A/N: My first SNK fic wooooo! IT'S SMUT OF COURSE. Warnings for rough sex and cynicism (you decide if it's dubcon or not ;D). A super special thank you to my betas friskywhiskey (fox wedding) and Lost-chan (SomebodyLost)! Both of you rock so hard I can't see straight, and it's thanks to you that Mikasa can't walk straight either now so...

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To Darwin, With Love

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That coil of tight thigh muscle is something else.

The lance corporal had seen so many naturals in his time. He'd seen everything really, from those incapable of even standing upright in maneuver gear to the most innately gifted fighters, born with dual blades in hand. But talent matters little.

Almost none of them are alive today.

But this girl…

She swivels her hips, expertly shifting her weight in her harness to just the right degree. That kind of precision requires a nuanced touch that simply can't be taught.

Levi knows. He is both a good teacher and a natural himself.

Her back arches perfectly when her blade slices clean through the titan's neck, an artist adding the final brush stroke. He watches her crimson-splattered form dancing through the carnage and chaos with something almost like interest.

Almost.

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"Mikasa Ackerman ."

The imperceptible tensing of her shoulders says she's heard him, but she doesn't turn around. The door to the tack room creaks shut somewhere behind him, and she neatly puts away a saddle pad in the big chest in the corner.

"Top of your class. Rumored to be worth one hundred men."

She carefully hangs bridle up on the rack on the wall, making sure to settle the straps so the bit folds just right.

"You're good, but that won't save you in the end. It never does."

The glassy eyes of his former comrades gaze blankly out at him from his memories. His present self's eyes fix on the slash of pale skin where the nape of her neck peeks out beneath a dark curtain. She doesn't move or look up, but her hands still.

"Then what will?"

An excellent question.

Yes, this girl is a survivor. It's in her eyes when she fights. Her genes. This one has a desperate need to live.

But depending on the reason, it might not be enough.

He approaches from behind. The heels of boots that had trod across too many corpses click against the floor with each measured step.

"There are two types of people in this world, Ackerman. Those who eat and those who get eaten."

Some insignificant cow somewhere died to make those boots.

"Both types lose. The secret is flexibility."

The way her spine stiffens is a healthy reflex — she ought to be afraid of him.

"I could teach you," he begins the familiar speech, cracking his knuckles in anticipation. "This is a personal opinion, but pain —"

She whirls on him, catching the back of his knee with her foot and pinning his wrists to the wall above his head. His back crunches against the bridle rack, but he scarcely notices. Her eyes blaze with something intriguing. Indignation? Rage? Or something else?

She glares, using her strength more than her unimpressive weight to crush him against the hooked iron fingers of the rack. "I'm familiar with your teaching methods. I want no part of that."

One thought connects with another quickly, and his smirk broadens.

"I see. This is about Eren Jaeger."

Her grip tightens in affirmation, but he welcomes the bruises. They would be well worth it in the end.

"I put your boyfriend in his place, so naturally you hate —"

"Family," she hisses, jostling his spine against the metal. "He's family."

Levi throws his head back when he laughs. "That's a bit strange then, Ackerman. Do you always look at your family like you want to fuck them or die trying?"

He tilts his head left to easily dodge her punch. In an eyeblink he twirls her across the tiny room like an unsuspecting dance partner. He twists one arm behind her back — much tighter than she'd restrained his — bending her small frame over the chest in the corner. Her cheek hits the polished surface with a soft thud, the latch no doubt digging into her abdomen. But he only presses his hips against hers with more certainty.

"It was necessary. A whipped dog will learn. You either learn, or you die. But he's still too young and stupid to realize that."

He bends closer, breath blowing the soft hair away from her ear as he speaks.

"But are you, Ackerman? How far are you willing to go to survive?"

The sound of her dry swallow echoes off the ugly cement walls of the tack room. His free hand snakes around her waist to rest on her thigh, creeping inward with unmistakable purpose. When warm fingers brush the cloth between her tensed legs, she goes very still, ramrod straight. He strokes her slowly, with tenderness so deceptive it is almost believable. Little by little she forces her body to relax against him, one muscle at a time. He buries his face into her shoulder, inhaling the scent of her sweat. Her fear. Her will.

He slips a hand down her waistband, testing the dampness of her panties and is pleasantly surprised by her apparent enthusiasm. She really is a natural after all.

"You have potential," he murmurs, releasing her wrist to cup her breast through her shirt. It's not until his hand grips her scarf, tugging her face towards his to claim her lips that she moves.

Levi blinks up at the cobwebbed ceiling, Mikasa hovering above him, fall of straight bangs obscuring her face, a blindfold. His arms are twisted aside, warm thighs pinning his waist in place where she straddles him.

"I am no dog, heichou."

The acerbic tone of voice drips into his ears like honeyed poison, and the defiance in her eyes makes him hard.

"I'm a human being. I will survive as a human being."

She grinds against him to punctuate her statement, purely for the satisfaction of hearing the grunt that slips past his lips. Her fingernails dig into the skin of his forearms until angry crescents glare red. Levi's eyes slip closed at the sensation. He'll have to keep his jacket on in public for some time — there will be marks.

She jumps when he laughs aloud suddenly, lids flying open to reveal something dark in his expression. Without warning his hand breaks her grip, grabbing a fistful of black hair and yanking. They roll until he has her trapped beneath him, face taut with pain. Beautiful.

He gives another vicious twist, watching her eyes squeeze shut. A laughable attempt to shut him out.

"So you're a human being, huh? Arrogant brat."

He pinches a nipple through the coarse fabric of her shirt, making her cry out. One knee forces itself between her thighs, feeling the heat there that gives her facade away. She groans, the sound from somewhere in that taboo gray place between pain and pleasure. Levi rips her top open carelessly with one hand, buttons flying, to consume her with a mere look.

"Human beings are nothing if not animals. How do animals survive, girl? Show me."

Her eyes meet his dead on, and he can feel her resolve harden in the blood pumping through her veins. In her sturdy bones and ragged breath.

Her small hand suddenly grips his hair in turn, nails sinking into his scalp, wrenching just as mercilessly. Satisfaction curls in his gut.

"You want to see me like that, heichou?" She spits vitriol in his face. "An ugly, naked animal? Desperate to survive?"

His pants are constricting enough to be distracting, but nothing could make him tear his eyes from the gleam in hers.

"Show me."

"Fuck you."

Her mouth crashes against his, but there is no softness there. Her chapped lips are hard and rough as stone, teeth sharp, nose in the way. The familiar taste of blood registers somewhere in the back of his brain, but he can't stop. Can't slow down. Doesn't want to. The girl is so alive, writhing above him, struggling to pin him down and force her tongue inside, and Levi is suddenly drunk on her.

He rips her shredded shirt from her chest, tossing it aside like the meaningless barrier it was. He needs her dressed down, back to basics, stripped of all the pretense, secret places bared and vulnerable.

Strip her down, get it up.

She cares not the slightest about his clothes, instead helping him in the struggle to remove the complicated belts of her uniform like they are racing against time. Indeed, they have no time to even lock the door. A match is struck, a fuse lit, and there is nothing else in the world but the desire to carry through this momentum to completion. Nothing but the need to feel.

Pin her down, get her off.

He pushes her away, sending her sprawling, heedless of the crack of her skull against the edge of the chest. But not even she seems to notice. Or if she does she is too far gone to care. He flips her onto her stomach and together they wrestle her pants off both legs, taking her panties with them.

And then she is on all fours in front of him, naked the way she should be, and he can't help himself anymore.

The too-loud sound of his zipper is her only warning before he invades with one push.

She doesn't make a sound, holding all her noises bottled up inside her, refusing him that small satisfaction. But her body does the talking anyway. Her jaw is clenched, teeth snapping together with each rattling thrust, spine arched and fingers scrabbling for purchase against the stone floor. The rhythm is not easy and not nice, but neither is the corporal. Neither is life.

They rock together, or maybe against each other, unable to decide if they are a team or in competition for the same goal. Their emotions are at odds, but their bodies meld effortlessly like they were born to do so.

She drives herself back, alternately pushing him away and sucking him in, and her warmth is so tight and wet that all Levi can see is her, her, her. He is on the brink of losing it embarrassingly quickly.

"F-fuck," he hisses out in warning, only half-conscious of the noise. Mikasa picks up on it clearly. She ride him harder, relentless.

"Fuck or get fucked, is that it, heichou?" she taunts, doing something with her inner muscles that makes him almost lose his deathgrip on her hips. "Who's doing what?"

He should make her scream, make her thrash and call his name, acknowledge his power and ability. She should come alive before him, reduced (expanded?) to the sum of her parts, a glorious human-shaped animal. He wants to see her unravel at the seams so badly he can taste her defeat in his mouth, the brutally honest sight of her orgasm already playing across his closed eyelids —

But it's too late. The friction is too much, she is too much. He lets go, body dissolving into the quivering mass of flesh that it is as he empties his everything into her, every bit the animal he accused her of being.

He pants, sweat running down his heaving chest in rivulets, head clouded with afterimages and scattered flashes of feeling. He pulls out with a wet pop and peels himself off her, their sticky skin stinging as it parts. Her voice shatters the heavy silence.

"I'll do whatever it takes. I'll play your games, Levi, but I play to win."

A dark eye pins him in place. Humanity's most invulnerable, just another man in the end. A dog like any other. If she didn't before, she knows now.

But she won't tell. Can't, without outing herself as the same. A kind of mutual understanding crosses the empty space between them. But this thing, whatever it is, is far from over.

Her stands, doing up his pants in one fluid motion, conscious of a sudden, pressing need to change them. He glances idly the dust-covered ceiling his eyes had been riveted on earlier.

"Clean this place up. It's filthy."

He only gets as far as turning the door handle when her voice rings out again.

"You ruined my shirt."

He freezes, then sighs. He slips his jacket from his shoulders, tossing it to her without looking. There will be questions and raised brows about the wounds on his arms, but that's alright.

Humanity swallows lies like titans swallow humans.

He slips his mask back into place and walks out the door as though nothing at all had happened.

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fin

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