Because of the spy, Isanna had ended up spending the whole night in Erwin's office, with the two friends joining forces to pry all the information from the man.
Note: the man was terrified.
If Isanna's fearful threats wouldn't work, Erwin would eventually get him to talk by mere words alone, like the boss of a mind game who would psychologically tear you down bit by bit and you wouldn't notice it until it was too late. It wasn't the most moral way of interrogation, but it was either the man chose to suffer through that or endure Isanna's torturous method, which included pain and blood. Lots of blood. And the man was not a fan of it too much.
It was already dawn when Isanna had dragged him out of the office and threw him in the prison cell of their barracks, assigning a few trusted cadets to keep watch.
For about an hour or so, Isanna and Erwin got a brief sleep, with the former utterly passed out in the couch in the office while the latter was knocked out whilst leaning on his desk. Considering how they had just came back from an expedition, their exhaustion was reasonable enough.
In the next hour, Isanna groggily woke up, bed hair sticking out and defying gravity. She spent the next few minutes drowsily blinking the sleep away while she sat on the couch, cursing the spy for taking up precious hours of sleep and how she now had to face another cumbersome day in her godforsaken life (her usual morning routine), before she walked over towards Erwin's quarters that were connected to his office by a door and stalked to his wardrobe.
Rubbing her eyes, Isanna opened the wooden wardrobe and lazily scanned through the pile of clothes neatly folded inside, while some were hanging above.
After a few seconds, the girl rounded her heels and stalked out of the room, hand on the doorknob and about to call the blond when she realized the desk was empty. She tilted her head before she heard soft splashes of water coming from the bathroom. Turning to the direction, Isanna stifled a yawn and stretched her arms as she laggardly made her way towards the bathroom, entering into the steaming space.
Erwin was peacefully basking in the hot liquid of his bathtub, his body from the neck down to his feet completely submerged in the water, while the back of his head rested at the edge of the tub with his eyes closed when Isanna waltzed in.
The blond furrowed his brows together but did not open his eyes. Leave it to Isanna to walk in in the middle of his morning bath.
"Can I borrow some of your clothes?"
Without fluttering his eyes open, the blond replied, "Do as you wish."
"Thanks."
When he heard the sound of the door closing, Erwin let out a sigh and relaxed in the hot water.
Until it opened again. "Do you want me to bring you breakfast?"
Erwin finally cracked both of his eyes open as he turned to Isanna, the girl waiting for his answer with a hand on the doorknob while her face still showed signs of sleep.
"No need," he replied, "I'll head to the mess hall myself."
Isanna stifled another yawn. "'Mkay."
And then she shut the door.
::
Isanna walked out of Erwin's office wearing a white dress shirt that was a few sizes larger than her (the sleeves going past her hands), tucked into pants that she had left previously the last time she slept in Erwin's room (in the most innocent way possible). She shot one bored look at the smashed door that was leaning against the opposite wall and made a mental note to ask Mike to fix it back, before she headed down the corridor.
Isanna was rolling the sleeves as she entered into the mess hall, taking a tray from the counter and got a heavy breakfast before she strolled towards the officers' tables. Some of the cadets would respectfully salute at her, with the girl paying them no attention as she settled on her usual table. Mike and Hanji were already there, the former peacefully eating while the latter seemed to be particularly passionate while explaining something to him.
"And it got me wondering, what if there were other weak spots beside the nape?" Hanji rambled on with sparkles in her eyes. "It would be nice to capture some titans and perform some experiments on them!"
Isanna seated herself beside Mike, who was clearly not paying any attention to the chattering brunette. He paused his eating as he turned to the dark-haired girl who had just arrived, before he leaned nearer to sniff her.
"You smell like Erwin," he commented as Hanji stopped her explanation, "did you steal his clothes again?"
Isanna rolled her eyes. "No, I did not. I asked for permission."
Hanji let out a snort as she watched the girl with knowing eyes. "You should visit your own room once in a while too. I think it's starting to form cobwebs."
Knowing that she wasn't getting anywhere in this conversation, Isanna proceeded to stuff herself with her breakfast of five cups and a few cuts of grilled fish. So what if she spent most of her time lounging in Erwin's quarters? It wasn't like he minded. Besides, his place was about twice the size as Isanna's.
Hanji watched with a grin as Isanna busied herself with her food. At this point, she didn't even need to ask whether the girl had slept in Erwin's room again. She tended to do that a lot - she probably slept more times in the blond's room than she did in her own quarters so frequently that Hanji had begun teasing Isanna to just marry him and move in, to which the girl would always retort back with her usual "We're just friends." line.
Of course, nobody in the Survey Corps ever believed her excuse. In fact, rumors have been spreading that there was something more intimate going on between the blond squad leader and his vice captain. While the low-ranking cadets never dared to tease their superior (also because Isanna was the 'War Goddess', which intimidated them), some of the higher-ranking officers (including Mike and Hanji) had started dubbing them as 'Erwin and his loyal dog' because of how inseparable they were; thus the beginning of baseless rumors about a 'steamy office romance'.
Because why not? When in the Survey Corps, you'll soon find yourself enjoying and appreciating even the littlest of things life had to offer before you end up dead. And what's a good way to do that? Gushing over someone else's love life, apparently.
A certified 29-year-old bachelor and an equally single 28-year-old bachelorette friend together, fighting side by side against monsters threatening humanity. If you were looking for romance in the Survey Corps, that was about as romantic as it could get.
If Erwin had heard of those rumors, he did a good job hiding his reaction. The guy was still as dull as a rock and equally stoic, making it hard to read whatever was on his mind.
Isanna? Not so much. Pretty much everybody knew she liked the blond - and definitely not in a friendly nor familial way. She was so painfully obvious, and only god knows why Erwin still had not noticed it after all these years despite being the brightest squad leader and undoubtedly the next-in-line Commander of the Survey Corps.
Hanji eventually concluded that the wiser Erwin was when it came to military decisions, the more dense he became when it came to love.
Fair enough, not everyone is without flaws.
Despite the shenanigans surrounding the two, however, nobody could deny their dynamic. Mess with one of them, and the other will be at your throat.
Hanji and Mike exchanged looks before chuckling.
Just 'best friend' things.
•
"What exactly happened last night that Erwin's door was sent flying away?"
Isanna lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug as she leaned against the wall beside the doorway to Erwin's office. Mike was currently fixing the door she had (accidentally) kicked last night, crouching while an open toolbox laid at the floor at his side. The girl watched as he picked some new hinges in one hand and a screwdriver in the other, with a few screws he held in his mouth.
Mike squinted his eyes as he worked on the door. Earlier, he had asked the girl why she didn't just call a door fixer or whatever you call a person who fixes doors, and she answered that she didn't want to delay it any longer and let the Commander possibly know of what happened last night since Erwin had told her to keep it a secret.
The blond was left with no choice. Although he had not expected himself to be fixing doors when he signed in the Survey Corps, he couldn't ignore a request from a friend.
"A spy was here last night."
Mike paused. He turned to the girl, who was still leaning against the wall with crossed arms. "Spy?"
Isanna nodded. "Nicholas Lovof, one of the influential nobles in the council and the number one man who just absolutely adores us - so much that he wants for us to disband so that we could be safe from titans - had a spy snooping around our place. Erwin and I interrogated him in his office."
Ignoring her sarcasm, the information processed itself in Mike's brain as he frowned. Lovof? That sounded familiar. "Isn't Lovof..?"
"Baldrick's old man, yeah," the girl confirmed with a scowl of her own at the memory of the despicable man. "it's been what? 14 years and they're still hellbent on disbanding the Scouts. Bastards."
"What else did the spy spill?"
At his question, an evil smirk made its way onto Isanna's lips, a menacing aura cloaking her from behind as she chuckled. "We found out that Lovof's best buddies with the Lang company, some shitty organization that's been funding those unicorn bastards with illegal goods - "
"Unicorn bastards?"
"The Military Police, Mike," Isanna clarified, "the unicorn bastards."
"Ah."
Isanna continued, "Anyway, Lovof plans to direct our fundings to them after signing our dissolution petition. Some shady business, I tell you. Erwin's already wrote everything down in a document, solid evidences and all."
After a few more clarifications about the information Isanna and Erwin had managed to pry out from the spy, with the girl also telling him he was going to accompany them to Mitras along with Hanji and two more squad members, Mike continued on with his work.
Eventually, Isanna decided to leave the blond to focus with the work and headed out, but not before saying, "You have a knack in fixing doors; you should consider opening up a handyman shop if ever the Survey Corps disband."
The blond could only shake his head at his friend's comment.