat, as though to tell her that whatever happened next was entirely up to her.

Slowly, enticingly, Annie's fingers drifted upwards, past his throat, to grab his chin. Without breaking her stare, she suddenly tugged it upwards, revealing the svelte muscles of Eren's neck.

"It's about time I taught you a few things, Jaeger…" she whispered, her nose nearly brushing his.

And then, she let the flames burn.

"What in the fuck is taking them so long?"

Jean's flat statement summed up the current thinking of the entire 104th Trainee Corps, who had been waiting at the finish area for their remaining two laggards for the better part of an hour. Some of them were lying against various tree trunks, some were sitting, some were sitting on the people who were lying down, and the rest stood. They'd been like this for longer than they'd bothered to keep track of, with someone occasionally interrupting the conversation to inquire about the absent pair.

Mina Carolina, the reluctant partner of Jean, spoke up as well. "Maybe we should go looking for them? They might have gotten lost… and Annie's liable to kill Eren for food."

Reiner snorted. "C'mon. You think someone like Annie wouldn't have the whole map memorized before they left? Nah, I doubt they're lost."

"Hey!" Christa suddenly interjected. "That doesn't mean something couldn't have happened!"

"That doesn't mean something did happen, either," Ymir deadpanned as she pinched Christa's nose, receiving an indignant squeal in return.

"I say we give them another ten minutes, then go looking for them," Reiner offered.

"That's what you said ten minutes ago," Mikasa snapped, her crossed arms tightening. Her expression was as dark as her eyes.

Armin cleared his throat awkwardly. "Look, I'm sure they're both fine," he offered, mostly trying to calm Mikasa. "They'll get here soon."

"And that's what you said. Twice."

Ymir chuckled quietly at Mikasa's obvious anger towards the situation, as Bertholdt sighed. "Look," he said, "getting angry about it won't do anything to help. Just be patient."

Mikasa shot him a look that could have killed a lesser man.

"I need to take a piss," Connie complained.

"And I'm hungry," Sasha added.

Jean glared at both of them. "No one gives a shit."

Sasha huffed, returning his glare. "Aren't you a ray of sunshine."

Thomas pinched the bridge of his nose. "This is ridiculous."

Mina responded to that with a well-aimed elbow to the ribs. "Excuse me? These are our friends we're talking about."

"I know, but—"

"There they are!" Armin interrupted, pointing into the trees.

Everyone's head turned to follow Armin's gesture, and there were various sounds of collective relief as Eren and Annie finally came into view. The two of them landed at nearly the exact same time, tucking their gear handles back into their holsters as the rest of the division crowded around them, pegging them with questions about where they'd been and what in the hell had taken them so long. They made their way through the crowd, dodging the various questions, until someone blocked their way.

"Guys, where have you—" Mina started to inquire, before she caught a glimpse of their current appearances. Annie's hair, out of its typical bun, was strewn all around her face, with Eren's not looking much tidier. Their uniforms were haphazardly tucked in and webbed with wrinkles, the belts buckled loosely and Eren's boots on the wrong feet.

"What exactly happened to you two?" She asked, a single eyebrow quirking upwards.

Then, to her shock, Annie fixed a wicked grin on her.

"Let's just say," the blonde replied, exchanging a mischievous glance with Eren, "that I took your advice."

A/N: Well, this story was a ton of fun to write. An enormous thank you to Dpraven and Magery for the fantastic beta-reading, and to all of you who read this story. I haven't posted in a while, so I wrote this as a welcome-back gift to you all. Please leave a review to let me know what you thought, your feedback means a lot to me.

-Steiner