Surrender: Annie/Mikasa-

I think this is canon-verse. Is pretty AU-sounding til the end, tho.

She remembers that night clear as day, remembers the hot skin, warm lap— the soft plead that still rings in her ears. "Please, Annie . . . please; be my girlfriend."

She remembers how a warmth spread in her chest, but a force tightened around her throat, and how that was strangely

bittersweet.

Her forehead was against hers, dark, inky eyes so openly honest, gazing at her with a gentleness that was disarming. They weren't usually like that. Hard, steely and veiled, and it was uncomfortable that they changed so much in these . . . conditions. She couldn't look at them, so she didn't, didn't bother; she turned her head, staring down at the red and black checkered comforter.

They were in her dorm room and Annie recalls wondering why she was there rather than why she was in her lap. She could feel Mikasa's fingers on her hips, could feel the heat of her body, and the beating of her heart because they were just so close.

Erratic, fast, jumpy— that was essentially the way Mikasa's heart went, and truthfully, it made Annie feel somewhat ill; she was surrendering. And that was unnerving because she had thought she knew what Mikasa was made of— iron —and she thought that Mikasa had control, and she thought that Mikasa would never show this part of herself to her since Mikasa would never surrender.

She thought that they were the same, but she knows now that they aren't because Annie doesn't surrender, won't succumb— won't submit, and especially not to Ackerman.

They had a thing. A something. A something were they knew each other's feelings and desires, and they would act on them sometimes, but would never go too far (because they couldn't surrender, they wouldn't, and most definitely not to each other.)

They wouldn't say what they knew they needed to. Yet Mikasa was saying it then, soft-voiced, a different soft than usual— a softness that still reminds her of the hoodies her father used to buy her before he began walking with a limp and she felt she hadn't deserved them anymore . . .

Mikasa's head tilted forward onto her shoulder. Annie could feel her ragged breaths on her neck and it was almost as though she were crying. She might've been. She's already surrendered.

"I can't hold on," Ackerman told her, gripping her hand with the steel everything else about her was currently lacking, words resigned, and tired, and longing, and everything that Annie was feeling, everything she craved, still craves,

but absolutely

would not let herself fall in to. "And I don't care. I want you and I want to give in to you."

I want to give in to you.

"So be with me, please."

Again, that surprisingly pleasant sensation travelled throughout her and again, something seemed to

strangle her.

She knew what the former was— her heart— and she knew what the latter was— her will.

She knew which one mattered less to her. Sighing, and aching and marveling at her own strength, Annie fell back on her hands, sliding out of Mikasa's lap.

"Can't." And this was said strongly and firmly with an air of indifference to boot, but she couldn't even look at Mikasa then, or even manage more, and that was just as unsettling as it were comforting.

"You can't," Mikasa repeated flatly, and Annie nodded because she couldn't say it again as the other girl merely stared at her with an expression that was startlingly as poker-faced as she. In another beat, she asked, "Why not?"

Annie shrugged (because if Ackerman hadn't understood that what they had was just some thing and not something, then how could she understand this?) and Mikasa's eyebrows did a little thing that expressed her hurt for just a moment, but didn't she know— didn't she know that Annie never bothers to speak unless she cares, and it isn't her fault that Mikasa's gotten something out of their "some thing," that she had to be so weak and say it, and that Annie isn't and won't, even though she . . .

. . . feels so utterly the same.

For the second time, Annie wondered why she was there, in a place that made her feel

trapped,

and that time, she remembered. She remembered Mikasa's gentle touch to her arm, and how all she saw when she looked over her shoulder was beauty; she remembered the quiet whisper in her ear, "Come over, later, would you?"

Usually, with that came rolling under the sheets since they had "some thing," since it wasn't a problem, since they were strong and wouldn't think of that as more, and if they did, they certainly wouldn't tell each other that they thought of it as more . . .

Pulling her scarf over her nose and seeming to

shrink

into herself, Mikasa asked her with a slight laugh bordering on bitter, "Was it stupid of me to request that . . . ?"

Annie wasn't sure whether she should nod or shake, so she did neither and shrugged again.

Louder, Mikasa continued, "Was it stupid of me to be doing this with you?"

Annie stayed silent because even someone on Connie-level of idiocy knew she was best at silence, even though she could've winced at how pointy Mikasa's words were, stabbing, pricking, jabbing.

"Was it stupid of me to decide that I want to be human and have a heart?"

Her throat was tightening for a different reason now.

"Was it stupid of me to use that heart to love you?"

Won't she stop?

"Tell me, Annie, was it stupid of me—?"

"Say any more," she uttered through clenched teeth (clenching them was the only how to suppress the quaver she felt creeping into her voice),"and I'll leave."

Mikasa met her gaze head on, mouth still hidden by the crimson of her muffler. The pause wasn't nearly as long as she would've liked.

" . . . Annie . . . w—"

"I'm leaving." Annie swung her legs over the edge of the bed, something

angry

brewing in her stomach, something

heavy

settling in her heart, but a hand yanked her back by the hood, and even that didn't make her feel as

choked

as earlier.

"I wasn't going to say anything about that!" Mikasa snapped briskly, nearly shouting, words cutting the air, and Annie thought that, if the words were manifested, they'd be jagged and red, like her scarf.

Within her eyes, (murky and difficult to decipher, but Annie was skilled) was desperation, and it was slight, but it was there, and that was so pitiful, but nonetheless, it made Annie so relieved.

She was stupid to draw a double-edged blade so close where she could hardly maneuver it, where it could easily cut her too.

Mikasa was just looking at her, but her expression had changed and that expression was much too tender, and Annie wasn't weak so she didn't look at weak. Her eyes met the checkered comforter again.

"What do you want, then?"

The mattress gave a little squeal, concaving faintly at a spot before her, and then something brushed with her legs. When she took a glance, Mikasa was there, sitting back on her knees.

Tucking a lock of obsidian behind one ear (the same lock Annie's fingers had been twitching for herself), she told her in a voice mellow in contrast to her earlier outburst, not at all sharp-edged, not edged at all, truly, "I wanted to ask . . . if you would let me kiss you?" Just one, because I feel like you'll leave me anyway— Annie could hear it.

Annie stared at her, the air of sincerity glowing around her difficult to look away from, to ignore or disregard. And she was confused. Why would she ask that of all things? Why would she ask at all? They usually didn't request; what was permission to them, to each other, when they only just did because they didn't care about one another enough— or at least that's what they tried to portray.

"You were going to ask?" said Annie, because she had to clarify, however she instantly wished she hadn't, as her voice had become fainter than Mikasa's.

She wondered what Mikasa had heard. She wondered if, in Ackerman's ears, her question had been mocking, or wry, or challenging (or maybe she was afraid of No, afraid of I'm not going to let you), because slowly, the raven-headed girl tugged the garment away from her mouth, and slowly, she leaned forward on one arm, the other snaking around Annie's neck.

"Of course not . . ."

Mikasa's lips were soft, and her hands were warm, but they always were, always were, and was that why, always why the instant they touched her like this, her heart would stammer like that?

Like it wasn't hers, like it had it's own desires, and own longings— like it belonged to someone else?

Hands grazed across her stomach, across her hips, lips on hers and over hers and inside hers, and when Mikasa touched her, she could feel herself cave, feel her body yield, relent, let go, and this was why, this was why, this was why, this was why she couldn't . . .

She was pushed gently against the bed, lying on her back, and Mikasa was over her, on top of her, and she hated it, and she loved it, the way the other girl caressed her face, and brushed away the blonde, and told her, "You're so beautiful."

You know, so are you.

And Annie yanked off her scarf, and Mikasa pulled off her hoodie, and their lips met again,

and Annie kept falling and falling,

and it were as though each kiss brought the white flag closer and closer to her fingers,

and Mikasa murmured between breaths, "What are you afraid of, Annie?"

but she wasn't afraid. She wasn't, she just wanted to stay strong, stay herself and not soften into this— this— this—

"You have a heart. You're human."

But you haven't a clue. She wasn't, and she would not be because human was weak, and she couldn't afford to be human now, to surrender to something so petty like this . . .

Mikasa's hand trailed up her thigh and her breath hitched, her own fingers raking up and down Mikasa's spine, who brazenly sighed softly into Annie's mouth, only it was a vocal sigh, vocal, and it gave her this lovely sensation, this tingle from her chest to her fingertips . . .

She arched a leg over Mikasa's back to pull her closer still, but then she thought something, and it was loud enough in her head to hear over her racing heart and their panting breaths and the creaking bed: I don't care, I want to give in to you too, I want to be with you too, I want, Mikasa, I want—

She gasped, shooting into a sitting position, Mikasa startling, falling onto her legs as Annie clutched the comforter tightly with heaving exhalations, as though she'd awoke from a nightmare.

She'd almost—

Mikasa's head tilted, something peculiar passing over her features (it almost looked like submission, like she knew what this was about and was tired.) She moved in close again, as if she thought she could simply ignore the matter, like she figured should try again even though she knew it was futile. Annie knew she knew, and it made the notion seem all the more . . . poignant.

And she still shifted away from her touch, pushing her back with hands that she wondered why were shaking in a manner so

uncomposed,

just like her voice, "Mikasa."

"What?" Her tone was sharper than before, more jagged than before, and perhaps that was because it was bordering on breaking.

Broken things did have rough edges. She knows.

Annie swallowed. "I'm leaving."

Ackerman blinked at her, lowered her head, and crawled toward the end of the bed for her muffler. Annie watched her. It's feeble. She did appear frail without it— too exposed, too delicate. "It's fine."

It wasn't.

"It was to be expected, I guess . . ." She bandaged the scarf on carefully, tightly, and briefly, Annie figured she would strangle herself (but Mikasa wasn't that weak). "The people I care about either leave me, or leave me, or leave me." She pressed the scarf's tail to her face, and her voice was taut, the thing that was strangled. "But why do you have to . . . Annie?"

She doesn't even know how she answers so effortlessly. "Because I won't fall."

She won't fall, she won't fall, but what is this now, the deep stinging in her fingers, the plummeting sensation in the pit of her stomach, the bite of wind rushing past her eyes, this girl with one leg on her head, "Annie, fall."

Annie fall, Annie fall, Annie fall.

And she stares, astonished, with wide eyes, and hooded obsidian stares back, and she's angry (You must feel so good right now, huh? After all I said, you must think I'm the idiot here) and she's scared (I'm going to lose here, I'll lose, and I won't see home and I won't see Father), and in this moment she's actually given up (So I wasn't that strong . . .)

And neither is Mikasa, but she already knew that. Neither is Mikasa, her hooded eyes now shimmering with something, her brow creased with something, but she's on top (as always), blades glittering with her blood, and she hasn't looked stronger.

Annie

falls.

A/N: Also, any mixing of past and present tense was intentional. Why do I write like such a sap? Anyway, feedback is always nice.