Demons Of Paradis

***

“Is this a fucking joke to you?”

Levi halted. It wasn’t her language but the authority in her voice, the unrelenting command, that brought him up short. And that made him angry. He turned, slowly, letting his boot heels scrape hideously across the flagstone. “Am I laughing, brat?”

Mikasa stood in the doorway, steam rising from her bare arms and shoulders, one hand keeping her towel wrapped around her body and the other fisted against her side. She glowered at him from beneath damp fringe. “I know you get off by bossing people around, but your power trip can surely wait until we’re decent.”

He advanced, coming to stand nearly toe to toe with her. She didn’t waver. Didn’t even blink. “Forgive me, Ackerman, but you’re hardly ever decent.”

A twitch formed in her right eye. “And you’re hardly decorous.” Sasha hissed something under her breath, making a futile grab for Mikasa’s arm, catching the edge of her towel instead. Mikasa shrugged her off. “Your lecture can wait,” she enunciated, low and measured, leaning the slightest amount into his space.

The towel. The damned towel. Sasha had tugged a bit too hard. Mikasa realized the same moment he did, both of them looking down at her exposed left breast, at the light-brown nipple piqued in the cold air. Any rational thought evaporated from Levi’s brain like the steam swirling around them. Mikasa covered herself almost in the same instant Levi yanked his gaze back to her face. Firmly on her face. She didn’t appear too flustered. In fact, she was speaking. To him. She was saying something to him, but he didn’t hear a damn word.