Title: What Binds Us

Ratings: Varies from T to M

Summary: Like treading on thin ice, that string could snap and break. But it doesn't.

Disclaimer: Hajime Isayama's

When Mikasa first moves into the Yaeger's household, she is just but nine. And nine is unfortunately, quite a number not so favorable at all. She shifts uncomfortably to her side as she stands in the corner of the small living room. She makes a mental note to remember the tiniest details the house has: the scent of gardenias coming from the dining room, the partly opened window by the sink, the creak of the wooden floorboard when she steps on it, the way Carla lectures Eren as she was kneeling before him, running her fingers through his boyish hair, then clutches his shoulders as her eyes dart him questioning yet motherly stares.

"Eren," she seethes, her voice firm yet shaky. "Promise me you'll never do something like that ever again."

"Mom—"

"Eren!" her voice rises and for a moment, it makes Mikasa freeze. Carla's eyes cannot contain anymore and so she bursts into tears. "Why do you always have to be stubborn? Can't you just obey what your parents say?"

They are all like that for a moment; Mikasa standing uncomfortable before the two of them, Eren preventing his tongue to go loose, and Carla, bearing the weight mothers always carry with young and naughty boys. Grisha leaves the three of them and prepares the extra mattress and blankets to let.

Mikasa clutches the red put upon her neck; it is reassuring and safe. She feels its warmth encapsulating the whole of her, and Eren's smell overwhelming all her doubts.

She looks at Eren and he looks back at her. She feels red filling up the white in her face as Eren stares into her direction. She quickly diverts her stare to the floor instead.

"Mikasa," he whispers, as faint as a fairy's light kiss but to Mikasa, it was the clearest thing she has ever heard.

"Wh—what?" Carla leans in towards Eren so she could hear him.

"Mikasa." He clears his throat. "They were going to take her, they're monst—"

Carla cuts him by pulling him into an embrace; it is partly done because she loves her son very much, and partly because she wants to shove all the hate that blossomed from who-knows-where inside the young boy. "Well, they won't be taking her away, right?" she says through her sobs.

Carla pulls away from the hug and wipes off the tears from her face. Eren holds her hand and she smiles in response. She turns away from him and stands up from her current position. "And you, my dear," she faces Mikasa. "make yourself at home."

Mikasa's eyes hold the faintest stardust that is miles away from visible sight, but it burns and dances with hope. She breathes the dew of late summer rains, and cries as Eren holds her wrist and leads her home; their home.

The moment she is washed off the stained blood and steps out of the bathroom, she cannot help but feel uncomfortable once more. She is stripped off of her pink pastel duster and loosely buttoned sweater. Eren lends her his clothes for the night.

"That will do," Carla says as she puts a finger under a chin as she studies the little girl. "We'll wash your clothes tomorrow then we'll be off to town to buy some fabrics. Do you know how to sew?"

"A little. My mom taught me a few stitches." She feels the texture of Eren's clothes make contact with her skin. She then lets her fingers reach the red scarf once more.

"I sew that one." Carla says, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "Eren helped in stitching too. But he's just stubborn."

Mikasa looks up from her scarf to Carla.

"I know I've said this before, but make yourself at home, Mikasa. This is now your family."

She blushes at her remarks. For a split second, she is convinced that the world has abandoned her, that rocks are to be thrown at her and it would scar her skin and mark down through her bones, but now she is sheltered by all the love from a family she barely even knows.

"Thank you, Mrs. Yaeger."

That night, they make sure that all the doors are securely locked, and all windows closed. They cannot afford another breakthrough from strangers.

Grisha takes out their extra mattress, blankets and pillows. There are just two sleeping rooms in the house so both Mikasa and Eren should make do with Eren's room. Mikasa being someone new and still terror-stricken and not to mention a girl, gets to sleep on Eren's bed. Eren on the other hand, sleeps on the floor and helps Grisha setting up with his bed.

She settles herself on the bed and pulls the blanket over her. Eren is still shuffling underneath his covers as Grisha and Carla stand by the door.

"It's been a long night." Carla says as she holds a candle with one hand and the other one clutching the doorknob. "Sleep tight, you two."

The click of the doorknob is followed by a loud roguish yawn. "Hn, good night, Mikasa." He says through his yawns.

She closes her eyes for a few seconds, "Good night, Eren." They doze off to sleep.

A few hours later, Eren is awakened by soft whisper-like sobs. He rubs his eyes ruefully and sits himself up shifting his weight to his arms. "Mikasa?"

"Ahh," she brushes off the tears staining her face. She is clearly awake, and has been crying for quite some time. Hours, maybe? She pulls up her knees to her chest and hugs her, her fingers bury through her flesh. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you. I—I, uh, I'm just—"

"It's okay. That why Mom agreed we both sleep here. She said you might have nightmares."

"It's not nightmares." She mumbles.

He kicks off the blanket and stands up. It takes him quite some time for his eyes to adjust in the dark, but Mikasa is clear to him. She is frail and soft and weak at the moment. He sits at the corner of the bed and places a hand on his mouth as he yawns. "You have me." Is what he says. "You also have mom and dad. We're your new family. And this is your home. You can stop crying now."

She nods at what he says. Somehow, she stops crying when Eren tells her so. "Thank you."

He climbs and makes his way under the sheets. "Could you scoot over?"

She scoots over to the side and lets Eren adjust to his side of the bed. She lies back down on the bed with Eren.

"I still think it's unfair, you know, with you getting to sleep on my bed."

"I'll sleep down there, if you want."

"Nah, no need. We could just share."

Eren quickly falls asleep while Mikasa studies him despite in the dark. He is brown hair and green eyes and playful grins and raised voice and haughty stares and obnoxious remarks and grass stains and dirt-and-sweat-and-orange scents. Unconsciously, she places a soft hand through his chest and feels his heart. He is, she adds, a vibrant beating heart.

"There were three of them;" that she is sure off.

There are three of them, three monsters who cut off the thinnest ropes she is tied upon. One, killed her dad, the other her mom, the other attempted to do the same to Eren.

What she sees are: blood and red smeared on the floor, on the men's hands, on her mother's sewing scissors, on her father's chest, on the crest of her mother's face. The three men bear eyes filled with malice and a lingering fear that is imprinted down in the very soul of her.

Then, as swift as the wind, she is knocked out off bare consciousness.

She awakes in a place she doesn't recognize. The men must have brought her there. At the moment, Mikasa is not too stupid to take note of obvious details; she cannot scream or shout for any help since the place is probably a remote area. She cannot run for her hands are bound behind her. She is just but a helpless girl who is in forlorn and pain.

"Look at her," says the man sitting by the table.

The other man approaches her and shoves her to her back with his feet. Her stomach screamed in pain but she is too pained herself, she cannot bring herself to react at all. "Pretty face, but she is all too young."

"Pervert," the first man seethes through his teeth. "She's an Oriental, and they are quite a price. We'll sell her off to the black market and let a pervert have her then we'll have sweet fortune."

"That sounds nice."

"Nice my ass." He scoffs. "You killed the woman; I said you are only allowed to kill the man. She's the one who would have cost the fortune. She's pure Oriental."

The man besides Mikasa chuckles nervously. "She is a beauty anyway." He leans down to study Mikasa's face intently. "She'll still do."

There is a knock on the door.

It happens all too fast for Mikasa to fully register what is happening. The boy standing before the door is all frightened and appeared what seemed cold then all of a sudden, he launches for the man and sticks a rusty knife through his chest. A few minutes later, he is hovering over the other man and repeatedly stabs on his torso. Blood drapes all over the place.

Mikasa thinks she has never seen too much blood in just one night.

He kneels beside her and cuts the rope that ties her hands. "You're Mikasa, right?"

She nods.

"I'm Eren. You know Dr. Yaeger? Well, he's my dad. He was supposed to pay you a visit for a check-up but he found your place a complete mess."

She rubs her wrists; there are marks left by the tight grip of the rope. "There were three of them."

"Wh – what?"

The door bursts open and a man stands before them, terror-stricken and somewhat stuck in his place by what he has seen.

"Wh—what have you done?" he whimpers. "Yo—you did this? You rascals." He breathes hard through his gritted teeth.

The man eyes the two of them then Eren looks back at the man. He has placed down the knife awhile ago after cutting. Eren quickly dives for it but the man was quicker than he is. He brings Eren up to the air, clutching him by the neck.

"You killed them!"

"Eren," Mikasa tests his name in her tongue, but her voice is raspy, inaudible even.

Eren's face scrunches at the pain; he tries to untangle the hands gripping his neck, but it is of no avail. "Fight," he says through limited air. "If you don't fight, you lose."

Mikasa thinks she has seen too much blood. But she doesn't know that there would be more blood splutters and it is because she has held a knife and a rueful boy tells him to fight.

When Mikasa first has it, she thinks that she is sick. Putting aside the dreadful night, blood is associated with being sick, right? Or so she thinks.

It is a late afternoon that day; Mikasa has been living with the Yaegers for almost a year. Carla asks her to wash the dishes as she pours out some berries in a bowl of cream. At the moment, Mikasa is not feeling well. She feels torn and twisted inside. Her appetite is just the same and the food doesn't taste funny or weird; it is just her insides not working well.

"Mikasa?" Carla looks down at her.

She looks back at her with unknowing eyes. "Yes, Mrs. Yaeger?"

"Are you okay? You look quite pail today."

She nods politely. "Yes, I'm fine."

Truth be told, she is not even the slightest to being fine. Whatever it is inside, it is killing her. She does not wish to bother Carla or any of them with her wimpy cries since she's already bothered their dear quiet lives. It is when she walks away from the sink to place the dishes in the rack does Carla know why Mikasa is not feeling well that day.

She walks near Mikasa and kneels down to be as tall as her size. She smiles dearly at Mikasa and holds her wrists. "I'll help you with that."

Mikasa looks at her and asks her through her grey pools what is happening.

"It is okay," Carla assures her. "It happens when little girls turn to ladies."

When she steps out of the bathroom, Mikasa is paler than she is before. It doesn't frighten or terrify her just as much as when she sees the blood smeared at the floorboard of her home when her parents are killed though. She just wonders and wonders: where does all the blood come from? She doesn't know if Carla is telling the truth of being a lady. She thinks it is a rather funny thing to say, considering that ladies and grown-ups know a lot of things while Mikasa knows not even less than half of the world and its truths.

Later that night, Mikasa does not share a bed with Eren. She is too scared of him seeing the blood has she tossed and turned too much. She is still too embarrassed with the whole thing, and she does not wish to be reminded of it. Eren on the other hand, is convinced that maybe Mikasa is now recovering from her nightmares; Carla is quite happy of the disposition the two of them are putting, thus making it easier for her to talk to the two of them about certain things.

She accidentally pricks her fingers with the needle. She sucks at the blood.

Mikasa usually pricks her index fingers with a fine needle when her mother teaches her some stitching. Someday, she will do all the mending of her clothes, and knit some sweaters for when the weather is cold, and do some purl and cross and crochet stitching.

It feels the same with Carla; after all, she learns to consider her as a mother.

Sometimes, Mikasa thinks that Carla has done a lot compared to her own mother. She tries to shove the idea away; it is not her mother's fault, nor Carla's, nor hers.

It is Eren's parents who gave Mikasa the talk. Once in a while, during the course of their conversation, a light blush would creep to her cheeks. She tries to hide it by pulling the scarf up to her nose.

Of course, Carla does not fail to notice this. And she knows at that age, Mikasa is yet but a child, but she thinks that her son is whom she is thinking of.

"You love someone, and you trust him; with your everything and all." Grisha says.

Mikasa blushes more, and Carla can't help but smile at the thought. And as Mikasa blushes, she feels a thousand needles prickling her all over.

"See you later, Eren," is what he hears in his dreams.

In his dreams, there is the surge to fight and flickers of vengeance from humanity. But when it snaps, he is quickly in another dreamscape.

What he sees are constellation of black tamed hair all too short for a pretty girl-child like herself; it frames the corners of her face and her chin too nice, pink chapped lips that are slightly parted as words escape through her lips and small smiles playfully tugging at the corners, and red. Endless red.

"Are you alright?" Mikasa asks him, as he awakes from his dream.

His eyes flicker for a few moments. He shifts uncomfortably under the covers as he tries to understand what he has seen. "Hn, I think so." He rubs the nape of his neck as a small candle stands at a stool near the bed.

"How long was I out?"

"Hours. You slept all throughout the day."

He runs his hands through his stressed face. Surely he has not been sleeping that long. They are in the middle of the experimentation and he knows that he better brace himself for further interrogations from Hanji.

"Why aren't you still asleep? It's already late." Eren says, facing Mikasa as he manages to look outside the window.

"I just thought on looking up on you."

Eren scoffs at her remarks. It is just Mikasa being Mikasa. Sometimes, he just wants Mikasa to stop tailing her, maybe find her own pace. But then again, without even fully acknowledging it at all, he does not want that idea, so he shoves it from his mind unconsciously.

He looks at her; she is fiddling at the loose hem of the scarf that is warmly wrapped around her neck. Then he is reminded of the dream; the scarf. He looks at her hair. It is short, like her hair in his dream. He closes his eyes and tries to remember what it was back then. Mikasa back then is of pink dress and warm sweater and sweet little daughter-like and kisses of sweet rainwater and gardenia scent.

He sighs heavily.

"Eren?"

"Hm?" he raises an eyebrow.

"What are you thinking?"

He shakes his head. "Nothing. It's just—" he hesitates.

"What?"

"Nothing." He repeats.

Eren is not sure if he will tell Hanji or Levi or even Armin or Mikasa of the dreams with her in it. He has been passing through weird dreams, and perhaps, these might be the memories his father is referring to; the memories that are somehow forgotten as the syringe sinks deep to Eren's skin. But it is inevitable.

They are skin to bare skin and hearts against beating hearts. His teeth dig in deep through her moon-kissed skin and she leaves him a nervous trail of kisses. She kisses away everything she is afraid to put into words; so does he. She can hear his heavy breaths clouding her as he hovers on top of her. Mikasa stares at his teal eyes and cups his face and draws it near hers.

She kisses him, and he kisses her back. The warmth of her body brushes against his, and it is enough to make him breathe so fast. She swears that through the kisses they give and the contacts made, there are soft whimpers and cries that secretly escape from his lips. She breaks apart, not for air, but for words.

"I love you," is what she says.

Eren does not say anything. He isn't surprised or disappointed though. He pulls up from atop of her, and she sits up.

It hurts, Mikasa thinks. She casts her net on a hope-filled sea, only to her dismay that all of it slips off through the holes it bear. But she does not tell him that. She claims that she loves him, and she says it because he needs to hear it so.

They are like that for a moment. Not moving, nor touching. Both of them reaches out for the other, and yet they are a universe and eternally apart. She holds back the tears, but it slowly paints her face and makes the already pale canvass duller.

"Someday," he whispers. "we'll have it. We'll have a home, and I'll be able to stay with you. I promised you that, remember?"

Mikasa does not respond. It is an occasion so rare to hear Eren speak of his promises; he does not need to speak of it again. He means it, no matter what. He lies back down on the bed and pulls her back under the covers. Tiny whimpers escape her rough lips, and he tucks her beneath his chin as he holds her near through her waist. She places a hand on his chest, something she does out of habit that started when they are still but children. She does it to assure her that he is alive. He is with her, he is of mirth and deprived laughs, of gossamer thoughts, of boyish grins and mother's worries, of snipped and stitched, teeth and bones and everything in between. He is Eren and she holds him dearer than anything else, more than her own life; he is after all, her life.

He holds up her chin and kisses her. "I'm sorry," he whispers then kisses the crown of her head. "But everything is out of place right now."

She nods. "I know."

Before she dozes off to sleep, there are a few tears that race down her eyelids.

First, Armin takes off his shoes and stands before the shoreline. They watch behind him, as the water runs through his toes and how it tickles the sole of his feet.

He starts chuckling and kicking and the water starts splashing around. "What are you two waiting for?" he calls out. "The water's fine!"

Armin leans down and cups a handful of seawater and sprinkles it in the air.

They eagerly approach the shoreline and look at the sea; it is far beyond that what they know. It is the promise that was once seen as unreachable to them, but they have reached it. And all they need to do is to grasp it harder and draw it nearer to their hearts.

What Armin has described back then, and what he has shown them in his picture books are far too different than what it really looks like. The sea is abundant and interminable, like the universe itself with a thousand clusters of lost stars. It has millions of shades and hues of blues and greens and all the colors combined. It reflects the skies above as it, with grace, ebbs and flows through the wind.

Eren looks at Mikasa; she is looking at the horizon and she seems amazed by how it seems endless. She still plays at the runs on the hem of her scarf. He laces his fingers through her hands and it awakes her for a while. "Hey," he offers her a small smile.

She smiles back at him and squeezes his hand. "It's lovely." She whispers.

"I know." Eren places a soft kiss on her forehead and he encircles her with an embrace. He unwraps the scarf from her neck then adjusts it securely. This is what binds us together.

"Thank you, Eren," she cups his face and he feels her soft breath tingling through his neck. "for everything."

He dips his head and kisses her with all she ever needs to know. He spills all and everything, the world and the seas.

"What are you guys doing? Come on!" Armin shouts at them.

"Look who's jealous!" Eren teases as he pulls Mikasa toward the sea.

"You can kiss each other for as long as you want, just don't waste this moment. We've been longing for this ever since!" Armin smirks back at them, making Mikasa's face burn bright red.

She feels tingles running down her spine as the sea clutches on her feet then up to her ankles, then through her calf.

They splash and kick and pull each other down; they were sea-soaked and of gasps and chuckles and roguish laughs. The three of them remain like that for the rest of the day, soaking under the sun like they have never seen something as abundant as the sea before.

A/N: Fuck present tense; I'm so not used to it. Omfg, that's a first. I don't really upload fanfics, and this is the first time, though I've written some before. Is it that trashy, with all the exploration on sexuality and depictions on their relationships? Gosh, I'm so conscious right now.