A/N: This was previously posted on tumblr for Eremika Week 2013 for the prompt "Scarf." I've gone back and edited where I saw fit. I also felt that this was a little too long to stick with the drabble collection. Be sure to check out my other, ongoing story "For All Who Remain;" part two is up. Thanks for reading!

Two Drifters

It's the tingling in his legs that wake him up in the middle of the night. Eren lays there, eyes closed, trying to wiggle each of his toes, the numbness that swaddles them making it near impossible.

The discomfort pricks at his skin like a thousand needles, demanding for him to move if he ever wants to be rid of it. Eyes still shut, he makes to roll over. His torso twists to the side, but his legs don't follow, a weight that rests on his knees and thighs hindering their movement. Eren curses. With a deep intake of breath, he forces his eyes open to the night of the room.

It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, and when they do, Eren curses again—his suspicions confirmed.

"Hey, Mikasa," doing his best to sit up, he lightly shakes her shoulder. She's still sitting in the same position he last saw her in before drifting off to sleep, but the upper half of her body lays sprawled uncomfortably across him, locking him in place. "Mikasa," he repeats her name, "Hey, Mikasa, you're on my legs."

Nothing. She always was an incurably heavy sleeper.

After the fifth or sixth try, she finally stirs. His legs can finally breathe when she heaves herself up, and she settles herself back upright in her chair murmuring what sounds like an apology.

Eren flops back onto his pillow, and groans not a minute later when the pins and needles in his legs chase away sleep.

"I blame you for this," he mutters under his breath, shooting a pointed glare at her. But his accusation goes unheard, the accused claimed by sleep—if you could call it that.

She sits towards the bed, her neck arched backwards and her lips parted; periodically her head falls precariously to the side before she jolts back up, only for the process to repeat itself on the opposite side.

It's a pitiful sight, really.

Sighing, he scoots over to the side of the bed, wincing when his tender feet touch the floor. "Hey," he shakes her awake once more, "go back to your room."

She only stares vaguely in his direction through half-lidded eyes.

It's of no use, and Eren bites back another curse before standing. He rises too fast, and his head instantly swims, and his sore knees ache with each bend—it takes a minute to steady himself and to suppress the threatening nausea.

"Come on," he says, hooking his hands under her arms and hauling her up, "let's take you back." He throws her arm around his shoulders, and strategically places his other hand around her firm stomach, careful to avoid moving too high or too low. Taking one step forward, he nearly brings the both of them crashing to the hardwood floor.

The ground sends a painful tingling sensation to his waking, bare feet, and it's with many an agonizing step that they finally make it to the door.

"Wait," Mikasa yawns, her breath stale with sleep. "My scarf."

Groaning, Eren sets her to the side, making sure she stands steady in the door frame, before tottering back to the chair where her scarf is draped. He ties it unceremoniously around her neck before collecting her again and dragging her out of the room.

They make it ten meters down the corridor when Mikasa mutters something incoherent into his shoulder.

"You're going to have to speak up," he says as he tries to catch his breath, his tone more harsh than he intended.

"We're going the wrong way," she replies, her words still slurred and her eyes just barely open.

And it's then that Eren realizes that he does not, in fact, know where Mikasa's room is.

"Are you serious?"

She apologizes as they turn around and begin their slow journey in the other direction. But progress is short-lived, and just after they clear his room, they have to stop again so that Eren can catch his breath.

"Eren, you shouldn't be walking," Mikasa says. Her head droops down to the side, "I can make it to my own room by myself."

"Don't be stupid. You're half asleep."

"You're hobbling."

"Shut up."

She does. And the march continues.

"Besides," he adds, his tone softer, "This is all because of your doing. If you had gone back to your room like I told you after dinner, none of this would've happened. Now, can you stay awake long enough to give me directions?"

Mikasa nods her head.

The floorboards protest as they make their way through pitch-black shadows, and Eren struggles to keep a hold on Mikasa while feeling his way through the dark.

It's an odd time to feel nostalgic, but Eren feels it nonetheless—even though the darkened hallways hold no semblance of the simpler times when the walls were invincible, and when Shiganshina was still home; he remembers the summer nights spent on the front porch, pointing out the twinkling lights that his father had said were millions and millions of years away—so high in the sky that even if a thousand titans stood on top of one another, they still wouldn't be able to touch them.

And he remembers the stories. He'd recite them for hours to Mikasa, tweaking them where he saw fit as she intently listened, occasionally adding in a part of the story of her own, but more often times than the former, she'd doze off, and Eren would be left to carry her to their room on his back, feathers ruffled with pride at his unaided feat, he'd untangle the scarf from her neck and pull the covers up to her chin, pushing the sheets secure under the straw mattress before wiggling under on his own side, careful not to damage his work.

That year feels like a dream.

"Hey, Mikasa," he says, giving her a nudge, "get on my back."

"You're not strong enough," she slurs.

"Just do it. It'll be easier this way."

As it turns out, it's not as easy as he remembers—especially in his current state—and he almost falls face first. But they manage, making the journey at a steady pace, Mikasa whispering the periodic left or right in his ear.

It feels different than it did nearly six years ago. Mikasa's certainly heavier—they both are. The years of training have stripped their bodies of all excess fat, replacing it with taut, firm muscle.

The pads of her fingers have become callused with time; he can feel them through the cloth of his shirt as she holds on to him. From her arms that cross his chest, to her thighs wrapped round his waist, and her solid abdomen at his back, in these past few years, everything soft about her has become hard and rough.

She inhales deeply, and he can feel the steady rise and fall of her chest against his back.

Well, almost everything…

They turn another corner, and walk three doors down.

"It's this one," Mikasa's warm breath tickles his ear. And they head inside.

She slides off his back, settling on to the bed. Her eyes are still misty.

Eren sits next to her, waiting for the room to come back in to focus, and for his head to stop pounding. If he were back in Shiganshina, he would've carved another notch underneath his initial on the backside of his headboard—one more debt to settle—but Shiganshina is a world away, and time has only increased the gap in quantity between the notches that lie beneath his initial and hers. He'll spend a lifetime trying to repay her—and even then he doesn't know if he'll ever catch up.

Collecting himself, he yawns. "Here," he says, "you've got to change," he gestures to the neatly folded pair of clothes resting at the foot of her bed.

When she doesn't reply, Eren sighs, pulling her to her feet.

"Come on, how do you expect to always take care of me if you can't even take care of yourself?"

She obliges enough to fumble with her scarf first, but she's so terribly clumsy, her hands lethargic as they tug on the ends, so Eren pushes them aside, resolved to speed up the process.

And it's a wonder that she's been able to breathe, because he's tied it pretty tight, and now he's struggling to undo the knot that he doesn't even remember making. She looks at him with those heavy-lidded, dark eyes, and it's almost like the day they first met all those years ago. He can't quite wrap his mind around the fact that all those years ago, he'd wrapped a red cocoon around scared little girl, teary-eyed and cold, and now, six years later, he's breaking the chrysalis, unwrapping the red scarf to, well, Mikasa. Those dark eyes blink slowly at him.

"What?" he asks.

Her fingers reach up, tracing the swollen skin beneath his eyes.

"You're tired," she says.

Eren scoffs.

"I'm not the one who was too sleepy to make it to their own room. And I'd be less tired if I didn't have to carry you back."

"I'm sorry," Mikasa whispers. And she withdraws her hand, letting it fall to her side.

The knot finally comes undone, the red fabric sliding into his hands.

He wants to speak the past aloud, wants to ask her if she feels it too: if she can hear the soft crackle of the dying flames, if she can smell the musk on his father's wet shoes sitting by the door, or the flowers in the vase on the kitchen table, if she's reminded of the year they spent together in the cramped little house they called home. But she's half asleep, her stance unstable and her brow furrowed as she struggles to hang on to consciousness, and he's never been one to get sentimental anyway. His hands weave absentmindedly into the red fabric in his fingers—after all, sentimentality has always been one of her attributes.

"Yeah, well don't be."

Mikasa makes a quiet protest, but it's feeble, and he pays it no heed, starting at her collar, he mutters all sorts of profanities under his breath as he curses the idiot who made these buttons so damn troublesome. Common sense doesn't catch up to him until after he's finished the third button, and the pale crests of her full chest lay exposed before him. He is spared only by the dark, thin fabric of her bra that hides the peaks of her breasts from view.

"Oh," is all he can manage. He feels the color rushing to his face, and for once the darkness is forgiving. "You seem alert enough to do the rest," he stammers, eager to look anywhere but at her.

He turns away, but his senses heightened, he becomes acutely aware of the sound of her belt buckle hitting the floor, the rustle of fabric, as well as her steady inhale and exhale, and he bites the inside of his cheek, and digs his nails into the palms of his hands, hoping that their feeble sting will drown out the noise.

"Are you done?" he asks. He turns, but alas, too soon, and he fails to escape a glimpse of a slender torso before it disappears underneath a loose shirt.

Eren swallows. Hard. Pushing aside the feeling growing in the pit of his stomach that threatens the wistful reverie hanging in the air, he brushes past her, his hand grazing her hip as he pulls back the covers of her bed, and she slides in, whispering a goodnight.

For a long moment, he stares at the open door. The walk back seems easier, with one person less, and yet the idea of wandering the darkened corridors alone makes his legs feel heavier, and his eyelids droop closed, and so he presses the door shut with the palm of his hands.

Eren curls up at the foot of Mikasa's bed, resting his head on a makeshift pillow from the pile of clothes she left discarded on the floor. Though he, at least, has the decency to avoid her legs.

His toes hang off the side of her bed, and it can't be nearly as comfortable as sleeping in his own, but lying here, he feels at ease, like he'll hear the hushed talking of his mother and father in the kitchen, and feel the tiny grooves if he runs a hand against the backside of the headboard.

And with his hands tangled up in her scarf, he drifts off to sleep.

—FIN—