A/N: I was bored and decided to use ideas I had in my head that would never actually go anywhere. Enjoy!

Ode to What We've Lost and Found

An Eren x Annie two part drabble by: Euregatto

It's an earth worm that has crawled too far from the damp soil of the courtyard and now writhes in agony at the bottom of the steps in the searing heat. She watches the pathetic creature suffer with no remorse in her frigid sapphire eyes and a cigarette dangling from her lips, yet still flinches when he crushes it beneath his boot – puts it out of its misery without a second thought, not that it had very long to live, regardless.

"Why would you do that?" She asks when she removes her cigarette, smoke filtering through her nose and lips as her breath leaves her burning lungs.

He plucks the cesspool of disease from her fingertips. "Because it was already dead."

"Like us?" She figures humorlessly.

"Not like us." He perches on the step beside her, lips to her neck, free hand on her back. "We always have a chance at living. We always have hope for the next day. Not that this"—he rolls the little stick around in his fingertips—"helps." He sits upright again, staring down at the body pollutant in his grasp. "What do these taste like, anyway? I know they're bad for your health, and smell kinda disgusting, but…"

She allows a small smile to settle into her features. "I'll show you," she offers blithely, taking it back. He observes her with a blank expression as she takes a long drag and leans into him, pressing their lips together; they move to the familiarity of the other, tongue, teeth and all, and the smoke divides between them. He can taste the ash on her, and she can taste the blood on him.

He breaks off suddenly, hand out as if he were a spontaneous beggar on the side streets. "Pack," he demands.

"Didn't like it?"

"No." He's serious with that determined look on his face that sparks itchiness in weird places. It kind of makes him sexier than normal. "It's not worth you getting sick over. Now give me the pack. You're cutting cold turkey whether you like it or not, even if I have to show up at your place every single day and forcibly take whatever you have of these away from you until you get my point."

"You can't just decide this for me," she hisses, but he only wiggles his fingers at her. Not that it would make a difference. She rolls her eyes when he won't stop his insistence. "Fine, fine… if it'll make you happy. Here."

When she places the box in his hand he crushes it – she winces – and stuffs it into his back pocket. "You make me happy, Annie," he says finally, rising to his feet. He brushes stray dirt from his knees. "When you finish with that, come join me in the stables and help with the horses before Captain Levi notices we're slacking off."

She watches him go, turns her attention to the splatter of blood that used to be an earth worm, and realizes she's not in the mood to smoke anymore.

.: :.
.: :.

Annie doesn't like this penitent, masochistic relationship she's gotten herself into; she wants to carve her heart from her chest and her fragmented memories from her mind with the biggest fucking knife she can find – but he kisses her skin with lips like fire and does this thing with his tongue that pleasures more than just her mouth and earns cries she can no longer swallow, and she can only let the moment pass before everything is quiet again.

Then she thinks.

Even as they kiss – his lips hot and sticky, hers parted to submissively let him in – she thinks.

She doesn't remember detail for detail how they started this, but she knows for a fact it was right after she received a notification from her commanding officers: she was suspended for the week for punching that obnoxious womanizing bastard posted with her right in his front teeth after he tried to touch her in very uncomfortable places. (Needless to say, he requested a transfer).

With boredom in her bones and nowhere to go except her empty home, she took her horse and rode to where she knew she could find comfort. It's that castle Reiner told her about via last month's checkup letter… but the name slipped her mind. Something with an S? It didn't matter, because she was now at the front door, greeting Eren Yeager who had been in the courtyard when she strode in.

That leader of theirs, Erwin Smith, welcomed her with open arms (she figured he had some soft spot for Eren, who was more than jubilee that she had paid them a visit, and complacently agreed) and their Lance Corporal merely told her, with a passive grunt, "Make a mess and you'll clean this whole place from top to bottom with your fucking toothbrush."

Armin tried to reassure her that he was in a pleasant mood, surprisingly.

She ended up crashing with Sasha for the first two nights, and then the third night came rolling around. While a good portion of their superiors were gone, Reiner requested that everyone gather in his room to have a spin the bottle drinking game with almost seven different kinds of beer and four kinds of questionable fluids. By the time the third round was up they were all tipsy from the shots, but apparently Eren had picked up Reiner's self-proclaimed 'special concoction' and could barely see straight.

Annie dragged him out by herself because Reiner and Connie were making accusations that Mikasa couldn't hold her alcohol… and some other irking comments because she actually gave up Eren to prove them wrong.

Annie, of course, didn't know Eren lived a fucking jail cell in a cellar, so as soon as he told her that it was his place she was convinced he was wasted. But upon throwing him onto the bed and further investigation of the room, she found all of his stuff was here.

She wanted to cry for him, right there and then, because it wasn't fair what they – wait, shit was she actually feeling emotion? Fucking drinking games.

She meant to leave him alone after that, honestly, but then he was grabbing her wrists and kissing her because "You-You're sssooo pretty" and "I like your eyesss" and even "Y-yyyou're sss-somethin' else and really sexy…" Her reaction time was elongated by the buzzing in her head. She could barely register what was happening before he was sliding his hands up her hoodie.

She should have kicked him.

She should have floored him.

She should have punched him and screamed at him until they were both deaf.

She should have done anything but kiss him back; anything but let him touch her and caress her and use his fingers like that, but before she knew it the sun was rising and her clothes were strewn about haphazardly on the floor, sore in specific areas and neck throbbing where a hickey had nested into her pulse point. He was sitting up beside her, head in his hands, apologizing profusely and guilty, guilty, so fucking guilty.

But she didn't mind – even though that day he refused to meet her gaze, dodged her presence and made sure Armin and Bernholdt and even that Auruo guy kept her busy. She didn't mind because that night she visited him for another go; no words were exchanged, passion turned to pleasure turned into this intense combination of the two bordering ecstasy, and they didn't have time for regrets.

Night after night for the next few days they kept at it until her suspension was over. Then she left with a simple good-bye, and no one ever knew what happened.

One day, a month and a half later, she was suspended again for punching the same bastard as before, because he had turned a corner so suddenly he "scared me sir, I'm just a poor fragile girl, I had to defend myself". In reality he had tried to avoid her, but she needed an excuse to get out for a while.

His transfer request was finally put through, and she was tossed aside for two weeks until he was gone.

Now she's back here again, in this dark cell beneath this boy who knows exactly how to treat her – who understood her when she was hurt or put a smile on her face when she wanted to be alone.

"Annie?"

She turns her hazy cobalt gaze in his direction. He's staring down at her, concerned because she's detached; caught within her own mind. "Yeah?"

"Are you OK?"

"I was thinking…"

"About?"

She sighs absently and slides a palm along the center of his chest. His heart drums soothingly in the cage of his chest and she can feel it through his calloused skin. "It's nothing important," she answers finally, pulling him down to meet her lips. He slips his hand under the sheet, doing that thing he does with his fingers that makes her blush and moan his name in her throat and into his mouth.

Then he moves to her neck, finding the already tender skin of her pulse point and nipping at it. "As long as you're OK," he whispers. "That's all that matters."

She wants to break his spine at that. And she would be far from gentle.

That night he takes her hard and fast; they don't care if Erd could've heard them from his position up the stairs, because he's most likely passed out drunk – it's his way of escaping from it all, the death and the violence and sliver of hope they can just barely hold on to. Annie wonders, as Eren pulls her close and she falls into a deep sleep, if this – whatever it's called – is their way of escaping, too.

Not that they'll be running for long.