Underground - Chapter 20: Chapter 20

We traveled westward along the wall in silence, headed for the furthest most reaches of the land that was protected by Wall Maria.
Erwin had made it clear that our mission was to check out the far reaches of the wall where the abnormal beast titan had been seen last and try to find out how the titans were breaching our defenses.
I glanced over at Levi, who was scanning the road ahead of us with a dark, focused gaze, and opened my mouth to say something to him, but then thought better of it. I flicked the ends of my reins across the palm of my hand, the leather making a slight slapping sound as it hit my skin.
As predicted, after a few seconds of the repetitive sound, Levi spoke up in a slightly irritated tone. "Oi, (L/N)."
I glanced over at him, an innocent smile flickering across my lips as I raised my eyebrows at him. "Yes, Ackerman? Is something bothering you?"
He scowled at me and then said darkly, "Tch. Nothing new. Just you."
"Wow. I'm offended." I gasped dramatically, pretending to wipe a tear from my eye. "That really cuts me deeply." I met his gaze, pursing my lips into a deep pout, before I dropped the act and smirked at him. "Oh wait. No, it doesn't. Because I don't give a titan's ass what you think about me."
He scoffed and was about to retort something back to me when we heard Jaeger call up from behind us, "Corporals! Titans coming at us from the North."
Levi jerked his horse's head around as he came to a stop, so that he was facing the group of cadets that had been following us. He jumped off the large, black stallion and threw the reins at Jaeger, who caught them neatly in his hand. He straightened his 3DM gear, glancing at the curious cadets, before he said in a flat, bored voice, "Corporal (L/N) and I will take care of them. There won't be many this far out and it'll be fairly quick." He glared at the cadets as he straightened, pulling his blades from their sheaths. "You brats will just get in our way. We'll make quicker time if you wait here and we head onward after the titans are taken care of."
I slid off my mount and landed lightly next to him on the ground, pulling my blades out as well as I flicked my chin at Johnson and Miller. "You two. Stay with the squad. He's right. We can take care of this more quickly if all you idiots aren't underneath our feet."
"Let's go, (L/N)." Levi said briskly, before shooting off into the trees on his lines.
I nodded once to the cadets before I shot off after him, following him through the thick forest as we dodged around trees and underneath large branches.
I caught up to Levi so that we were flying next to each other, and glanced down below us, catching sight of the first titan crashing through the trees. It was a fifteen meter, but it appeared to be alone.
"Ackerman." I called out to him, and when he looked over to me, pointed below us toward the shambling titan. "I'll take care of this bastard. Go on ahead. I'll catch up."
He nodded once and his lines whipped him forward through the trees as he disappeared from my sight.
I dropped through the trees at a swift speed, my focus on the titan below me. The leaves and branches whipped past me, stinging my face, but I kept my gaze locked on the back of the titan's neck.
With a yell, I crashed through the last of the small branches and came out into the open behind the titan, my blades held in front of me. The 3DM lines flung me across the small opening in the trees, and as I flew past the large, grinning titan, I slashed one of the blades across its neck.
Blood splashed onto my face as I ripped the blade from its flesh and it fell to the ground, bringing down trees with it as it crashed downward. I landed on the large branch of a tree and stood for a moment, looking down at the downed titan, the blood already beginning to steam and disappear from my cheek.
I heard the sound of 3DM gear and suddenly, Levi was next to me on the branch, sheathing his blades as he looked down at the titan I had just killed. He glanced over at me, his dark hair that was hanging over his brow damp with sweat and speckles of blood dotting his jawline. "Tch. That was almost too easy."
I grinned as I sheathed my bloody blades as well. "It's like they wanted us to find and kill them. I was hoping for more of a fight to be honest."
He looked up at the darkening sky through the branches above us. "We'd better get back to check on the brats. We've ridden all day and it's almost dusk. And it looks like there's a storm headed this way. We need to find somewhere to bunk down for the night."
I nodded. "Agreed. Let's get back. Who knows what trouble those idiots are capable of getting themselves into."
He took off through the trees, his lines whipping through the air, and I followed close behind him. Before long, we both landed neatly on the ground next to the cadets, who were still waiting where we had left them alongside the wall.
Johnson looked relieved to see us as he came forward, leading my horse behind his, my reins outstretched in his hand. "Corporals! That didn't take long."
I took my reins from him and swung up onto the mare, glancing over at Levi, who had just mounted his stallion as well. He raised an eyebrow at me and then looked over to Johnson. "I told you, you brats are just in our way. We're much more efficient when we don't have to save your asses every second."
I pulled my mare's head around to face west again. "He's right. You idiots aren't good for much else beside a distraction." I glanced over at my shoulder at the squad. "Now let's get moving. It's almost dusk and there's a storm heading in. We need to find somewhere to bunk for the night."
We rode hard and in silence again for another hour or so, the light getting dimmer and dimmer, the shadows of twilight reaching closer to the wall every mile we traveled.
Finally, I spotted a village, abandoned and silent, off to the squad's right. I motioned it out to Levi and he nodded as we pulled toward it, and just in time, as the first, large, cold raindrops hit our heads.
As the downpour increased, we found the empty stables and stabled the horses for the night, making sure they had enough feed and water before heading toward one of the abandoned houses ourselves.
Levi kicked the door in and we filed in after him, one after another.
The room was dark, and cold, and the furniture that was left was broken in piles on the floor. Johnson held up a chair leg. "Hey, these are dry. We can use them start a fire."
I nodded at him. "Good thinking, Johnson. Let's get it warmed up in here."
Soon, there was a small, but warm and comforting, fire crackling in the center of the room.
The cadets, one by one, found places on the floor and rolled out their sleeping mats, settling down for the night. Johnson and Miller took spaces on the floor next to each other, laughing and talking quietly for a few moments before they grew quiet and succumbed to sleep like the rest of their comrades.
Soon, it was silent in the room, except for the crackling and popping of the fire.
I sat against the wall of the house, my knees drawn to my chest, staring into the flames of the fire, lost in thought.
Levi returned from scouting around the remaining village, entering the room in a mist of rain as he opened and shut the door quickly. He pulled his hood down off his head, rain puddling around his boots, and dripping off his hair and down his face, even though his head had been covered by his cloak.
I glanced over at him as he threw the soaked cloak onto the floor by the door and let out a sound of disgust as he inspected his muddied, wet boots. "Tch. I hate the damn rain. It makes everything so unnecessarily dirty."
I turned my attention back to the fire, but was surprised when he crossed the room, careful not to step on any of the sleeping cadets, and sat down beside me, leaning back against the wall as he let out a disgruntled sigh. "Oi, (L/N)." He flicked his fingers at me, his hand resting casually on his bent knee. "It's probably a longshot to think you brought any tea with you."
I leaned my head back against the wall. "What, you didn't bring any? Isn't that kind of your thing?"
He scoffed. "My thing? I don't have a thing."
I rolled my head against the wall to stare at him, raising an eyebrow at him in disbelief. "You don't have a thing?" I snapped my fingers, as if in sudden realisation. "Oh, you mean you don't just have one thing. Right? Because you definitely have a thing. Or things, I should say."
He met my gaze, his eyes black in the flickering of the firelight, and furrowed his brow at me. "What the hell are you babbling on about, (L/N)?"
I held up a hand, ticking off on my fingers. "Things Ackerman has: number one, tea. Number two, cleaning. Number three, an obsession with calling the cadets 'brats.' Number four, an intense desire to hate everyone. Number five...."
He slapped my hand down as I laughed and shot me a dark glare. "Shut it, (L/N). I get the point."
I grinned at him triumphantly. "But wait! You didn't give me a chance to get to the best one!" I held up my hand again, all five fingers splayed for him to see. "Number five, determined he's still going to have a growth spurt that we all know is never going to happen at this point."
"Tch." He grabbed my wrist between his long, thin fingers and forced my hand down, giving me a dangerous look as he growled, "Don't push me, (L/N)."
His fingers were still wrapped around my wrist, which now sat in my lap, his skin cool and smooth against the warm inside of my forearm.
I sat still, frozen, worried he'd realize that he was still touching me and pull away. And for whatever reason in hell, that was the last thing I wanted in the world at that moment.
"Okay, I'm sorry." I said, forcing my tone to be light as I raised an eyebrow at him. "Go ahead. Tell me what my thing is. I deserve it."
I couldn't concentrate. Not when he was touching me. It's as if every time our skin connected, it burned, not painfully, but in a way that I never wanted to stop.
He shot me a smirk. "Tch. You don't have a thing. You have an entire book of things, (L/N)." His fingers moved on my wrist, and I thought he was going to pull his hand away, but instead, he pulled my arm toward him and flipped it over, so that he was looking at the inside of my forearm. He glanced down at my skin, glowing orange in the dying light from the fire, and ran a finger up the rippled, rough scar that marred the otherwise smooth skin of my forearm. "Number one, you're clumsy and stupid and you don't pay enough attention to what you're doing. This scar is from when we were kids, and you got too close to the cooking fire and fell in, catching yourself on your forearm before I could pull you out."
He had just insulted me. Multiple times. But I couldn't focus on that. His finger trailing along the skin of my arm made it hard for me to focus on anything but his touch. Why, after all these years and all this distance that he had forced between us, did his touch still turn my insides to nothing but a pile of mush?
He glanced over at me, dropping his finger from my scar, but keeping his hand still firmly around my wrist as he said in a low voice, "Number two, you take crap from people when you don't need to. You're stronger than all of them and you know it."
I met his gaze and he held the stare for a moment. My stomach flip flopped uncomfortably at the intenseness in his eyes, but I couldn't look away. What the hell was happening to me?
He finally released his hold on my wrist and sat back, increasing the distance between us again as he leaned his head back against the wall. "There's more, a lot more, (L/N). But it's late. And we have to deal with the brats again tomorrow. So get some sleep."
Without another word, he closed his eyes, leaving me alone with nothing but the faint crackling, dying light of the fire, my frenzied thoughts, and the feeling of heat left by his fingers on my skin.