Rico Pov~
I swing through the city streets with the titan hunting squad behind me, "Where's Captain Y/n!" one of the soldiers calls out to me, "I'm not sure!" I respond. We've already cleared most of the titans in the city, I know this because we haven't seen a single one in thirty minutes. "We've been at it for hours, surely we've cleared them out by now right Team Leader?" one of the soldiers' questions, "Most likely, the cannons have been silent for a while and we haven't seen one in a while so we might be cl-" I am cut off when I turn a corner and am met with a massive Titan face mere inches in front of my own. "SHIT!!" I exclaim as it swings at me but I manage to evade its massive hand as it smashes the side of the roof of a building. I manage to evade the attack but the debris of the building explodes in the air and pelts me and my team, knocking some of us out of the sky, myself included. I crash into the ground and roll to the side, narrowly dodging the titan stepping on me and crushing me. The squad members who are still in the air start to circle around the titan, disorienting it while another member flies behind it and slices its nape. As soon as the titan falls, three more appear behind it. "Shit there's more! Watch out!" I scream at the soldiers in the air, "Huh?" one of them questions as one of the Titans swats him out of the sky and into the side of a building, reducing him to nothing but a bloody splatter on the wall. "Damn you!" I exclaim as I jump to my feet and fly into the air, I fire an anchor into the titan behind the one who killed my comrade and as I soar past it, I slice its eyes, blinding it. I reel my line into the other titan and bounce off of its forehead, back to the first titan and while it holds its eyes in pain, I cut into its nape with my pairing swords and kill it. "Team Leader behind you!" one of the soldiers exclaims, I look back to see the titan I had bounced off reaching for me, its massive hand is all I can see as it starts to enclose around me. Before the Titan can fully grab me, I hear the sound of ODM gear fly above me and then the sound of flesh being sliced. "YAAAAA!!!" a familiar voice screams as the fingers of the titan are severed and I am pulled out of its palm. It happens so fast that I don't even realize what's happened until I'm gently set down on the roof of a building. "Catch your breath" Y/n says quickly as he leaps off the roof and attacks the titan that nearly killed me. The titan swings at him but he flips over its arm, lands on top of it, leaps into the air and pierces the titan's eyes with his swords.
Y/n leaps into the air, replaces his blades and with a burst of gas, he flies down at the titan. He spins the right blade around so he's holding it backwards and as soon as he makes contact with the titan, he's a blur of blood, steel and steam as he spins unbelievably fast around the titan, cutting into its flesh faster than I've ever seen anyone cut a titan before.
While the titan howls in pain, holding its eyes that he impaled, he swings himself up and lands on top of the titan's head. "Ya know it's bad enough you guys are so ugly but do you have to be so loud too? Like God how annoying can you be?" he rolls his eyes, mocking the titan in pain. He then leaps into the air, readies his blade, spins and slices the titan's nape in an instant. Y/n then slings himself on top of a roof and cracks his neck.
"Ugh, out of practice" he grumbles as he gyrates his shoulders with a pained groan. Without noticing it, Y/n leaves himself wide open and the last titan goes to grab him. On instinct, I shoot my hook into the titan's neck and reel myself in, "HAAAAAAA!!!" I scream as I slam my blades into one of the titan's eyes and cut out its eye.
Y/n notices this and immediately springs into action, "Rico!" he yells, gaining my attention. He gestures behind me and I jerk my head around to see the titan trying to swat me off of his head. I jump off the titan's face and over its hand, land on its arm and run up its long arm. I look back and see Y/n preparing to kill the titan. He looks to me, gives me a nod and I don't know how but I understand what he wants me to do without him even speaking. I jump off the titan's arm, fire an anchor into the wall next to me, reel myself against the wall. I look to the other side of the street and see Y/n is in the same position. Y/n gives me a nod, we both fire an anchor into each other's wall and reel in towards the titan's nape. Y/n readies a single blade and so do I and the closer we get to the titan's nape, the easier it is to line my blade up with his and when we reach it, we create the perfect cut through the titan's nape, making it fall over dead. After the titan is dead, Y/n lands on the roof that I'm standing on and he walks up to me. "Not too bad for a Garrison Soldier" he teases, "Oh come off it. I'm not some Garrison rookie ya know. I'm not a Team Leader for nothing" I scoff at his insinuation that I'm not skilled with ODM gear. "I know that, but in all honesty, you have real talent Rico. The ability to understand a fellow comrades' intentions in battle without them having to tell you is something not a lot of people can do" he admits with a small smile on his face that makes me feel good for some reason. "Thanks" I smile softly at his compliment, Y/n nods and hops up on the ledge of the building, "So, how come you joined the Garrison? Someone with your skill could really excel in the Scouts, hell with your combat knowledge, tactical thinking and ODM skills, you could have easily made it into the Military Police" he questions with a tilted head. "I...." I start to say but am cut off my more titans appearing, "More titan's approaching sir!" one of the soldiers calls out. Y/n nods and looks back at me with a smile, "C'mon, let's finish clearing the city" he smiles, hops off the ledge and charges the titans with his ODM gear. As I charge the last remaining titans in the city of Trost, my thought's dwell on what Y/n asked me, how come you joined the Garrison?
Time Skip~
Y/n Pov~
During the efforts to clear the Trost District, we managed to capture two titans, a 4-meter and a 7-meter. As soon as this information made its way to Scout HQ, Hange was here within hours to see the titans that she quickly became attached to and named Sawney and Beane.
"AAAAAHHHH HAHAHAHAHA!!!!" Hange screams with delight as she gawks in awe at the two capture titans. "Y/N CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!?!" she squeals as she shakes my shoulders frantically, "Easy Hange, it wasn't easy getting these two tied down, don't rile them up too much or they'll break out" I chuckle at her excitement. "I KNOW!! I can't believe you managed to do what no human has ever done before! We've never had live titans to experiment on! We had those seven we captured a couple years ago but the little rascals broke out of their confinements before I could even see them, let alone experiment on them. I know you had to kill them to protect the cadets and the training camp but all is forgiven now because of these two!!!" she jumps up and down while reach out to touch the 7-meter titan Beane who tries to bite her hand off but luckily she pulls it back in time. "Oooooo, you'll have to faster than that Beane!" she giggles in delight; she then looks back to me with a big grin on her face. "Y/N YOU'RE THE BEST!!!!" the section commander squeals as she pulls me into a back breaking hug, "You caught them all for me didn't you, you big titan killer you" she giggles as she plants a kiss on my cheek. "You always said you wanted live titans to test and experiment on. And these guys were so small and thin, all I had to do was cut the limbs off and nail them down" I shrug in embarrassment, making her grin wide. "Ughhhh did I ever tell you I love you? Cause I do, sooooo much! Oh, I can't wait to test how durable they are~" Hange smiles evilly. "Riiiight, well I'll leave it to you to get them transported to HQ" I say as I start to walk away, "When are you coming back to HQ Y/n? We miss you!" she calls after me. "Erwin requested that I work recruitment with him at the Cadet's graduation so I'll be back in another couple weeks with a whole new batch of recruits" I yell back to her as she carts off our titan captives.
After everything has calmed down, the military starts to clear the city streets of blood, bodies and the balls of bloodied titan vomit that litter the streets. I walk through the city streets and see a familiar hair of blonde hair tied into a bun standing above a corpse. I walk up to her and hear her say something, "I'm sorry" she apologizes to the corpse as I stop behind her.
"Annie" I speak up, making her flinch and slowly turn around to see me. She doesn't say anything, just nods to me and returns to staring at the dead soldier in front of us. I walk up to her and stand next to her, "Did you know him?" I question but she shakes her head no, "doesn't really make it any better does it?" I sigh and she nods her head in agreement. "This is why I didn't want you joining the Scouts Annie......" I admit making her look at me in confusion, "Because this is how it would end...... one of us finding the others mangled corpse on a bloodied battlefield...." I sigh and kneel next to the fallen soldier. I tear off his cadet patch from his pocket and close his opened eyes for the final time, so he may be at peace. I stand back up and hand Annie the patch which she reluctantly takes, "Take it.... so, you can honor him and remember your first battle and what it means to be a soldier" I say. She nods and places the patch in her pocket, "Does it get any easier? Walking over the corpses of people who didn't deserve to die...... and yet you still stand?" Annie speaks up. "Hasn't for me yet......" I sigh and shake my head, earning an equally distressed sigh from Annie. "I.... Y/n I...." she stammers, but I place a hand on her shoulder, silencing her. "I can't imagine what you went through during the operation to block the wall. But it's over now, you won't have to face titans again" I reassure her but she doesn't seem reassured at all. "Tell you what, how about you stay with me tonight?" I offer and she seems put off by this, "Not like that" I chuckle and rub the back of my head in embarrassment of what she thinks I'm insinuating. "The officers get pretty decent apartments to live in while they are stationed in cities. Warm water for baths, pantry of officers rations and an actual bed, not one of those cots" I explain and she flinches when she hears that I have warm water. "Why? Why let me stay with you?" she questions in confusion, "Because you're my friend.... and I know what it's like...... cleaning up the remains of comrades for the first time. It'll help, I promise" I reassure her. She seems hesitant at first, looking back like she's worried someone is listening in on us, "Ok.... that sounds...... nice" she smiles softly.
Time Skip~
I open the door to my temporary apartment and step inside, "Yeah so this is it. Make yourself at home and do whatever because I'll be moved back inside Trost any day now" I shrug and shut the door behind Annie. "No surprise that the higher brass of the military gets living quarters like these while the footmen get those crappy barracks." Annie rolls her eyes, removes her military jacket and hangs it on a hat rack. "Well, at least you won't have to stay in those "crappy barracks" much longer" I shrug as I throw my jacket to the side and start to make us a pot of tea. Annie sits down in one of the chairs in the living room and lets out a long, tired sigh. "No wine? Thought you said officers get special rations?" Annie raises an eyebrow, I shake my head and set the tea kettle on the burner, I then walk into the living room and sit in the chair next to her. "I don't drink wine, gives me nightmares" I explain as I lean back against the chair and let out an exhausted sigh from the long day of fighting. Annie and I talk for a while about the military police, the scouts and each other's past. When the tea is finished, I fix both of us a cup and we sit in silence, drinking our tea, I don't know when it happened but shortly after I finished my tea, the long day of fighting hits me hard and I fall asleep in the living room chair.
My eyes jerk open when I hear something clatter against the floor of another room, I quietly get out of my chair and pull out the curved knife I keep sheathed on my leg for emergencies. I spin it around and hold it backwards like Levi taught me, I squat down a little bit to muffle the sound of my footsteps and approach the source of the sound. Probably a looter, theft is always a big problem during times like these. With the titans attacking, criminals utilize the military being focused on the titans to loot as they please with no worries of being caught I think as I wrap my hand around the doorknob of the room the sound came out of. I take a deep breath and slowly turn the knob, I exhale the air in my lungs and slam open the door, expecting to see a thief trying to steal something from the apartment but what is actually there scares me far more than any thief or criminal can.
I freeze in shock of what I walked in on, while Annie stares at me wide eyed at the sudden intrusion. "Sorry!!" I exclaim, leave the room and slam the door shut behind me, "What're you doing!?" Annie yells from behind the door, "I forgot that you were here!" I exclaim in my defense as I re-sheathe my knife. "What I said the first day of training still stands, you try to pull anything and I'll break your nose!" Annie growls, "I know, I know" I grumble as I sit back down in the chair that I fell asleep in before and start to doze off again.
Annie Pov~
After a much-needed warm bath, I wrap a towel around me and crack the door of the bathroom. I peek out to see if Y/n is still there but see that the living room and kitchen of the apartment is empty, I look down and see some folded clothes laying on the floor in front of the door with a note on top of them. "Here are some clothes, I figured you wouldn't want to sleep in your uniform. They're some of mine so they'll be too big but I hope they'll work. I went to bed, there's a guest room next to mine. P.S. sorry for earlier" I read his note out loud. I smile softly at his kind gesture and throw on the clothes he sat out for me, a long cotton shirt and warm wool pants. I look down at Y/n's clothes on me and notice that the shirt is way too big for me and that if it wasn't for the string in the waist, his pants would fall right off of me. Seeing how much larger Y/n is than me makes me feel warm for some reason, like his large size and warmth is comforting. I step out of the bathroom and head down the hallway to the guest bedroom he mentioned in his note, I see two doors on each side of the hall and I open one. The room is dark but as my eyes adjust to the darkness, I see that this isn't the guest room, it's Y/n's. I start to shut the door, not wanting to disturb him but my curiosity gets the better of me and I slowly creep into his room. I look around, searching for anything he might be hiding but find nothing out of the ordinary and I start to leave his room but before I can, I hear his soft, deep breathing. I turn around and walk up to the sleeping Captain of the Survey Corp and notice a strand of his long black hair is in his face, before I even realize it, I brush the hair away from his face and tuck it behind his ear. He looks so peaceful, it's hard to believe that he's one of the deadliest men behind the Walls. I smile softly as he sleeps. My thoughts drift back to just a week ago when I slept in his arms, the presence, scent and feeling of Y/n was all that surrounded me and I couldn't have been happier. I then remember why I'm here, why my desires of Y/n will bring nothing but trouble...... why what I want can never happen. This can't go on anymore...... I'm too attached to him...... after tonight I can never see him again.... I tell myself as a tear starts to stream down my cheek. One last time...... I want to feel him.... one last time I think as I slowly crawl into the bed with him, this time facing him instead of my back turned to him. I breathe in the intoxicating scent one last time, press my forehead against his and close my eyes as tears start to fall from them. Goodbye Y/n Rosenwald...... if I wasn't the monster that I am....... if the world wasn't so cruel...... you'd be mine I cry as I press my lips against his as softly as possible so I don't wake him. I reluctantly get out of his bed and start to walk away from him, I look back one last time and see something on his nightstand. I walk back and grab it, a final memento of Y/n and hold it dearly, "I.... I love you"