Annie Leonhardt x Reader

Cold Hands, Cold Heart - Part 1

written by: tsukidrama

"If you go by yourselves, you'll be in the same pickle as Krista." Reiner's voice echoes throughout the quiet lobby of the barracks as he speaks. Equipment jingles as someone shifts a pack of gear on their shoulders.

"In a search, the more eyes, the better." Bertholdt adds.

You lift your head to look out the window. It stormed so heavily that flurries of snow blocked the light of the moon. The door to the room you're assigned to opens and closes, and the sound of footsteps recedes into the distance.

The realization hits you that you're now alone, with just one other still figure sitting alone on a bottom bunk two beds down from yours.

Another door closes quietly in the hallway, and two more sets of footsteps scamper out of earshot. Muffled voices from the lobby begin to overlap, and you tune out whatever they are saying to concentrate on silently twisting the doorknob. You push the heavy wooden door open, slowly so that it doesn't creak.

As you peek out of the cracked door frame, you watch as each of the recruits gather in the lobby, backs turned to the dormitories and uninterested in anything but the task at hand.

Slowly and silently, you close the door. The crack of firelight that had illuminated a sliver of the wall disappears, and the only light in the room comes from the dim moonlight streaming through sheer curtains. The snow falling outside dims the already low light to almost pitch darkness.

It doesn't take your eyes a very long time to adjust. You walk around the empty wooden bunk beds, the sheets thrown back on most of them. Some had even stuffed pillows underneath the sheets - though anyone who took a second look would know it was not a body.

The one bed that was occupied, the second to last against the wall, had the covers pulled back as well, but the girl on top sat with her back against the rickety headboard, pillow thrown to the foot of the bed. Her light hair is free of its usual updo, and hangs loosely around her face. Ice blue eyes catch in the moonlight as they meet yours, and you feel your heart in your throat.

You come to a stop at the foot of the bed next to hers, and your fingers grip the post of the bunk with white knuckles.

"You didn't go," you say, though it's more as if you're thinking aloud.

"No shit," she responds, and otherwise doesn't react.

Your feet shuffle awkwardly.

"I didn't go either," you say. Immediately, you feel like it was a stupid thing to say.

Annie nods. "I see that," she notes flatly. She scoots closer to the side of the bed, and tucks her legs underneath her body to make room. When she speaks, her voice is quiet, and she doesn't look at you.

"You can come over here, you know."

Her words light a fire under you, and you feel yourself walking to the edge of the bed. Sitting towards the middle on the opposite side of the bed from Annie, you pull your feet up from the ice cold floor in a position that mirrors her own. She won't look at you still, likely stewing in her chagrin caused by the fact that she had to ask for your attention.

Despite her invitation, you never know what to say when the two of you are alone like this. Often, you stood together off to the side during training and teamwork exercises. You sat together at mealtimes and often spoke about the mundane everyday things that happened to you, albeit not in great detail. A few times, the two of you snuck out of the dorms together, and when you were truly alone, she would let down her defenses and speak more freely than you had ever seen her, only to have her pretend like it didn't happen even minutes later.