I was bored so I wrote this, enjoy!

Blood surged through his body. His heart beat wildly. The strength in his veins pounded fiercely into his muscles as he struck his way through the city.

And the corpses.

A sick twisted grin felt itself tug at the corner of his mouth, unleashing a bestial roar as he tore down the inhuman creatures before him, slamming their bodies to the ground in a sickening crunch of shattered bones and splattered flesh. Ripping. Tearing. Killing. Striking. Kicking. Battering. Bleeding. So many joyous sensations. So much death...he could see them now, falling to his power, his strength as he tore them limb from filthy limb...

Eren Jaeger awoke with a start, a half strangled cry battling its way out of the back of his throat. His limbs thrashed in his bed clothes as he struggled to surface from the dream, visions of corpses lining the streets dancing before his eyes like grisly puppets, the blood still drumming in his skull...

And a gentle, pale hand laying itself on his face.

Confused, Eren turned towards the source of contact, hardly able to make a figure out in the gloom.

"You...I...I killed...I...I'm...titans...monster..."

The words came garbled and fast, his half asleep stupor still addling his brain, the fear and realism of the nightmare still as fresh as the blood he had spilled.

"Eren," a voice as equally as gentle as its touch had been, spoke. "Eren, quiet. You're not a monster. You're not a beast. Lie down, sleep."

Disoriented, he peered into the darkness of his cell once more. Fatigue was rapidly pulling him back to the realms of unconsciousness, but he couldn't let it...he couldn't return to that world of death and destruction, falling apart like a paper town to his own monstrous form...

Mikasa looked quietly upon the frightened boy in his bed; and indeed, he did seem very young in his sleep-ridden, vulnerable state. She hadn't wanted to wake him, but clearly he had done it himself. She couldn't imagine the torturous images flashing through his mind in the horrific aftermath of Trost. Or maybe she just didn't want to.

Actually, part of the reason she had come was to escape the cadet's temporary accommodation. The survivors gathered in that one small room had been kept awake crying out in fear, shaking in terror, unable to sleep in case they were forced to relive the horrors they had seen that day unfold before them. Comrades eaten. Lives destroyed. Lives ended. Fervor ran high and Mikasa just didn't want to be a part of it.

So she came here.

It hadn't been easy finding Eren. It took more than just a "please" and batting of the eyelashes to see a supposedly dangerous creature, possessing power beyond that of human comprehension, chained to a wall for everyone's protection because he was, apparently, the embodiment of humanity's greatest enemy. She'd had to bargain and utilise the fact she had been part of the elite squad to get so far, and by the time she'd gotten to the holding cell (by some miracle- and she wasn't innocent of sneaking past a few MPs and breaking in at some points, either). her patience had been wearing thin. Maybe it was the fact she had made it so far, or maybe just the royally pissed off expression she had worn when she got to Eren's guards, that made them let her in. Even then, on the premise to "make it quick".

Eren's head had started nodding again, and, carefully, Mikasa approached, guiding his body down as gently as she knew how, smoothing out his sheets around him to put him in as peaceful a state as possible. He mumbled, sleepily in protest, but within seconds he was gone again. Back into the recesses of his mind.

She reached out and stroked a few strands of hair from his clammy brow, her battle worn fingertips, callused from the three years of training, skimming his forehead.

She wasn't sure what she was feeling. Unhappy? Probably. Eren wasn't a beast. He didn't deserve the treatment humanity was giving him. Relieved? Beyond belief. Eren was back, he wasn't dead, the proof was living and breathing under her fingertips at this very second. Confused? Definitely. He, the closest thing she'd ever had to a brother, and whom she liked to think knew better than anyone (save, perhaps, Armin) had harnessed the ability to manifest a titan. How it was even possible was beyond her comprehension, but it didn't exactly make her fearful of him.

Besides all of this, she knew she was scared. She was scared as shit. Eren's future was uncertain at best. At worst, it was all but doomed. And what could she do to stop fate condemning the power it could not understand? She was but a cadet; albeit, talented, but still a rookie. Her word regarding Eren's fate was worth squat.

Mikasa's hands balled into fists as she drew them away from Eren's face and onto the sheets. Nothing he had ever done was out of malice to humanity. He wanted to protect, not destroy. To eradicate the enemy, not his comrades. And here he was, kept under lock and key like and animal. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right.

The torchlight from outside the cell was growing dim, and she could hear the impatient shifting of feet of the guards from the door way. She knew she had outstayed her welcome, but after this, when would her next chance to see Eren be?

She looked down at the beautiful boy tortured in his sleep, the gentle upward flicks of his lashes curving upwards upon his cheeks as his brow furrowed and his head tossed from side to side. His mouth was working silently, as if he were crying out and Mikasa could practically read the names on his breath.

Mina. Thomas. Mylius. Nac.

It was bad enough watching people suffer the anguish of their thoughts of watching their fallen comrades fall prey to the titans. But Eren's burden? He had seen the grim deaths of his friends, the digesting human remains within a titan, and then the overwhelming power that was his newfound titan ability. He had become something he despised. No wonder these nightmares tortured him so.

"Hey, sweetheart, you've had plenty of time in there with the titan kid. You need to leave." The guard's voice from outside the cell cut through the silence like a dagger, with no hint of remorse of friendliness. He spat the words "titan kid" like one would referring to a murderer.

Mikasa eyed him coolly, her expression monotonous as she looked towards the person who meant the most to her in their whole, walled world, suffering, and passed a hand over Eren's brow one last time before she stooped to his level, and planted the softest kiss she could manage on his cheekbone.

Because even if he were humanity's greatest foe incarnate with the whole world against him, she would be the one to protect the boy she had sworn to stand by upon her oath to his mother. But now, she knew it was more than that.

The boy who had saved her was her dearest. Whether he be titan or human, she would never give up on him.