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v.
The first time is set after Thursday’s routine inspection of the barracks and the instructor staring at the four notebooks, twelve crumpled pages and three pencils spread over Hanji’s wrinkled bedspread before turning on his heel and bellowing in Hanji’s face, ‘this is unacceptable! You will keep your bed and space clean, as well as your uniform pristine and,’ he makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat, ‘and even your hair is a mess, fucking hell!’
Hanji stares back at the instructor impassively, eyebrows raised and hands clasped behind her back, waiting for the man’s tirade to end. She gives no discernible reaction that she’s heard except to salute once when the instructor finally dismisses her.
‘God, he yells so loudly,’ she blurts, blowing a strand of her hair out of her eyes as she flops back on the bed. The other recruits chuckle around her, pulling out packs of cards or cigarettes now that their break time has officially started. Rivaille is swinging his legs as he sits on his top bunk, peering down at her mattress below and across from him and continues to count the papers she enthusiastically rips out from one of her notebooks (from twelve to eighteen in the last 45 seconds) and crumples up in frustration. Her bangs keep falling in her eyes and she blows the out of her way with a loud sigh, chewing on the tip of a pencil and frowning when they just fall back in her face.
‘Maybe if you brushed it, it wouldn’t irritate you so much,’ says Rivaille flatly, and Hanji looks up with wide eyes behind her flyaway hair.
‘Yeah, but I don’t have a comb,’ grins Hanji. Rivaille has stopped questioning why Hanji always talks to people with so much energy when her idiocy just leaks out of her.
‘What do you have?’ he asks, annoyed, and Hanji just shrugs, peering into her bag at the foot of her bed.
‘Mm, some more notebooks, a couple bottles, and a pencil sharpener,’ she supplies helpfully.
Rivaille takes some pride in the fact that he hasn’t thrown his boot at her head yet with how dense she is. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ he mutters, ‘look, it’s painful looking at you, just borrow mine.’ He turns towards his own bag to fish out his comb when he suddenly feels the mattress dip beside him. With a jerk, he realizes Hanji is kneeling next to him, peering over his shoulder into his bag.
With a quick movement, Rivaille zips it shut and shoves a comb and an elastic band into her face. ‘Take it.’
Hanji blinks and glances down at the objects. Gingerly, her long fingers pluck the comb and elastic from his hands and hold them up in front of his face. ‘And what should I do with this?’ Her tone is careful as if she thinks he’s an idiot.
‘Tie your hair back,’ he replies incredulously.
‘My brother always did that,’ she says and hums low in her throat, as if in reminiscence. ‘Do you mind?’
‘What?’ says Rivaille because no, seriously, what. He watches as Hanji rearranges herself so she’s kneeling on his bed with her back towards him and holds the comb over her shoulder.
‘Do you mind brushing my hair?’ says Hanji. ‘Wow, you’re sort of slow.’
Rivaille feels his temper spike. ‘I’m slow? You didn’t even bring a comb to the military, what kind of soldier even are you, why are you even here – ’
‘Rivaille,’ she says once. Rivaille shuts up, eyebrow twitching, but he grabs his own comb from her offending hands and slides it over the knotted brambles of her brown hair. This is – in hindsight – a terrible idea considering she has knots everywhere. Yet, no matter how harsh his tugging gets, Hanji doesn’t say a word, just breathes quietly in the hushed murmur of the barracks. The recruits around them continue on with their own conversations and activities and Rivaille settles himself in the easy rhythm of tugging the teeth of his comb through the flyaway brown hair.
Hanji is an enigma in the dozens of recruits and Rivaille finds himself interested in someone who seems so completely guileless in the face of the violence of the military. So he counts the notebooks on her bed that she leaves lying around, the pencils she slides into the tangled mess of her hair at the nape of her neck, the number of rips in her uniform that she ignores in favour of scribbling something or another down.
‘What are you even researching?’ he murmurs, feeling the comb ease through her hair without the usual tugging and pulling. Hanji hums.
‘Everything,’ she replies after a beat. ‘I’ve never been to a military base. I’m from a farming town.’
‘Do you not care about getting yelled at?’ he sighs, tilting her head back and running the teeth over her long bangs. He sees the closed lashes of her eyes, the curve of her brows. Her expression is relaxed and Rivaille takes it in, stores it away somewhere in his mind to mull over later.
‘I’m here to fight Titans.’ Her eyes are open and her gaze is sharp. ‘I’m gonna kill them all.’
‘Yeah,’ says Rivaille, dropping the comb and taking the elastic from her hand, making a ponytail, a river of oak and freshly-turned earth spreading down the back of her neck. He skims his thumb over the first knob of her spine where Titans die. ‘Same.’
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iv.
The second time comes after Wall Rose is breached and everyone is dead and Hanji is sitting a bathtub of steaming water, her mouth below the surface of the water, her expression of muted despair. Rivaille finds her there when Mike asks him where she’s gone because Irvin wants a headcount of surviving recruits by tomorrow because everything is an awful fucking mess and what are we going to do with the refugees and so many dead recruits to cremate and how is anything going to –
Rivaille opens the door, steps inside, and closes it.
Hanji hair is spread around her shoulders, floating around her, still caked in mud and Titan blood and her companions’ blood and everyone she knows is dead now, what to do, what to do –
‘Hanji,’ calls out Rivaille, because he needs an anchor and her thoughts do too. There’s nothing like a friendship borne from the chaos of the present. He leans over her, a hand not daring to touch her but reaching out anyway. ‘Hanji.’
She blinks once, twice, before awareness seeps into her body and her muscles tense for a beat before relaxing because it’s only Rivaille here. Slowly, she tilts her head back, looking up at him, her brow furrowed in grief. ‘Rivaille.’ Her voice cracks halfway.
‘Let’s get you clean,’ he sighs. He’s already scrubbed himself raw four times over the past week, never forgetting the slick heat of Titan blood over his skin, the goosebumps he felt when people around him collapsed and died, the slide of sweat as adrenaline pumped under his skin and pushed him to fight, to live, to survive.
He kneels behind her head, grabbing the bar of soap from the stand next to the tub and laving it over her shoulders before she shudders and jerks away. ‘I can’t,’ she says, turning her head to look at him, eyes wide. ‘I – I can’t.’
Rivaille pretends he understands and backs off. With jerky movements, she grabs the bar of soap and scrubs at her skin, underneath her fingernails, over the folds of her skin and – with a dunk of her head under the warm water – even washes her hair clean as much as she can.
Finally, she rinses off as she drains the tub full of filthy water and seats herself back down against the ceramic, her back still to Rivaille. ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmurs. ‘I couldn’t have you – have you touch me when I was – ’
And Rivaille understands that at least – the feeling of being filthy, the disgust of even being alive when everyone he knows is dead and dying, the survivor’s guilt heavy on his shoulders. ‘Your hair is a mess,’ he says instead.
‘Yeah,’ she agrees quietly. There’s a comb next to the tub, as well as towels and a mud-caked, blood-soaked uniform, and Hanji’s glasses with their broken strap. It wasn’t like that when she was fighting and Rivaille has no doubt she tore it in a fit of heartbroken rage.
He towels her hair dry quickly, efficiently, and drapes the cloth over her shoulders. He pretends not to see the desperate clutch of her nails digging into the fabric as she pulls it tight across her body. With unshaking hands, he threads the teeth of the comb through her now longer brown hair and begins untangling it quietly, slowly.
It takes much longer than Rivaille would ever have the patience for but there’s a weight on his soul that he doesn’t want to contemplate right now. Hanji cries silently – fat, warm tears trickling over her face – as Rivaille works. He doesn’t say a word and she doesn’t mouth a sound.
When he’s done, it’s a river down her back, a creek of glimmering soil between the freckled, tanned shoulder blades of an ex-farm girl, now soldier. Hanji hiccups as Rivaille pulls his hands away. ‘My family is dead.’
Rivaille parts her hair into three, begins to braid it down her back. ‘I’m here,’ he tells her, certain, quiet.
‘They’re calling you Humanity’s Strongest Soldier,’ she sobs, drawing her knees tightly to her chest.
‘Means I’m never going to die,’ he offers her – a paltry comfort when touching her like this is his anchor back to the real world. That Rivaille stays strong because there are still people to stay strong for. That everyone might be dead, but you’re not, you’re still alive, crying in a bathtub, your hair long and sleek and real between my fingers.
The dam in Hanji breaks and she wails into her knees, cries for hours, sobbing into her skin, hands pressed against her face as tears keep streaming down her face, and Rivaille leans his head against the back of her shoulder blade and stays with her through it, fingers still caught between the strands of her hair.
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iii.
The third time comes after Hanji emerges from her basement-in-the-military-jail-cells-turned-impromptu-lab (with express permission from Commander Irvin of course) and bounds into the Corporal’s office.
‘I thought you had died,’ says Rivaille because it’s been 39 hours since he’s last seen her. ‘Have you eaten?’
Hanji makes a dismissive noise in the back of her throat because what is self-care to the goal of saving humanity. ‘I analyzed Titan blood and, look, look!’ She twirls around on her heel, a green cloak fluttering around her shoulders. This is probably the closest he will ever see her in feminine clothing, Rivaille realizes. The thought makes his chest clench with something similar to sadness but not quite. Hanji has never been either a boy or girl, only a soldier, and therein lies the grief.
‘Wow,’ he says, his face flat but voice fused with fake enthusiasm, ‘Hanji, that’s so beautiful, a green cloak, I’ve never seen green like that before, it’s so eye-catching.’ He’s laying it on a little thick as he mocks her, but the affronted pout Hanji gives him is very much worth it.
‘No, no, put it on,’ she says in a huff, unclasping it from her neck and coming around his work desk to drape it over his shoulders. With a flourish, she hooks it together and lets it drape over his form. She smells like flowers, Rivaille notices. She must’ve put on some perfume to cover up the lab scent because she knows it makes him feel a little nauseous. It warms him.
Hanji’s voice brings him back, ‘okay, now, watch this.’ From her pocket, she pulls out a vial of red viscous liquid. Rivaille rears back in his chair when he realizes it’s Titan blood.
‘Hanji, that’s fucking disgusting,’ he snaps, and Hanji ignores him, popping off the top and pulling Rivaille back towards her by the hem of the cloak.
‘Pay attention, okay,’ she says, always patient when it comes to her experiments. Without further ado, she pours the Titan blood over the cloak as Rivaille cringes. However, instead of staining, it starts to steam and disappear from the cloth.
‘What the fuck,’ says Rivaille flatly as the cloak continues to be clean and pristinely green despite Hanji pouring the rest of the blood enthusiastically over the cloth. It keeps steaming and disappearing away, like evaporating water, and Rivaille is both amazed and slightly terrified.
‘This cloak will never stain with Titan blood!’ she announces cheerily, capping the now-empty bottle and sliding it back into her pocket. ‘I made it just for you.’
Rivaille stares dumbly at her grinning face. ‘A cloak that stays permanently clean for killing Titans.’
Hanji hums, ‘I’m not sure about the permanent part – it still needs long-term testing, and I’d really appreciate it if you wore it when we went out next time, y’know, so I can get some more data. I mean, the cloth is still cloth, y’know, but I sprayed it with this concoction and Titan blood has this fascinating reaction to it – ’
‘Thank you,’ he says loudly over her rambling, shutting her up. She stares down at him with her slightly crooked glasses, wrinkled uniform, flyaway hair, and he has to sigh. She’s still a mess, accomplishment or not. ‘Sit down.’
Hanji furrows her brow, ‘on you?’
Rivaille hates himself for flushing, ‘no, on the ground, and turn around.’
Opening up the bottom drawer of his desk, he fishes out his bag of toiletries and grabs the comb from inside. Hanji sits, her back to him, legs spread out wide before her and her fingers tapping some unknown beat over her thighs. It’s endearing.
He pulls off her goggles, placing them on the table, and runs his fingers through the tangled mess of her hair. ‘God, and it’s greasy too, haven’t you been bathing?’
‘I didn’t have time,’ she pipes up cheerily, ‘I was making your cloak and it was just so interesting, Rivaille, the way the chemicals reacted with one another. I really would appreciate more samples on our next mission, and I was hoping to talk to Irvin about opening up my lab to an outdoor specimen collection.’
‘Outdoor specimens?’ asks Rivaille, feeling something like horror creep up his spine as he slides the comb through her hair. ‘You don’t seriously mean to capture Titans alive.’
‘It’s necessary.’ Something in her voice hardens to steel. ‘You know it’s necessary.’
The thought of Hanji so enthusiastically presenting herself to something that wants to eat her without any restraint makes his skin crawl. ‘I want you to get assistants. Armed assistants. At all times.’
‘I can protect myself,’ she says – annoyed. Rivaille tugs at her hair in irritation.
‘I know you can,’ he snaps, ‘but you’re not the same around your science, you know that.’
Hanji quiets, her fingers playing with her sleeve of her uniform. Rivaille takes it as a victory and wonders what Irvin will say. Hanji is only a Squad Leader – but she commands influence beyond her station when it comes to the entire Legion with her advancements, and Irvin will surely grant her more resources to keep researching Titans. It’s an approach neither Church nor State have tried. Rivaille sighs – he’ll always trust in Irvin because Irvin can see things that Rivaille can’t imagine, but worry pricks at his ribs anyway.
He busies himself from his thoughts by drawing out combing her hair as long as possible. He won’t admit to it but there’s a comfort to this that Rivaille hasn’t ever had. It’s a moment of peace to be with another person without yelling or killing to get in-between, and he savours it for himself.
‘Don’t fall asleep on me,’ murmurs Rivaille as Hanji’s head begins to nod. Hanji might always keep well-hydrated because there is water everywhere in her lab down below, but Rivaille knows she went 39 hours without real food nor bathing nor sleeping.
She ignores him as she is wont to do and her head swings back, landing in his lap, the nape of her neck nuzzled between his kneecaps. Her now straightened hair is squashed underneath and Rivaille sighs, occupying himself by sliding his fingers into her bangs.
He lets her nap quietly in his lap as he unclasps her cloak from his shoulders and drapes it over the front of her torso. Silently, Rivaille busies himself with continuing to read reports on his desk, one hand still caught between Hanji’s hair, combing through the strands, slowly, never-ending.
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ii.
The fourth time is when Hanji enters his rooms one night, closing the door behind her as she drags her tired self into his space and collapses face first into his bed, a muffled, ‘I can’t do it, I’m too tired, you do it,’ hanging in the air.
Rivaille is annoyed, crossing his arms as he stands with only his undershorts and a shirt on. ‘Do what?’ It’s pitch black outside and all Rivaille really wants to do is sleep the night away until he has to meet Irvin tomorrow for a meeting since the two captured Titans were killed this morning. Hanji moping on his bed was not his problem right now.
‘I dunno,’ she replies helpfully, ‘I’m so tired, Rivaille.’ Her whine turns quiet and something heavier descends into the room. Rivaille doesn’t comment on it. Everyone is tired, he wants to say, everyone is exhausted and wants walls to stay standing and Titans to be dead and for humanity to prosper without fear of elimination.
Instead, he indulges her by pulling off her boots and socks, turning her to her side to slide the jacket off her shoulders and pull her goggles, leaving them on the bedside table. Hanji stares up at him, eyes half-lidded, exhausted. ‘You’re my only friend.’
Rivaille snorts. ‘Mike is going to be heartbroken when he hears that.’ Carefully, he undoes the top buttons of her shirt, exposing her clavicle, and Hanji arches her torso, letting him pull it off her completely. She’s all muscle and marks, training welts and Titan scars, battles etched over her body and burns leaving love bites over her skin.
‘No, you’re never going to die,’ says Hanji quietly, ‘strongest of them all, you are. I can trust you cause you won’t leave me.’
Everything is just a little muted, a little muffled. The monochrome of the night leaves Hanji in different shades of gray. Rivaille shimmies her out of her pants, leaves her naked except for her underwear. Everything about her exposed and vulnerable for him to see and Rivaille flounders, doesn’t know what to do.
‘You should let more people in,’ he suggests quietly. ‘You can’t depend on me all the time.’
‘I don’t have a big heart like you, Rivaille,’ she laughs, a little bit bitter, and throws an arm over her face. ‘I can’t let it be broken every time we return from a mission. I’m not strong like that, dumbass.’
Rivaille doesn’t say anything, doesn’t know what to say when she reads him so well, knows him though he’s sure he hasn’t exposed himself to such an extent. Instead, he opens his bag of toiletries from his bag under the bed and takes his comb, holds it with that easy familiarity from all the times before.
‘C’mon, up, need to brush it back so it doesn’t get tangled,’ he explains tiredly because for sure Hanji has never worried about anything like that. Hanji props herself up, watching him as he climbs onto the bed and leans his back against the headboard, knees pulled upwards and legs spread.
Without a look or sound, Hanji scoots backwards so she’s cradled between Rivaille’s legs, her own knees drawn up tight to her chest as she props her chin on her kneecap. Rivaille lets himself touch her shoulders with his fingertips, skim over her skin and up her neck to tangle in her hair. It’s an indulgence, to let himself touch her when she is this vulnerable. He imagines this will never happen again.
‘Can I sleep here?’ she asks quietly as Rivaille runs the comb’s teeth down her ever-long hair.
‘I won’t be gone tomorrow,’ he replies, careful with the ends of her hair because he’s learned that the tangles usually congregate there.
‘That’s what I thought about my Titans,’ she says, and he thinks she’s trying for good cheer but it just comes off as depressing. Rivaille sighs, working the comb through the strands in silence for a minute until she’s recovered from embarrassment at herself.
‘Stay,’ he decides, his voice muffled with feeling. He doesn’t dare repeat himself in case his voice cracks because there’s so much clogged up in his chest with how Hanji is in his space, all her sharp edges and soft corners exposed in the muted light of his room.
Hanji doesn’t reply, but she leans back, forcing Rivaille’s hands to come around her torso as she slides the nape of her neck onto his shoulder, head tipped back so her throat is exposed next to his mouth. It’s as defenseless as one can get. The trust in her action has his feelings strung tight around him.
‘Dumbass, I’m not done your hair,’ he says, turning his face, letting his mouth brush against the tip of her ear. Hanji hums low in her throat, ‘use your fingers then,’ as if this was the obvious answer.
Carefully, he glides them through the parts of her hair that isn’t squashed between them, undoing the tangles in small, deliberate pulls. Once he’s done with those, his fingers find her bangs that frame her face and runs in between the strands, lets the tips of his fingers catch against the curve of her cheek.
Without warning, Hanji turns her head, nose bumping against his palm, and kisses the soft arch of his wrist, and Rivaille tenses. ‘Hanji.’
She replies by littering the skin of his forearm with butterfly kisses and it makes him shiver, makes his chest tighten and flush with affection. She pulls away, unable to crane her neck to reach his elbow, and leans back against his shoulder, eyes closed, breathing deep and evened out. As if kissing her superior officer’s skin as gently and lovingly as she does is the usual thing to do. The normal thing.
Perceived normalcy has always been Rivaille’s anchor. Hanji’s constant presence, Irvin’s constant command, the weight of his weapons on his hips, the bland taste of food on his tongue, the piles of reports that always come into his desk. They’re all constants that Rivaille clutches to and holds tightly in his fists.
He wonders if he can have this – have Hanji – to hold him down as he has already imagined. He wonders if she’ll let him, and wants to bury his face in her hair and never come up for air, drown in her presence until it’s all that’s left of this world.
‘Let’s go to bed,’ he murmurs into her ear, and she gives a muffled hum of agreement, letting him slide her body downwards until it’s flat against the mattress. He lies down next to her, pulling the sheets over them both and doesn’t object when he feels her warm hands curl around his shoulders, pulling him close, closer, until he’s tucked in the crook of her neck and shoulder.
Rivaille swings an arm around her waist and lets the ends of her hair tickle his fingertips, and he gathers up the strands in his palm, feeling the softness, the barely-there weight of it, the fragility, and realizes he could learn to love it here.
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i.
However, there’s a time when he is bedridden for days, the fever sweeping over his sense and leaving him a sweating, disgusting mess between his sheets as he tries to recover from the illness. Irvin announces a quarantine and only himself, Mike and Hanji are welcome in Rivaille’s room until he’s healthy once more.
It’d be a disgusting joke if he was to die from the flu rather than between the maws of a Titan and Rivaille pushes the thought away stubbornly, trying his best to bolster his health back up to par through a combination of sleep, water and Hanji’s numerous concoctions.
‘Wow, you’re pretty gross, huh,’ she remarks, sitting next to him and wiping down his face with a damp cloth, and Rivaille has enough presence of mind to scowl.
‘I can feel it very well myself, thank you,’ and Hanji rolls her eyes at his grumpiness, propping him up on a pile of pillows to hand him a bowl of steaming something-or-another. ‘Do these even work? You’ve been giving this shit a lot to me and I’m still like this.’
‘My, you’re talkative when you’re sick,’ she remarks, laughing, ‘yeah, it works, I wouldn’t give you anything that wasn’t proven to be effective, would I? Paranoid bastard.’
With sweaty hands, Rivaille grumpily drinks the broth down, chewing at the vegetables or whatever-the-fuck Hanji put inside of her flu-curing soup. Honestly, still drenched in sweat and a fever running high, he thinks she’s full of bullshit. He thinks everyone is full of bullshit. The universe especially.
Eventually, he chokes down the soup and places the bowl on the bedside table next to three bottles of water, now gleefully refilled by Hanji, his attending doctor.
‘Leave me alone, go die, I hate you,’ he tells her, grabbing a water bottle and chugging down half of it. He slams it back down against the table and begins to rearrange himself so he can get the necessary amount of rest after fulfilling the requirements of sustenance and hydration.
‘Nope, not yet!’ says Hanji cheerily, grabbing him around the shoulders. Without a moment’s pause, she swings her leg over his waist and straddles him, pulling out a comb from her pocket. ‘My turn!’
Rivaille feels the urge to murder crawl up his spine. ‘No. Fuck off. Get away from me or I’ll kill you.’ The words are too much and he finds himself grabbing a handkerchief to cover up his fit of coughing.
‘Oh yeah, strong ol’ Corporal’s gonna fuck me up, mmhmm,’ agrees Hanji, her face the epitome of consoling though her body vibrates with restrained laughter, and Rivaille sort of wants to die from humiliation. Of course she would see him at his worst.
Everything about her is a mess as usual, but her hair looks like she actually put effort into her – not the usual clusterfuck of tangles that he’s used to seeing tied together by an elastic band, but an actual ponytail, though her bangs fall messily around her face. The effort sends a pang of warmth through him.
‘This is so stupid, Hanji,’ he tells her when he sees her brandish the comb in her hands. She slides her fingers through his fringe, not even caring that he’s sweaty and frankly fucking disgusting right now. It’s probably because that she’s immune to him, remembers Rivaille. The fact that Hanji had punched her way through her annual flu through sheer force of will in three days is suddenly a great source of jealousy for him.
‘Don’t be a whiney recruit, Corporal,’ she snorts, running the teeth of the comb through his bangs and gently over his skull. She’s careful and slow, deceptively gentle, and Rivaille’s shoulders get tighter and tighter with tension. ‘Rivaille.’
‘What,’ he says tightly.
‘Calm down,’ she orders with a sigh, looking down at him. Her one hand is cradling his head, the other resting the comb on his shoulder. ‘I’m just brushing your hair.’
‘I’ll calm down when you leave,’ he retorts.
‘Just because you have a giant complex about looking vulnerable around people doesn’t mean you have to pull that shit with me,’ she says to him, terribly patient, and he hates that. Hates that she sees right through him when he’s the only who is supposed to be able to read her.
‘Fuck off,’ he says.
Hanji’s face shows that she is supremely unimpressed with him and it makes his skin crawl. Rivaille looks away, staring determinedly at the half-empty water bottle beside him.
‘Is this because I didn’t stay in your bed until morning?’ she asks, dropping the comb in his lap and sliding both her hands over his shoulders, tickling around the bare skin of his neck. Rivaille shivers and presses his lips together in a thin line. This is such crap. He’s sick, he shouldn’t have to deal with feelings right now.
‘Don’t fucking analyze me,’ he snaps, eyes still on the bottle.
‘I’m not. I’m asking you a question.’ Damn scientists and their ability to work through bullshit semantics.
‘I don’t care about that. I don’t give a shit, okay, so you can leave. Listen to a goddamn sick person.’
Hanji snorts, her fingers drawing circles on his skull as she slides her hands into his damp hair and forcibly tilts his head back to look at her. ‘I think it’s been historically proven that sick people make terrible judgements.’
Rivaille glares at her. ‘Do you mean those with the flu or those with mental instability, cause there’s a fucking difference.’
‘I mean you,’ she answers, her eyes clear, her face open and everything about her straightforward and easy for him to read. Rivaille twists his mouth into a scowl at her ability to just be in front of him the way he can’t. Still, he takes a deep breath.
‘You think you’re the only one who needs a fucking friend who’ll stick by them?’ he snarls, ‘you think you’re the only person who sometimes needs someone else be alive with them through everything - thick and thin, Titans and all?’
Hanji’s eyes soften and it makes Rivaille rear back in some emotion that he refuses to name. She purses her mouth before replying, ‘I’m sorry. I should have stayed.’
He snorts. ‘Damn right.’ He doesn’t expect her to tilt his head back and press her mouth gently against his, an invitation and a reassurance, nothing else, but he aches to deepen it and keep her there. Without thought, Rivaille draws his arms from under the blankets and grabs onto her shoulders, drawing her into him.
It’s pretty fucking gross that he’s sick and making out Hanji, but she’s immune and it’s a little too late, so Rivaille continues, tasting the orange she must’ve had for breakfast, smelling that perfume that she sprays on whenever she’s back from her lab, feels the warmth of her body against his.
When she pulls away, licking at her mouth, Rivaille strums up all his courage to look her in the eye though he feels cracked open and vulnerable in ways he doesn’t expect. He thinks she could probably see all of him if she so chose – all the terrifying, dark, murderous, broken parts of him.
‘You can leave now,’ he offers her, voice wrecked – not from the flu but he won’t acknowledge it.
‘I don’t want to,’ she says simply, her hands still running through his hair, easing him this time, ‘I’m not going to leave you.’
‘I hate you, you’re so fucking annoying,’ he mumbles grudgingly as pleasure blooms in the pit of his stomach. Hanji retreats from his hair, snatching up the comb still in his lap and placing it on the bedside table before peeling the blankets back and sliding into the bed beside him.
‘I’ll be here in the morning,’ Hanji says, pulling him downwards so he’s lying beside her, lying on his side so he’s facing her. ‘I’ll be here.’
He can’t handle this. Rivaille surges up against her in a tide of emotion, kissing those words out of her mouth, leaving her shivering and breathless as he claws at her clothes, tries to get her close, closer, bare skin pressed against bare skin so she can’t retreat, she can’t take it back.
‘Rivaille,’ she gasps into his mouth, and everything is a rush of heat and want, his fingers slick at her cunt, working her open as he licks trails up her neck, nibbling at her clavicle. Her hands are in his hair again, sliding over his skull as her hips move along the tide of his motions.
She only comes when he slides his cock into her, stretching her, filling her until she’s arched and her voice is caught in her throat. There are hands at his chest, clawing at his skin, leaving marks to bloom so he can keep her for days after this event. Her cunt milks his cock, soaking it with release, as her body rocks with the sensation.
‘Let me,’ he asks her, because he won’t force this, and Hanji is nodding, gasping, her arms around his shoulders as he bucks into her, rolling her onto her back so he can fuck her properly. She smiles when she catches his eyes and cants her hips, lets him rock just a little bit harder, just a little bit deeper within her.
‘’m right here, Rivaille,’ she gasps out as he fucks into her once, hard, before easing back into their previous rhythm. ‘So you have to stay too.’ And Rivaille is too far gone too not let her have whatever she wants, ridiculous promises of immortality included.
He fucks hard into her as he feels his release coil around his gut. She jerks at the change of pace and retreats one of her hands to play with her cunt, pleasuring herself as her eyes flutter closed and it’s so hot – so fucking gorgeous the way she’s unafraid to use him for her own pleasure –
‘Hanji, I – ’ but he doesn’t get to finish his begging when he feels her come again, pulsing and rhythmic, her slick all around his cock, making his thrusts sloppier and messier. Hanji moans and drags her ankles around his waist in encouragement, not letting him retreat.
In a flurry of messy, uncoordinated thrusts, Rivaille comes – hot and fast, filling her up as he tries not to collapse from the combination of his fever and sex-induced exhaustion. He feels her hands on his shoulders, easing him back on his side, petting his side as her hips wiggle backwards so his softening cock can slip out of her.
Before he drifts to sleep, he feels her fingers combing through his hair, easing and parting it, brushing it back from his forehead, gently, carefully, never leaving him.
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