Chapter Text
“... I thought I’d die from being loved like that.”
― Marie Howe
MIKASA
I never really understood addiction.
Where I come from, I've seen numerous lives ruined by compulsion, the need for some magic powder or wonder liquid driving them out of their homes to public benches on cold, windy nights. Begging me for money for a bus ticket that I know they’d take straight to the cigarette machine.
What pleasure could possibly lie at the end of a substance designed for self-destruction?
But desperation is blinding, and I didn’t put a name on it when I accepted this gig.
Now, three minutes into my first song, when the audience trained their eyes towards the front door, I let my gaze wander with them. And then I felt it. The distinctive feeling only one thing could give me. Hairs raised at the back of my neck, goosebumps on my skin, a tightness in my belly. A lump in my throat threatening to give me away.
All these people willing to kneel at the feet of a magic powder or wonder liquid… they can’t all be wrong, can they? Maybe that thing that your body craves is just that good. Maybe it turns you inside out, and puts you on your knees, ready to beg anyone and everyone that could possibly give you that thing just one more time. No matter the cost.
I stared across the room straight into eyes green as forest vines. I knew it was like to be caught in them, trapped in them. Flicks of messy brown hair fell in front of them, teasing me of the times I’d run my hands through more times. Lips that I knew more intimately than I cared to admit, were pulled back into a taut line.
I close out the verse on a breathy exhale. This way, I could pretend nobody noticed how my breath hitched when he entered the room. No one would have to hear how dry my throat suddenly was.
As I drank in the face of a man I’m seeing for the first time in six months, I thought to myself: I get it now. The fundamental weakness of all addicts was this, exactly this moment. It’s never going to matter how much somebody tells you it’s a mistake— and my best friend did tell me, as I sat on the couch-bed he’d been letting me sleep on for the past few months. He told me it was a mistake. Coming here, wearing this dress, getting on this stage.
Earlier this evening, I chewed on my lip and tried to make my case, but it sounded weak even to my own ears. “The pay’s really good, Armin.”
“It’s a bad idea.”
“I could finally pay my share for groceries, get some exposure again, you know how it is as a wannabe, they’ll forget my face if I stay in forever—“
“Groceries isn’t a problem. Just find a different club to perform at.”
“I could give Jean his room back—“
“Jean’s perfectly happy sleeping with me every night. We’ve worked through the snoring now, I’ve got earplugs, we’re fine. You, however, are not fine.”
“It’s a prime slot, Ar.” Desperate, that’s how I sounded. Too desperate to listen to him, when he said, “You’re making a mistake, Mikasa. You said you wanted out. How are you supposed to get out if you keep crawling back to him, like this?”
I had too much pride to admit it in front of Armin, but he was right. Now as I stared back into Eren’s bottomless eyes, I felt the feeling that all addicts felt as they inched one step closer to their destruction. Despite all the regret I would no doubt feel, despite the indignity of it all… it was worth it.
EREN
Evenings at Nola’s were a bore. Even though the women that were hired to serve were meant to make it anything but. Dealing with women was more my brother’s thing, anyway. He had patience for it. He smiled, laughed, told them they looked pretty until they believed it and sucked themselves further into his trap.
I wasn’t very good at that kind of thing. I stuck to the more banal interests of the mafia… money laundering, gambling, drugs… important jobs that couldn’t be done by important people.
But the reason I was here tonight was because I’d heard from my men that a little bird would be visiting us tonight. A little bird who’d been on the run for the last six months.
I knew it was her the moment I entered and heard that voice, a raspy melodic thing of beauty. She’d always been so talented. The way it soaked into the dark velvet-curtained walls of my club gave me goosebumps.
When I walked in, eyes fell on me from across the room. It wasn’t unusual; This was my club, and my patrons— fellow members of the Underground, and partners of the Families— deferred to me in my territory. But it felt disrespectful to look away when she was on stage. If it was me, I wouldn’t take my eyes off of her for any man with any title.
She’s as gorgeous as I remember, although her hair is now shorter around her face, exposing her slender neck. The rest of her feels like an addiction I hadn’t even tried to forego— long sinewy legs leading up to a slinky red dress that hugged her perfect body like second skin. Red really was her colour.
I forced myself to look away. I’d spent far too long lost in those eyes… not that it had gotten me anywhere. Not anywhere other than here, in this stupid seat, sitting around a table with an inebriated older brother and a simple-minded henchman. She hadn’t looked at me even once, dammit.
When her song is over and she smiles at her audience. She used to smile for me once, sweet, charming smiles, when I wasn’t at this table and she wasn’t on stage— when she used to stand by my side. And then later, when we were alone, sitting on my lap, a coquettish smile, lashes lowered and teeth caught in her lips. Now she smiles differently; A shy, tentative thing for someone who has no business second-guessing herself. Her eyes are clouded with inhibition, and her smile doesn’t reach her eyes but the crowd eats it up anyway.
Men stare at her from across the room. I can’t help the prickle of irritation I feel, but I get it. Who wouldn’t look at the most beautiful woman in the room? It would be a shame to look anywhere else.
To the left of me, Zeke is smoking a cigar. I glare at him. “Don’t smoke inside, for fuck’s sake.” It’s even written on the fucking wall.
If it were anyone else, they would probably scurry to throw away their cigarette or go outside. But it’s Zeke, so he merely chuckles without even bothering to stub his smoke. “Are you going to stop me, Eren?” He wears the kind of shit-eating grin only a big brother can, and it only irritates me even more.
Floch— my loyal henchman— pipes up from beside me, “… The boss tried really hard to quit for his woman. So it’s hard y’know? If you smoke around him,” -
“Shut up.” I had no desire to hear this shit. I don’t want to hear him talk about *my woman* or the things I did for her, or even all of the things I would do for her… especially when she is right in front of me.
“Sorry, boss—,”
“I meant it, Floch. Shut up, or I will shut you up.” I really didn’t want to hear it. Especially because at that moment, she began to sing her next song. Her voice is everything that has haunted my dreams since she left, breathy and beautiful, and it tugs at my heart.
She sings a song of melancholy, a song of love or lust or an addiction, and if I had to describe the thing between us, I couldn’t have chosen between the three of them. Her hands curve delicately around the mic stand. She closes her eyes as she sings about a love that moved beneath her skin, that would stay with her until the end of time and that's the painful kick in the gut that I needed to remember that this song wasn't about me and her. There wasn't really a me and her, not anymore.
But I’m a fucking fool who is reading into it far more than I should, and I search her face for an inkling, an indication, that maybe I wasn't alone in this foolishness. She doesn’t give it to me. She avoids my gaze carefully and looks far ahead— and I can’t help but turn to see where she’s looking, the ridiculous urge bubbling up inside of me to see if there’s another man that she is looking at, her pretty eyes vacant and full of longing.
A familiar intoxicating feeling uncoils inside my chest. Fuck. I could fulfil that longing. I could hold her and love her and spoil her till she never wants for anything else in her life. But that’s the thing with Mikasa Ackerman— she, unlike everyone else in my life— had no problem rejecting all of it.
If it were up to me, I’d shoot all the catty mistresses and the perverted assholes whose eyes roved her body. Right there, square in the forehead between their creepy little eyes that refuse to let me enjoy her voice in peace. Fortunately for them, Mikasa’s set has to end.
If it weren’t for the resentment I’d have to face, I’d listen to her longer, force her to be my pretty canary and lock up the cage at night. I watch her uneasily as she steps off the stage. That’s a darker thought that I’ve wrestled with ever since the night she walked out on me. But it wouldn’t suit Mikasa to be a kept woman, so I let her roam free on my streets even though I know she’s easy prey for my enemies. Even though it kills me.
A man in his forties, dressed in an exorbitantly fancy blazer and slicked-back hair cuts off my view of her. “Lobov,” I greet him curtly. He’s been droning on in the background to Zeke— who I am sure was also not listening— and Floch, about somebody diluting his shipments, and now he repeats it to me. “So what are you going to do about it?”
Mikasa is mingling now, and it’s frustrating to watch. My species is pathetically simple-minded and blatantly obvious, and mobsters are perhaps the worst of the lot. Their hands are fucking everywhere, goddammit, since when do they need their hands to communicate?
“I would appreciate some support, Mr Jaeger,” this guy tells me. His cheeks are puffed out and he looks haughty, as if he knows he isn’t being taken seriously. At least he has some self-awareness. “My product brings in a substantial share of—”
“You know what I would appreciate?” My voice is cold as ice. “I would appreciate doing business with grown-ass men who can actually deliver what they promise.” Zeke snickers, watching our exchange casually. “And if you don’t belong to that category, I’d be happy to replace you.”
He looks between the three of us alarmed— Zeke who doesn’t care, Floch who’s just sipping his drink and grinning at him with a blatant bloodthirst… and me, who’s just annoyed, to be honest. He clears his throat. “... I’ll take care of it.”
MIKASA
I’m not really certain why men insist on getting so close when they talk. They’re downright clingy, hands around my waist when it doesn’t need to be, trying to lean into my ear when they can speak to my face just fine. “You should take my number,” one of them tells me. “You wouldn’t have to parade yourself on stage just to get paid.”
I take a deep breath. I have somehow found myself in the midst of a handful of men who are honestly just tiresome and blatantly forward, with eager hands that I’ve almost literally had to bat off. I’d spent so long in this environment protected by him , I’d never had to deal with the wonderfully ‘feminist’ values of the Mafia.
“I’d keep you comfortable,” the same man calls after me, after I have politely untangled myself. I try not to cringe visibly and be polite when I decline because I can’t bite the hand that feeds me after all. But I really just needed one moment without the blatant offer of sex for money. And a goddamn drink.
Leaning against the bar while I wait for the bartender, I can’t help but furtively glance at my surroundings. The truth is, even when I’d tried actively not to look in his direction, or meet his eyes, I saw him the moment he walked in; clad in a simple deep green sweater and jeans, he still managed to stand out. He’d grown his hair out and tied it up in a messy bun behind his head, and I’d had to hold the mic stand a bit tighter because it made me weak at the knees. Eren always tended to have that effect on me, to be honest, that kind of impossible-to-ignore, magnetic attraction thing they tend to talk about in romance novels. And even as I’d made the rounds I could feel the intense burn of his gaze on me.
Shaking myself out of my impending spiral, I smile at Nicolo who seems to have finally noticed me. He smiles at me affectionately. “Short hair suits you,” he says. If he recognizes my shoddy attempt at a makeover fuelled by withdrawal breakdowns, he doesn’t ask me too much about it and I’m grateful for that. “Can I get you the usual?”
“Yeah, thanks.” Nicolo has served me drinks for so long, he knows everything I love and hate, knows when I’m on a bender and when I just want something to sip on. Eren used to have a thing about me being too friendly with the staff but I didn’t care. I’d badger Nicolo about his latest recipes and willingly try them all.
I remember a different time when my hair was longer and I’d order not only my drinks but Eren’s too— Eren with his hands wrapped around my waist, who’d whisper in my ear to “surprise him.” It was a different time, and a different me; a version of me that was high on some chemical infatuation that I’d been powerless against.
As I watch him prepare my drink, I wonder if he overheard those men talking to me. And then I wonder if Eren would hear about it. That’s how it works around here, after all. You could be a handler or a bartender, but eventually, everyone reports to the Boss. A shudder runs through me even just thinking about it. Intellectually, I recognize that I’m being overdramatic. So what if Eren were to hear a guy passing me some lines? As crude as it sounds, it was the unfortunate reality of my gender, and the objectification went with the profession.
And, well. I was nothing special to Eren. Not anymore. So what was the problem, really?
But I knew the problem of course. Only incredibly foolish men visit the club of a well-renowned mafioso and dare to flirt with his ex-lover. It was a respect thing. Or pride. Or something else equally testosterone-driven.
Nicolo hands me a tall drink with rocks piled high, and I thank him. I’m tempted to ask if it was already known to everyone that I no longer held the Boss’s interest, but I don’t have the courage.
The pretty concoction he has handed me is glazed by something strong, and it’s just what I need. Something that would cool me down because the whole evening I’d felt hot; hot as if my lungs were burning, my skin on fire. It’s not new, this feeling. It’s something I’m intimately familiar with; I felt it every time those deep green eyes settled on me with an intensity that somehow always turned me inside out, filling me with a craving that demanded nothing else but its satiation. It makes me forget everything else around me— everything that was right or wrong.
And that’s why I’d left.
Sadly my moment of peace is short-lived.
There is another man in front of me now and he asks me what I’m drinking. I smile at him even though I don’t want to because it’s just the sort of thing I have to keep doing in places like this. “Nicolo’s special,” I joke, grinning at the blonde behind the counter.
“A special just for you or is it on the menu?” He’s the kind of guy who is good-looking in an obvious way. Sharp features, slick blonde hair, piercing hazel eyes. I avert my gaze to the expensive whiskey bottles placed decoratively on the shelves.
“You can ask him,” I say, gesturing at Nicolo, who is busy serving somebody else. “It’s a bit strong though.”
“I can handle it.” I turn back to meet his arrogant gaze. “... You look familiar. Have I seen you around before?”
I grip my drink harder, my heart racing. I hadn’t really expected my new look to be much of a disguise, but when I accepted this gig, I thought people would be respectful enough to stay away from me and not pry considering my history with Eren. I hadn’t expected people here who wouldn’t… know . Or maybe they just didn’t care.
“Hmmm,” I say, giving him a non-committal half-smile. “Have you?”
Nicolo asks him what he wants and he says, “Whatever the pretty lady is drinking,” and gestures in my direction. “Sure,” Nicolo says and as he reaches for the ice cubes he murmurs to me, “... The boss is coming.”
A shiver rises in my spine.
The man in front of me either doesn’t hear it or doesn’t care. Instead, he says, “I’ll cut to the chase. Mikasa, was it?” I hadn’t really introduced myself, but I guess I didn’t have to. I was formally introduced to the floor when my gig started. “... You have a pretty voice. I’d love to hear more of it back at my place if you’re up for it.”
I’m stunned. He was certainly far more… direct than the others had been. “Ah that’s okay,” I mumble. “I—”
“... Is there a problem?”
My heart sinks. This is exactly what I’d been afraid of.
He looks towards the voice in surprise, probably wondering where the hell he’d materialized from. “Not at all, Eren—,” I cringe at the overly familiar tone that I know fully well Eren would not appreciate—“the pretty lady and I were just getting to know each other.” And he winks.
Eren stands behind me, not touching, with enough space between us for it to look completely normal but I can feel the fury radiating off of him in cold waves. His eyes narrowed at the blonde man. “Oh yeah?” Just briefly his gaze meets mine, and it makes my breath catch, makes me feel nervous.
“Well the pretty lady ,” the emphasis on the words is chilling, “... doesn’t seem to like it.”
He watches me for a moment, hazel eyes scrutinizing the picture in front of him: the Boss of the Underground and a nervous, quivering singer who probably looked terribly out of place. “How would you know, Eren?” He drawls.
How would he know ? I want to laugh. Eren would probably know it better than anyone else. He’s seen sides of me no one else has seen. Touched me in places no one else has touched. Possessed secrets of mine that I wouldn’t dare to share with anyone else. (Secrets I was ashamed of, that I’d been trying desperately to outrun.)
“... Leave,” Eren says, quietly, voice tight with restraint.
The man downs the rest of his liquor smoothly. “I didn’t realize you two… knew each other.” I hope he’s realized by now that that would be putting it mildly and that he’d already stepped into dangerous territory.
But it seems every spoken word from him just served to get Eren further on edge. “That’s none of your business,” he says simply, jaw tight, but this time his hands reach for the gun tucked away in his waistband.
“Eren—,” I say slowly, my heart beginning to race.
Thankfully, the man raises his hands in defeat. “... Don’t worry, I’m leaving.” And before he leaves, he shoots me a wink and says, “Can I at least pay for your drink, sweetheart?”
“I paid already,” I say quickly, urgently, before Eren gets the chance to formulate a reply.
“If you say so,” he murmurs. Eren watches him as he walks out, eyes narrowing at his retreating form and I sigh, thankful that he left without causing a bigger fuss.
Or that’s what I thought until he whipped around halfway and taunted, “... If that’s your woman, then maybe you want to keep a better leash on her, eh?”
And before I can even process the words, Eren steps in front of me, gun pointing directly at him. “... You’re a dead man, Galliard.”
A cold shiver runs down my spine. I force myself to breathe— this isn’t anything new, I tell myself, nothing new. I should’ve prepared myself for it when I’d decided to rear my head in this part of town again.
I catch Armin’s eyes across the room and he looks at me concerned. Break this up, I plead silently, but I know Armin can’t do anything. Before I can contemplate it any further, Eren’s older brother Zeke intervenes.
“Well,” his eyes sparkle, amused. “That was a lovely performance tonight, wasn’t it? We should really see more of you around here… Mikasa.” He looks at me with fondness; Eren’s eyes narrow at him in irritation. “... But I’m afraid it’s over now.” He stubs out his cigar and gets up. “... Time to leave, ladies and gents. If you’d follow me, please.”
Everyone is quiet for a moment, but when Zeke steps out of the club, people trickle out with him, taking their hushed whispers and fraught glances with them. In reality, no one here tonight was any more scared than they were mildly interested in the drama that had transpired tonight. This was a club owned by the Jaegers, and it was public knowledge that the Jaegers stood at the top of the hierarchy of the Underground. So only associates frequented this place— either people who worked with them or for them… or wanted something from them. Guns waving around was hardly unusual in this circle.
Armin’s boyfriend lingers at the door, hesitating, but Armin knows better and he threads his fingers into Jean’s hands and pulls Jean along with him and everybody else who was leaving.
Everyone had trickled out of the club. Except for the two of us— Eren and I.
And Nicolo, I realised, as I released the breath I’d been holding. “Boss, can I get you anything?”
Eren’s gaze snaps up towards him. “... Just a whisky. Neat,” he says, quietly. “... And you can leave after that, too.”
He doesn’t say anything, just watches in silence as Nicolo twists open the bottle and pours one out for him.
“So,” I begin, a nervous attempt to break the thick, heavy, silence around them. “... I don’t get to ask for a drink before Nicolo leaves?”
Eren’s eyes flash at the half-finished colourful drink in front of me. “If you’d wanted one, I’m sure you would have asked for it.”
Nicolo flashes me an apologetic smile before he places Eren’s drink on the counter and leaves.
Honestly, I’m a little bit irritated because there’s no reason for his hostility, at least not towards me. “So do you want me to leave as well?”
His mouth curves into a rueful, half-smile. “Is that what you think? I pointed a gun at a man who was flirting with you, just to get you to leave?” I flush at his implication.
“Well if all you’d wanted was to talk to me alone, you could have just asked for it.”
“And you would’ve agreed?” he scoffs. “You’ve been hiding from me for the last six months. Six months and four days to be exact.”
I take a sip of my drink delicately. “Hiding, you say,” I murmur. “... Yet, I’m sure you knew my every step.” I look him in the eyes, a challenge that I should’ve been more afraid to throw. But a fire had been lit inside of me now, and it wanted to dance in front of him. “Am I wrong?”
He regards me darkly. “You left me.” But it sounds more like, I let you leave . As if that would explain why he’d had her every move watched. “Yet here you are. Knowing full well that this is my club, that I would know you’d be coming here.”
He takes a step closer to me, my heartbeat growing a little bit irregular. “If I were anyone else, I’d think you were trying to get my attention.”
I swallow, the confident facade I’d tried to maintain crumbling with his increasing closeness. “... But you aren’t,” I breathe, as he traps me between himself and the counter.
“Mmhmm,” he hums, “no, the Mikasa I know isn’t that obvious.” He inhales sharply, taking in the dark musky perfume that I’d chosen for tonight. “But I don’t know what you’re thinking anymore, Mikasa. You proved that to me when you left me,” he murmurs darkly, his breath hot on the shell of my ear. “... If you wanted nothing to do with me anymore, then why are you here?”
Outwardly, I know how it looks. I’m caged in the arms of a Don who is more than a little bit angry. But I know this man better than most, and I can hear it for what it is— a confession fueled by weakness. I can even understand it. Nobody else ever gets to see Eren Jaeger this way— hands braced on the counter, on either side of me, head bowed in defeat. It was vulnerable in a way a man of his stature couldn’t afford.
Why am I here? It’s a question I have been asking myself since the minute I’d gotten this gig, a question I’d ignored even as Armin asked it. I thought by pushing away the thought of it, I could pretend it wouldn’t happen and now look at me. A silly little girl who was now trapped in the lion’s den that she’d run out of six months ago.
God, I’d done so well up until this point. Deleted his numbers, and his pictures, and tried my best to scrub the marks of him from my body. At least the visible ones. Despite everything, I’d been struck by an edacious desire to get a glimpse of him. How was he doing? Was he okay? Was he also reduced to a barely surviving mess after what happened between us? It’d been six months of suppressing these thoughts, dark slithering voices in my mind that screamed at me to know if he’d moved on and found someone else to warm his bed.
When I don't respond, he tips my chin upwards, forcing me to meet his verdant gaze. “Answer me, Mikasa.”
My heart is thundering in my chest, and I wonder if he can hear it. It’s a good thing he doesn’t know what I’m thinking because there isn’t really much I’m thinking apart from the fact that this is the closest I have had him after so long. He seems to want an answer, but honestly, I have forgotten his question.
It’s difficult like this, his lips inches from mine, making my mouth dry from the wanting, the sight and feel of his mouth so intimately familiar. Something about me being here, I remind myself, that’s what he wants to know.
My breathing is harsh as I murmur, “I need to make a living, Eren.” A half-truth. I do need the money to survive, but there were choices— there are always choices, that’s what I’d tried telling myself, before giving in to my stupidity.
His gaze hardens, his mouth settling into a thin line. Before I can say anything else, his hands curve around my ass, hoisting me effortlessly onto the counter. He steps in between my legs, effectively rucking up my dress and making it ride up my thighs.
It’s embarrassing the way my body reacts to his rough handling of me— I’ve barely been touched, but I can feel the heat pooling low in my belly, even lower between my legs, spreading through my veins.
Weakly, my gaze travels the length of him, the grip of his fingers that dig into my thighs, the taut lines of his shoulders, and the angles of his jaw leading up to his incredibly tempting mouth. Even as I battle this senseless desire, I can feel any remnants of sanity within me sinking. This is why I left him; he consumes me, all of me, an overwhelming, intoxicating presence, that leaves me struggling for air.
“If it’s money you needed, I would’ve given it to you.” His voice is thick, his eyes dark and licentious.
“That’s now how it works, Eren,” I protest, but I sound weak to my own ears. What exactly was working about this anyway? It’s difficult to deny him anything when he is this close to me. “We’re not together anymore. How could I possibly—”
“Would that be so bad?” he grits out, angry or annoyed or upset, I can’t tell. His eyes are like storms, dark and green and volatile. His words are hoarse murmurs that I can feel on my lips, his lips tormentingly close to mine. If I reach out to lick my increasingly dry lips, my tongue would probably touch him. It was a mouthwatering temptation. How many nights had I spent, alone in Armin's guest bedroom, dreaming of him, dreaming of this?
“I—,” I open my mouth to say something, anything, some false whisper just to break this crackling, stifling tension, but when I part my lips, it’s as if his mouth settles into mine, like a puzzle piece that slid into place the way it was meant to be. His mouth is hot and heavy on mine, whiskey and cinnamon and liquid heat pouring into my bloodstream.
Anything I wanted to say was forgotten.
He kisses me like a starved man, with an urgency that makes me almost forget everything that went wrong, and pretend that we were back to that moment where we were everything to each other. I feel like moaning from the kiss alone— maybe I already am— because that’s how good it feels.
I feel his hands reach for my neck, grabbing the back of it to pull me closer, but he didn’t need to, I was already pressing myself against him in the most shameless, needy way.
“God, I missed this mouth,” he says hoarsely, as his fingers tangle in my hair. My tongue slips into his mouth and I savour the taste of him, tracing paths I have traced so many times in the past— savouring his groans the way I thought I would never do so again.
I want to tell him I’d missed it too, not just his mouth, but everything. I want to tell him how I’d driven myself mad with this longing, every single day when night came but sleep didn’t, and the bed felt cold despite the number of blankets I cocooned myself in. But the words don’t leave my mouth because I know I’ll regret them.
My hands clutch at his sweater, pulling him closer, my breasts flush against his chest. His palm drags up against my stomach and palms my breast. My knees are so weak from the sensation, my head falls against his shoulder, leaning against him for support. “You missed me too, didn’t you?” He asks me, his lips wet with my saliva; he looks at me like he’s drunk on it.
It’s as if he can read my mind. He probably could, for all I know, I always felt like an open book to him. And he uses that knowledge to torment me. “You’re not lying to me; are you, babe?” His mouth curves into a smile. “I can see it. I can feel your nipples hard from just kissing me.” And cocky bastard that he is, he brushes a thumb over the silky material of my dress to prove it.
“That’s not fair,” I whimper, my breasts arching into his hands of their own volition.
His eyes flicker, the faintest trace of anger mixing in with arousal. “Not fair? Baby, do you really want to talk about what’s fair?”
My stomach tightens with guilt. I’d packed my bags one night when he was away on business, and the only reason he caught me on the way out was my stupid, tearful, indecision.
I don't even want to think of the wounded expression on his face when I told him I couldn’t stay anymore. Looking back, even then I was pleading. Pleading with him or myself, I don’t know— but all I’d known is that I had to get out. I’d spent long enough blinded by the haze of his love, excusing all the blood on his hands, justifying all the things he kept from me because he didn’t want to “taint” me.
But it was so hard when he came home night after night and kissed me so passionately, achingly slow and full of longing, telling me all these dirty things that made my body shudder with need. I’d been so caught up in the thrill of it all, Eren Jaeger and his undivided attention, the good and the bad of it— the gifts on my doorstep, the heat of his embrace; and his insane possessiveness.
I was spoiled rotten, drunk on his love. Locked in my own gilded cage. And eventually, I realised I would die from being loved like that.
It was only after I left that I realised what a gaping hole it left in my heart. I had always suspected it— Eren Jaeger would be the death of me, in one way or another. And after six months of tending to this wound, I was certain it would never heal.
“I want to see you,” he says, hoarsely.
Desire feels like a creature larger than my whole damn body. “What would you like to see?”
The way I felt right now, he could ask anything of me and I would give it as long as he promised to satisfy that ache in my body that has grown unbearable over the past six months.
He looks at me curiously, not expecting that answer. “These,” he says, simply, tugging on my dress, pulling the already deep neckline even lower, uncovering more and more of my chest until my nipples came into view– hardened into little pebbles.
He steps back, taking in the sight of me. The carnal hunger in his gaze makes me feel faint, breathless. It feels like a caress, rough and exacting the way Eren has always touched me, from my neck down to the swell of my breasts, and then further along my stomach, to my hips and my exposed thighs.
“Are you just going to stare at me?” I ask, somewhat pathetically. I know I sound desperate, but at this point, my pride is beaten and wounded.
“Can’t wait, huh?” He smiles almost cruelly. “But you made me wait six months, Mikasa. Six months without this perfect body,” he murmurs, hand shaping the curve of my naked breast.
I am ready to beg. His touches are too… fleeting, too distant. The regrets could come later.
And I am about to say it, to say please, to say his name and feel it roll off my tongue the way it always did when I—
“Boss, is everything ok—”
All of a sudden my vision is covered in green as Eren crushes me to him swiftly. My face is buried in his sweater, and all I know is that I distinctly heard somebody else, and a somebody that sounded specifically like one of Eren’s captains. I can feel Eren’s posture tighten but the way he holds me keeps me completely hidden from view.
“Get out,” he snarls. His voice ripples in his throat, and against my skin. “Or I’ll shoot you.” And his hand whips out his gun in a smooth motion, without flinching. Only I flinch, my body going completely still, my breath catching in her throat.
I’m shaking in his arms now, and even though one of his hands presses my head into his chest protectively, I am hyperaware of the fact that the other holds a loaded gun, aimed right at somebody’s heart. Deep breaths, I tell myself, and I try to focus on the smell of him— of comfort, of safety, of Eren— the way I have done countless times in the past.
“S-sorry, I didn’t know—”
“I’ll give you five seconds.” Eren’s voice is glacial.
And then I could literally hear him scampering out.
My heart is still beating out of my chest, and for a minute I marvel at how regular his is, regardless of the anger lacing his tone like kerosene, and the loaded gun he’d so casually pointed at one of his own people.
When he’s certain that they are alone again, he lets go of me. He sees me shivering and his mouth hardens. “Sorry if I was too rough with you,” he mutters, and he steps back to put some space within us. But I tug on his sleeve; I don’t think I can stand any more of this terrible distance between us.
“You didn’t have to threaten him,” I say, unable to hide the tremble in my voice.
He shrugs. “Floch understands this language. And besides,” his gaze flickers down towards my heavy, naked breasts. “If he’d actually seen you like this, it wouldn’t have been just a threat.”
I shiver at his words, a tingle running down my spine to my core. It was all kinds of fucked up, but it makes my skin burn, my body turning molten when he talks about me like that. Like I belonged to him and it was the most obvious fact.
“You’re crazy,” I say, shakily. But really, I’m wondering which one of us is crazier— the man who makes these types of threats or the woman who relishes them, whose desire to belong to him outweighed everything that she’d ever known of morality.
His gaze catches mine, and the awareness in it makes me feel exposed. “Maybe I am crazy,” he says. He pulls my face up towards him, his thumb running across my lip and pulling at it. “The thought of anyone else seeing you like this?” He takes in a sharp breath. “It drives me crazy.”
He rucks my dress up high on my hips, spreading my legs roughly with his palms. When his fingers pull my thong to the side, he lets out a low whistle. “But you enjoy it, huh.” His verdant eyes simmer with intensity. “Got turned on by someone walking in on us?”
I flush at least seven shades of red. “That’s not true—”
“I can literally smell you, babe,” he says sardonically, and that makes me melt inside. He pushes me flat on my back onto the counter. I could feel the heat of his gaze between my legs. My pussy was on display for him like a feast on the bar. He smiles, mockingly. “Do you want me to take care of that for you, Mikasa?”
It’s humiliating the way he knows my body so well, and even more humiliating how I have no control over my body’s response to him. The rational part of my brain wants me to tell him that I am not his anymore, that he has no business talking to me this way, but the words evaporate from my tongue, and the only request that comes out is a whimpered, “… Yes.”
Suddenly his voice grows cold, almost displeased with my response. “Then beg for it.”
His words are hot, shameful shots of liquor down my bloodstream, an inebriated ache taking over me, as I realise what he wants from me. “Please, Eren.”
“Please what?”
I shut my eyes, trying to breathe through this overwhelming arousal that racks my traitorous body. Almost subconsciously, my legs rub together for a moment’s reprieve, but he sees it, palms keep my legs apart firmly.
“Touch me,” I plead. It sounds almost like a whine.
“Why should I?”
I want to scream in frustration, but I can still feel myself juicing up under his gaze, under his blatant scrutiny. So I begin to put words to my humiliating desires. “I-I’m so wet, Eren. My pussy,” my face burns as I say it, “It aches.” For you.
And when he still doesn’t move, I beg, “I need you to touch me. Please, Eren.”
His gaze is unreadable as he watches me, watches my face, my mouth, the quiver of my lips before it drops to my pussy. I feel like I might combust from this painful need.
“Only because you asked so nicely,” he says gruffly before he holds my thighs apart and lowers his head between my legs, dribbling his spit onto my clit. A violent shudder rolls through my body. “Not that you need it. Fuck, you’re already dripping,” he murmurs almost affectionately. And then he devours me.
I can do little else but just surrender to it, as he spreads me open and licks me, from my clit all the way to my back, large messy swathes of his tongue, uncaring for any technique. I can hear my own moans resounding through the velvet halls of his club and it sounds filthy. He spits on my opening to get me drooling, and I know this because the sounds my body makes as he plunges his tongue inside of me, are absolutely obscene.
My hands twine into his hair, pulling on it and making a mess of his bun but it only eggs him on further, kissing and nibbling on me. When he lifts up for air, his chin is dripping with my juices. I am so desperate for him, the only sounds that come from my mouth are broken whimpers of his name and the word Please.
His thumb reaches for my clit, pressing against the bundle of nerves, and when I cry out, he does it again. “You broke my heart, Mikasa,” he says gruffly, “tell me why should I do this for you?” His words are taunting but his fingers are playing an even more cruel game.
“I didn’t mean to,” I mumble guiltily, trying to string together words, even though I am falling apart, because he’s putting just the right amount of pressure for it not to be enough. His fingers rub against my clit the way he knows drives me crazy, the way it makes me hot and bothered but not good enough to make me come. “No one else can make me feel this way–”
“You thought about it?” He growls, his eyes darkening. His fingers dig into my hips, leaving marks that will definitely bruise. “You tried to make someone else make you feel good?”
“No, never,” I gasp, quickly. This is how he is, possessive of even my thoughts, my non-existent attempts to move on, whether they were successful or not, but I can’t even fully register it, as he plunges two fingers inside of me crudely. The sensation makes me shiver all the way down to my toes.
“But you want it, don’t you,” he rasps, a slightly unhinged glint in his viridian eyes. “That’s why you left me. You want to give this sweet cunt to someone else.”
“No,” I cry, half from the havoc his fingers wreak inside of me, and half because I know Eren would never allow it. I let out a choked sob. Here I am, six months after saying goodbye to this relationship, but even the slightest mention of moving on and my first thought is: He would never allow it . No, who was I fooling? I would never allow it; I could never unravel under somebody else’s hands this way.
“There will never be anyone else for me, Eren,” I tell him desperately, honestly, a tear leaking from my eye. And that’s how fucked up this is; that even after leaving, I could never truly leave him behind. I could never really get Eren Jaeger out of my system.
“Only you could make a confession like that sound like a rejection,” he murmurs, wiping the tear from my face. But before I can register that moment of vulnerability, his mask has come up again. He slips two fingers inside of me and spreads them into a V, displaying me for himself embarrassingly. “Say it again, Mikasa.”
I can feel myself grow wetter from his treatment of me, from the way his eyes focus on my most private places. And in my stupidly aroused, emotional state, I tell him another truth, a truth that’s weighed so heavily on my heart ever since I walked out on him. “It’ll only ever be you, Eren.”
Eren is quiet. He grits his teeth and his eyes flare with some unnamed emotion that scares me just a little. The sound of his zipper is loud in the empty club, filled otherwise only with my harsh breathing. The sight of him hard and wanting in his hands fills me with a desperate hunger. And when he jerks himself into his palm, it only gets worse.
Whether Eren notices it or not, he taunts me about it. “You’re not lying are you, baby? You really want this cock, don’t you?” His words are crude, and it’s as if he’s ignoring all of the love that I just professed because he doesn’t believe it. I want to tell him so badly that it’s more than that; it’s more than just his insanely desirable body. I feel like I am turned inside out with the weight of my craving for this man, but all I can manage is a desperate Yes .
He thrusts into me hard and smooth, his cock finding its way deep inside of me where I was aching to be filled. And that’s all it takes for me to come apart— the taut string inside of me shatters, my back arching off the counter as I throw my head back in pleasure.
It takes me several moments to come down from that, to fully grapple with the full extent of my desire to have this man inside of me. No, it felt wrong to call it a desire, it was a need. I’m breathing hard, and I feel dazed with lust. Eren looms over me, his breath mingling with mine. He pushes a strand of sweat-slick hair out of my face, and I think for a moment, he is almost looking at me lovingly. I can think of countless times when he has held me just like this, kissed me sweetly and said, You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Mikasa.
But today his gaze is hard, and the words that spill from his lips are unaffectionate. “So desperate for my cock, Mikasa?” He taunts, thrusting into me leisurely. “You came so soon— just wanted to be filled up, babe?”
“Mm-hmm,” I mumble, shakily. I feel as if I am leaking pleasure from every inch of my skin, and no matter how much I yearn for his sweet nothings, I moan without shame when he fucks me like this, brutally. I don’t care anymore how humiliating it is that my body reacts that way. He lifts one leg of mine onto his shoulder and thrusts even deeper— this was his favourite position, his safe place. Where he’s so deep inside of me, he grazes his teeth against my calf, biting softly to hold back a moan, to hide how good it feels for him.
It's an unbeatable high, watching your lover lose himself to the pleasure he takes within your body.
It makes me feel greedy. “Fuck me harder, Eren,” I beg, wantonly. I bring my hand up to squeeze my own breast, knowing that he likes to see me pleasure myself. “Fuck me harder and don’t stop, please.”
His eyes are black with desire, thrusting shallowly as he watches me squeeze and pinch my nipples. “Harder, Eren, please,” I beg, because the pace he has set is driving me mad.
He spanks my ass harshly, making me yelp. “I don’t take orders, Mikasa,” he growls, “I’ll fuck you how I want to fuck you, and you’ll take it.”
And fucked up that I am, I nod, because it’s true. I’ve always liked it like that, Eren giving me whatever he wants to give me and me lapping it up eagerly because it still fulfilled a need inside of me that nothing else could ever fulfil.
He sets a punishing rhythm for me, slow and deep, pulling out just enough before plunging back in to reach the depths of me, and I gasp loudly as I give into wave after wave of another white-hot orgasm. “That’s my girl,” he praises, dropping a kiss on my forehead “So fucking easy to please. You feel so good when you come around me, baby. It’s my most favourite thing in the whole world.”
His words are like a fever dream as I come down from my high. And before I can even rationally process what I am saying, the words dribble out of my mouth. “… I want to feel you, Eren, please…”
“What do you want to feel, babe?” He asks softly. “I’m already fucking you. Just like you wanted.”
I know, I know, he’s so good to me, so impossibly good, I think, in my post-orgasm haze, but I’m so greedy, I’m insatiable. I raise myself up to whisper in his ear, “… I want to feel you come inside me.”
He makes a low noise in his throat; I can feel his dick pulsing with need. I want it so badly, but I know he loves it too, it’s his weakness. He’s done it so many times before, fucked me silly until I was nothing but a babbling mess around his cock and left me with his cum dribbling out of my pussy. But it was different then— back then I was in his house, in his arms whenever he wanted, without the worry that I would turn my back on him and never come back.
His anger is palpable as he speaks, his voice low. “Said you wanted nothing to do with me anymore, but now you’re begging for my cum?” His hands grip my cheeks roughly forcing them inward as he says, “Did you forget?”
How could I? I have played those words on a loop and hated myself for it ever since that night when I walked out. Humiliation warms my cheeks, as I try to justify myself. “I just–” I begin but then I realise there’s no real way to rationalise my actions and the burning lust that makes me crave him this way. “I-I still want you, Eren.”
His gaze softens, melting into hot desire. That’s the thing with Eren, he has so much anger, he’s filled to the brim with it, but he could never take it out on me. Despite everything he says or does, there’s nobody else who makes me feel this way, hot and ravenous, yet completely safe and protected.
He kisses me then, and I can feel his longing. “I’ll give you what you want, baby. Come back to me, I swear, you won’t have to beg for anything ever again.” He pushes into me again, and I can hear the shakiness in his voice, sweat beading on his forehead. “Whatever you want, I’ll give you. I miss you so much, Mikasa,” he groans, tipping over, his release pouring inside of me, warm and filthy and messing me up more than I already was.
He buries his head in my neck, his breath hot, fanning over my skin and making me shiver. “I love you,” he whispers, and it startles me out of my pleasure-induced stupor. He mumbles something again like ‘come back to me,’ but I’m not sure, because my heart is beating so fast, it is drowning out everything else. I feel overwhelmed, my body tingling from his rough handling of me, and my heart aching with everything he’s told me.
It would be so easy to give in to it, to surrender my heart and morals to this incredibly passionate yet dangerous man, and close my eyes to the blood he left in his wake. I could fool myself into a happily ever after because I know he’ll love me so intensely that I’ll rarely have time to think of anything else.
It’s an intoxicating offer, and I can feel myself giving in, my body moulding against him, my hands ruffling his hair and soothing him as he whispers promises I know he would fulfil, against my skin. But it’s the things he isn’t saying, the questions I’m not asking, that lie between us, slowly creeping their way between our bodies. My lack of response hangs heavily in the air.
He kisses my neck, the side of my face, my chest— frantic, pleading kisses of a man so unlike Eren— grasping at what feels like the crumbs that are left of us.
Despite the sinking feeling in my heart, my body grows warm again at his touch, and I wonder if my time playing the fool is coming to a close. Maybe this is it, it was inevitable, me coming undone at the hands of this hurricane of a man. Maybe this is who I really am and it’s time to accept it.
My breathing quickens when he runs his tongue across my breast, lazy strokes without purpose and purely for self-indulgence.
He’s still inside of me and even he can feel it, it’s mortifying. He can feel my body firing up for him again and he isn’t even trying. He lets out an exhausted laugh. “Give me a minute to breathe, Mikasa. Fuck.”
Even as he says it, I feel him stir within me again, and he slips out, cursing something about how good I feel, resting against the counter, his dick growing hard, visibly, again. The evidence of my pleasure covers the length of him in a glossy, messy, sheen. His essence is still oozing out of me, and horrifyingly, I can feel it pool out onto the bar counter.
“It’s not like I ever get a warning with you,” I murmur, the tell-tale signs of regret clawing at my chest. But there’s no point in regret, now is there? I feel it like the shame that coats my nether lips, my thighs. There’s no point in berating my body for behaving like his little nymph— he’s inside of me now, his infectious passion, his hunger, his sins, wedged inside of me and spreading throughout me like a stain. How could I have ever thought that I would be rid of it?
He runs a finger along the side of my face, pushing my sweaty hair out of my eyes. His eyes are green and deep and full of love— his kind of love, the twisted kind where he would give me everything and take everything, and keep me locked up in his arms. I can see myself in them, my own stormy ones reflecting my truth— He’d keep me caged in his arms, but that’s where I felt safe, complete.
His hands took lives but they gave me mine; it made me feel alive. And after six months of running, I think to myself: perhaps it’s time that I accept it.