Touch - EreMika

Chapter 4: Awaken

It is as though it happens in slow motion–the frantic sway of his limbs, the rise and fall of his boots slamming into the dewy grass, his mouth opening wide, lungs heaving to scream her name over and over again.

He pushes to call it louder and louder each time, because he cannot even hear himself under the thunderous thrum of his heart in his ears.

He slams the door shut behind him, a swirl of stars peppering his vision at the rush of blood to his head.

Red. Red red red red, her shirt is so red, redder than the scarf wrapped around her neck, and he is still screaming her name in her face as he falls to his knees, and thank GOD if there even is one, because it has reached her, and she is prying her weak, heavy-lidded charcoal blues open to look up at him, eyes brimming with tears, blood leaking out of the side of her mouth, red red red, so red.

And then he hears his own name leaving her cracked lips in a pathetic croak, and in syllables that are far too spaced out.

It is the only thing he hears with any clarity above the pounding in his ears.

He ignores his dizziness and drowsiness and sets his jaw as he walks in long strides through the empty hallway.

Without a second thought, he pulls her upright with one arm, sliding his other arm beneath her legs, immediately rising back onto his feet and beginning to run as fast as his feet could carry him.

He feels her hand fist weakly in his shirt as she lifts her head slightly to look at him, eyes shining with tears.

"Just..." the word carries on a breath, voice a weak rasp, "...leave me–"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" he growls down at her through the hot tears streaming down his face–tears that he had no clue were even there until he begun to taste them on his tongue, and feel them dribble down his chin.

She, too, looks as though she is about to burst into tears–not for his rudeness, he knows, but rather for their shared, unspoken fear–or, his fear, he can't help but grimly think when he looks down at her and her head is lying limp, her eyes closed.

Involuntarily, he lets out an anguished sound that is all at once a wail and a growl and a scream, as he summons the strength to run faster.

His strides grow faster and faster, fists clenching tightly at his sides.

Then, she is lying at his knees unconscious, and he is hunched over her, popping each button of her dirty, bloodstained blouse open with shaking hands that begin to stain red because there is blood everywhere, everywhere, everywhere–all across her torso, on his hands, under his fingernails, on his shirt, red, so, so red, and though he is scowling and trying to be useful, he can see his tears dropping onto her bare skin and mingling with the blood there, because he is crying harder than he has in a very, very long time, and maybe he is instead being useless, because Hanji is suddenly pushing him out of the way and beginning to bark commands that, too, are muffled under the sound of his heart in his ears.

On autopilot, he hears just well enough to obey.

And then he is running to her, his shadow flitting across the stone floors, long and narrow against the orange glow flooding in through the windows.

He is no longer crying, his fingers tightly clutching at the scarf in his lap when he watches the needle pierce her skin, thread tugging it back together, stitches pulled taut as the wound continues to gush red.

And eventually it is over, and with trembling hands, he is left gently pushing Hanji out of the way to mop at the blood on Mikasa's skin, and to wind bandages around her waist gingerly, left shuddering when he watches blood blossom on the pure white of the newly placed gauze–all the while barely hearing Hanji blather on about a potential coma, about excessive blood loss, and other things he did not hear because he chose not to.