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Meat.
Those had been Sasha’s final words. Connie doesn’t know what was happening in her mind when that little Marleyan shitstain shot her in the chest, but some part of him likes to imagine that she drifted off daydreaming about her favorite meals, a warm fireplace, good food. Maybe, he thought to himself later that night after she passed away, maybe if there was an afterlife, she was gorging herself on meat, cheese, bread and wine right now.
Maybe she was finally happy, safe, free (and really, truly free; not the violent, bloodstained sort of freedom that Eren Jaeger was obsessed with. Eren’s vision of freedom came at the price of innocent lives. Connie can’t remember why he ever admired that fanatic nowadays, that narcissist who laughed at the thought of their friend and comrade bleeding out on the ground).
“You should eat something, Connie,” Armin says, prodding a piece of steak towards him. They sit in the middle of a small dining room on the outskirts of Paradis. This isn’t a vacation so much as it’s a retreat. Levi watches them from across the table. Mikasa and Jean eat quietly next to him, Jean casting small, furtive glances at Mikasa while Mikasa keeps her eyes on her plate.
Connie looks back at Armin with a blank expression. Armin winces. He’s much, much smarter than Connie is, mountains ahead of him intellectually, so he must know why Connie won’t-- can’t-- eat. It’s up to Armin to try to solve that problem, though. He’s closest to being promoted. He’s more important than Connie is-- than Sasha was.
Maybe Eren thought so, too. Connie grimaces, and Armin startles and shrinks back. Connie relaxes his face as he turns away. He realizes after just a moment that he’d shot Armin a death glare without intending to.
“Sorry.” His words come out flat, and he lets his head hang down as he avoids Armin’s gaze.
“It’s… alright,” Armin says. Connie hears some shuffling and then Armin’s voice comes from the other side of the table, debating some logistical bruhaha with Levi.
Connie stares at his hands and lets the chatter of the room surround him while his steak grows cold. Funny enough, the first thing he’d thought of when he saw today’s dinner (charred fish, mashed potatoes, sirloin steak and cornbread) was how freakin’ happy Sasha was going to be to see this much food. His second thought had been “Oh, wait. Right.” He had always been a bit slower than the average guy, though he hadn’t started admitting to it until recently.
The sharp knot twisting and turning in Connie’s stomach could be a hunger pang, or it could be grief, but either way, he doesn’t want to do anything to get rid of it. After Sasha’s death, the whole team (sans Eren, obviously) had been inconsolable. But little by little, the others became worse than inconsolable. They became almost normal again. Jean, who had rightfully accused Eren of being at fault for Sasha’s death, bought a new cologne to impress Mikasa just last week. Mikasa, who had broken down and cried with the rest of them the night that Sasha passed, was never around to notice, because she’d gone back to training 24/7 and barely sparing the rest of them a glance. Armin, who hadn’t hid his grief in the first place, re-immersed himself in his readings and writings. Levi… well, Levi hadn’t ever really changed.
The rest of them seem to want to pretend that nothing has happened. That she isn’t gone. Only Connie isn’t willing to leave Sasha’s memory behind. He’s not certain what normal would even look like for him, now. He’s been vaguely aware of his role in their group for at least a year, now: to be fast, to be agile, and to be just stupid enough to break the tension when he makes a particularly boneheaded comment in a serious moment. But he’d never had to do that alone. Sasha had been the truly bright light in front of their team, and without her, Connie’s just a pathetic fool rather than a funny idiot. And as for his stupidity-- maybe if he hadn’t listened to Eren in the first place, he thinks, maybe if he’d taken Sasha’s hand and pulled her away from the group the second Eren dragged them into an attack on Marley, maybe if they hadn’t been like moths drawn to his flame, maybe, then, maybe…
“Connie.” A new voice breaks Connie from his ruminations. The table seems to have gone silent. Connie looks up to see that no, it’s actually gone empty. Armin, Levi, and Jean have taken their plates and Mikasa stands in front of him now, alone. Connie swallows imperceptibly (or so he thinks, although Mikasa raises an eyebrow anyways).
Connie really doesn’t want to meet Mikasa’s gaze. The last conversation they had had not gone terribly well, and she’s probably the last person he wants to speak with-- and the last person that he trusts-- at the moment.
He realizes too late that while avoiding her eyes, he’s unintentionally been staring at her chest. Mikasa clears her throat sharply.
“Look at me.”
After a moment’s hesitation, he does. He may be sending her another death stare, for all that he knows, but when he looks back into her dark, piercing gaze, he’s mildly surprised at how little he cares. Perhaps grief has made him more daring, but it’s likely just made him more numb.
“The last time we spoke, you questioned my loyalty.” Mikasa says, not bothering with any niceties. Connie is half-relieved. He doesn’t think he can take another well-intentioned soul thinking that they can coax hunger and happiness back into him with kind words and deeds. “I want to be clear that I have no intention of betraying this squad.”
Alright, fair enough. Mikasa’s always been on their side, and maybe if she’d left it at that, Connie would let her go. But she doesn’t.
“And neither does Eren.”
Mikasa is tall, taller than he is, but he feels no shame in standing, raising himself to his full height, and glaring at her before turning around to throw his food in the garbage. Mikasa grabs the plate from him.
“Don’t waste food.”
Connie turns around. “Don’t tell me what to do, Ackerman. You don’t rank any higher than I do. We’re equals!”
The words on any other day, any day in the months or years prior, may have been funny, may have earned a hearty chuckle from the others (because, really, there is no way that he is equal to Mikasa in military value, regardless of what their ranking as privates is.) But tonight, he spits the words out in her face with venom. Mikasa’s lip curls inward just a bit. She’s a very pretty girl, and like half the boys in the trainee corps, Connie had daydreamed once or twice about her, being with her, things that most teenage boys daydreamed about. He never let it get to the level that Jean did, though, in part because he knew where things stood. She was the paragon, and he was the village idiot.
Now, though, being able to provoke her like this makes him feel different, feel weirdly powerful, and if he can’t feel better after Sasha’s death, he can at least settle for feeling different.
“Sasha-- wouldn’t want you to do that.” Mikasa’s next words come out in a rush, and she steps back with the plate still in her hands. If Connie were smarter, he’d sense that she almost seems to know how awful those words will sound, how angry they’ll make him. He might have sensed the guilt in her tone, the nervousness with which she spoke.
But Connie isn’t all that smart. At the name ‘Sasha’, he steps forward. Then he reaches out and flips the plate over. The steak and potatoes that the server that had so lovingly piled onto his plate tumble to the ground. Thankfully, the wooden plate itself remains intact.
“Sasha isn’t here, is she?” he says. “And neither is Eren. Wonder why that is?”
Mikasa stares mutely down at the steak and potatoes that lie in a dirty mound at her feet. Then she looks up at Connie and he knows what’s about to happen before she throws the first punch at him.
It’s much slower and less coordinated than Mikasa usually is. She’s been drinking tonight, and thankfully he hasn’t been. He ducks out of the way before angrily aiming a kick at her side-- how would she like a taste of her own medicine? Mikasa deftly catches his leg before it hits her in the ribs, raises it over his shoulders so he loses his balance, and they tumble to the ground. He grunts in slight discomfort when the air is knocked from his lungs and his back collides with the floor, while Mikasa remains silent. Before he knows it, he’s immobile and lying supine underneath her.
Connie’s eighty percent certain that his back landed on a pile of mashed potatoes, but at least it’s better than the hard stone. Mikasa kneels above him, still pinning him to the ground. Her eyes are angry, and he glares right back at her. His fantasies kind of involved something like this, he remembers now, years ago, although they occurred in quite a different context and a very different emotion. All he feels at the moment is rage.
He struggles against her grip. “Let me go, you stupid b--”
“Not until you stop accusing me of disloyalty.” Her voice wavers only slightly.
“You picking a random fight with me isn’t helping anything, genius!” Connie cries in exasperation. “You don’t get to pick a fight just because your boyfriend turned out to be a bad egg! We’ve been through that, remember? With Reiner, Annie, Bertolt? I-- you’re not the only one who’s allowed to be angry! Damn it--”
He tries to kick at her, but Mikasa shifts her weight so that her knee pins his legs down. He gives up, dropping his head back down on the cold floor. Okay, now he is one-hundred percent sure that his uniform is going to have a big mashed potato stain on it when he gets up.
He didn’t think that he was going to start a food fight with Mikasa tonight, nor that she would try to start an actual one. Never, in a million years, did Connie Springer ever want to truly fight Mikasa Ackerman. The few times they trained together (he’d been left bloody and bruised those afternoons, she only bored) instilled in him a mortal fear of winding up on her bad side years ago-- maybe that’s why he so rarely spoke to her, out of all the other trainees. Back when they were in the training corps, it was enough for him to sit next to Sasha during lunch and see Sasha’s charm open Mikasa up, little by little, in a way she rarely seemed to with anyone who wasn’t Eren (or maybe Armin).
Other than those few instances, Mikasa was always untouchable, unfeeling, and intimidating. Eren probably would have seemed like another grandiose rookie officer without Mikasa’s loyalty giving him some extra weight. Connie himself was always fine with being a grandiose rookie, as long as he wasn’t alone.
But now he is, or he feels like it, at any rate. Maybe Mikasa feels alone, too. Who is Connie without Sasha? Not much, he thinks. Not much of anything. Half a man. Half a human soul.
But then, who is Mikasa without Eren? Now, Sasha is dead and Eren is missing and Connie and Mikasa are struggling on the ground in an empty dining room, glaring accusationally at one another, like throwing punches and sharp words will bring either of their loved ones back. Maybe Mikasa feels just as untethered as Connie does. He doesn’t know if his expression changes as his thoughts shift focus, but Mikasa’s grip on him loosens just a slight amount.
Connie looks up at her when he feels her grip softening. He doesn’t try to sit up, or anything; he’s merely surprised. Mikasa blinks, and she stares back at him. While her expression is blank, a single tear runs down her cheek. She doesn’t seem to notice, but Connie’s eyes follow it as it trails down her chin, then lands on his cheek. Mikasa blinks again, and the corners of her eyes crinkle in confusion.
“...Are you crying?” she actually has the nerve to ask.
“No,” Connie says matter of factly. “you are.”
He expects her to get up, wipe her tears away, and leave the room in a hurry, but instead she blinks again, and more tears well up in her eyes. She looks at him, her mouth open as though she wants to say something, but no sound comes out.
“Ah, shit,” Connie mutters under his breath. It’s hard to stay mad at girls who cry in front of you. It must be some protective male instinct, but he can already feel his own anger at her draining-- however infuriating that alone is.
He finally stops fighting her, and instead watches as her face softens. In a solid span of a few minutes, he managed to piss Mikasa Ackerman off, try to fight her in the middle of an empty dining room, and then make her cry. Her features grow almost hazy, but it’s a few moments more before he realizes that this is because his own vision is blurring.
“I miss her, too.” Mikasa says, at last. Connie stares at her, totally aghast. Her grip on him loosens more, and he sits up, so that he’s facing her. Their position is awkward, sure, almost suggestive, but he won’t kill this moment with any lewd assumptions about Mikasa’s intentions.
After another moment, Connie wraps his arms around Mikasa’s shoulders. Maybe it's something you're supposed to do in this situation-- or maybe it's really not, he's not sure-- but it's something that he wants to do now. He's already beginning to cry himself. Mikasa doesn't seem surprised. She embraces him quickly and silently, almost covertly, and he rests his head against the back of her neck. He’s cried so many times in the past few weeks that he felt almost like a water bottle that had been drained totally dry. But now the tears come automatically, he lets himself start to cry again. It can’t be that embarrassing if someone as stoic as Mikasa is willing to cry with him, can it? Memories of Sasha eating, Sasha laughing, Sasha teasing him, play again and again in his mind. He’s been trying to hold them back, but now they’re breaking past his mental blockade and giving him a much needed catharsis. That doesn’t make letting himself remember her again any easier, though. Connie’s breath comes out in short gasps and sobs as he tries to endure it all. Mikasa doesn’t let him go.
Mikasa’s body is warm as she grips his shoulders and lets her tears stain his neck. Through the haze of his own grief, Connie can feel her fingers dig into his skin, and he wonders if she’s still angry at him-- angry, sad, grieving. It’s difficult to know what others are feeling, much less what you are, these days. At least that’s what it seems like. For his part, he’s happy at least to have someone to hold onto during this particular episode of grief. Maybe people really weren’t meant to suffer alone, or to pretend that they were okay.
He doesn’t realize that he’s rubbing her back until he feels her her fingers relax and she glides them over his arms. Connie swallows again, and this time he’ll be damned if she hasn’t noticed.
Mikasa sits back abruptly, perched on her heels in front of him. Her dark eyes, still red and glistening with unshed tears, flicker to meet his for just a moment or two. They almost seem larger and more soulful now than they did just an hour ago, when she was eating dinner.
The feeling between them is still melancholic, and perhaps angry, or maybe just heated. Connie’s breath catches, and images of her that he idly entertained as a teenager flicker through his mind in spite of himself. Is she feeling how he’s beginning to feel, or is this just another idiot moment of his?
The heat between them breaks when Mikasa rises and offers Connie her hand. And after a moment, he takes it. Hoisting him up, she turns around and pats the back of his jacket. Moist lumps of mashed potato fall to the ground.
“...I’m sorry. That was totally unprofessional of me,” Mikasa says. Connie stares at her, still slightly flustered and now totally dumbfounded.
“I will clean up, because I started the fight,” Mikasa continues, turning toward the direction of the sink, where towels, soap, and a dustpan are hidden just under the cupboard. “you should get some rest--”
“Wait,” Connie says. “Mikasa. Did you… did you stay back just to start a fight with me?”
Mikasa blinks again, and Connie realizes too late that maybe that wasn’t a good thing to say-- that maybe she’s going to start another fight tonight (although he’s not sure that he’d mind).
“Why would I want to do that?” her question isn’t phrased in a sarcastic tone, even Connie can tell that. No, it’s as though she’s honestly curious. Connie steps back, and lets out a slow breath.
“I… don’t know,” he says. "Because you were angry, maybe.” Mikasa tilts her head to the side, her eyes narrow and focused on his. Connie coughs and continues.
“And you knew that I was angry too, and if you could make me angry at you, we could… be angry at each other, instead of this stupid… pointless world?”
Mikasa nods slowly as he speaks, her gaze never wavering. She seems to actually want to hear what he has to say. The thought itself is mind-boggling.
When Connie finishes, Mikasa closes her eyes for only a moment, before opening them again.
“You’re more intelligent than you let on, Connie.”
Connie’s cheeks flush slightly. Wait until Sasha hears that Mikasa called you intelligent! he thinks. And then he thinks, Oh. Right.
“Well…” Connie says before turning to leave for the night, the hunger pangs in his stomach returning full force. “If you ever need someone to be angry at again… I’m your guy.”