Archive of Our Own ^beta

As midnight neared, the sound of the street outside died down. The quiet evening breeze rushed through the open window of Mikasa’s apartment and shook the wooden blinds against the window frame. Mikasa ignored the sound and leaned back against the bed, closing her eyes in bliss as she waited for Marco. Despite the kisses up and down her thighs and the loving caresses across her skin, nothing followed despite her patience. Her head tilted and her eyes opened in expectation, but Marco sat there frozen on his knees, staring agape between her legs.

Mikasa’s humourless laugh flittered through the air, soft like the sheets beneath them. “You’ve seen one before, haven’t you?” While she joked, there was a hint of uncertainty to her tone. His sudden change had caught her as much off guard as he seemed to be.

Marco snapped out of his daze and he shook his head dismissively. “Yes, yeah. I just…” His tongue ran over his teeth, working over the points of his fangs as if there were still remnants of blood there. “It’s… um…”

She looked over him apprehensively, checking for any twitches across his bare body. Nothing seemed to move from what she could tell. Despite being acutely attuned to the way muscles moved in moments of nervousness, Mikasa found him hard to read. Everything else pointed to a stiff and almost rigid confidence despite the features of his face moving and his voice trembling. It seemed vampires didn’t show the signs she was accustomed to.

“What is it?” She asked, genuinely concerned this time. Perhaps it was her. Maybe she was different somehow in a way she didn’t know. Her legs moved instinctively together when she considered the thought and she became acutely aware of how exposed she was to him while his eyes remained fixed there.

Marco gulped, sheepishly looking up at her with his chin downturned. Whatever he wanted to say, he wasn’t comfortable saying it. After several head tilts and neck stretches, he shrugged his shoulders defensively and announced, “You’ll have to let me in.”

Mikasa pouted and shook her head. She had invited him in hours ago and brought him up to her room. That’s what she was supposed to do. Despite the strange formality of it all, she had done exactly as he had told her. “I’ve already let you in,” she challenged, confused and furrowing her brows, wondering what she had done wrong.

“No… uh…”  Marco began to rub at his neck, possibly working out the unseeable knots in his muscles that Mikasa couldn’t see. His eyes darted down to her crotch. His fangs bit his bottom lip hard and mumbled, “Down there.”

Not quite understanding him, she gazed up at the ceiling and replayed what she thought she heard in her head. It didn’t make sense the second time around either. “What?”

He cringed this time at the tone in her voice. She regretted it almost immediately and watched the way his eyes seemed to fumble for words he didn’t know how to put together. “I can’t… I need you to… umm...”

Nervousness was not something she had expected in a vampire. His lips moved wordlessly, hands frozen in uncertain positions when they had just spent the last few minutes rubbing over her and working her up. Now he didn’t know what to do and the frustration building in her tinted her tone. “Need me to what?”

“I-Invite me in…” Marco stammered, unable to look her in the eye. She watched his gaze move from her thighs to her crotch with puzzlement. It was both oddly private and exposing. The way his eyes brushed over her felt as intimate as a caress, and as her breathing deepened, she wondered what kind of game he was playing.

“Marco,” she began quietly, apologetically, “I really don’t understand what you’re saying.” Her hand reached out for his, but it darted away with self-conscious shrug. Perhaps she had hit a nerve. “You just have to tell me.”

His eyes pleaded with her, a strain showing in his face that she’d never seen before. It silently begged her to understand so he needn’t speak, but nothing he had said made any sense. They watched each other in this silent contest of wills: Marco wanting her to understand, and Mikasa wanting him to make her understand.

After a short groan to break the silence, Marco shut his eyes and tensed his body in a way that looked more human than Mikasa had ever seen him. He relented and announced as straightly and as bluntly as he could possibly imagine, “I need you to invite me…” He paused and cringed for what seemed like forever before he continued in a whisper, “into your...” Marco swallowed the last word in his embarrassment.

“Oh.” Mikasa blinked when the realisation hit. A warm flush rushed over her face, tingling up to her ears. Suddenly she found herself just as wordless as him.

“Sorry,” Marco apologised and looked down awkwardly at his erection. He grappled over the sentence forming in his mouth. “It’s a strange thing that… um…”

Mikasa’s eyes lingered over his body. A strange sensation swept through her and she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. “A vampire thing?”

“Yeah.” If vampires could blush, she imagined Marco would have then. It rang clear in his voice.

“Right,” she confirmed and nodded. Her legs adjusted themselves and she spread them for him as invitation. While his erection seemed to twitch, the rest of him remained still.

Licking his lips, Marco gestured vaguely. “So if you could…”

“So I just…” she responded, trying to calm the beating in her chest with slow words.

The breaths between them grew heavier with realisation. Somehow the buildup and anticipation was amplified by the awkwardness around them. With a hunger in his eyes, Marco huffed, “Uh huh…”

Cringing, Mikasa timidly asked, “And I have to…?”

“Yeah.” Marco moved close, parting her legs further and pressing himself up against her. There he hovered over her, one hand placed over each shoulder for purchase and poised ready to enter at her word. The strength she had seen in him returned and she felt all the weaker for it.

Small huffs escaped her at the sudden sense of his warmth against her. Her voice became strained when she continued to search for understanding. “Or you can’t…”

“No...” It came from his lips like a warm kiss of air across her cheek. It held all of the hope and the tension that had built up between them until his awkward pause.

She melted beneath him, moving her hips to press against him in her frustration. “Okay.”

Mikasa drew a long deep breath in and stared up at him, waiting to see his reaction when she did as he asked. She laughed briefly, airily, at the absurdity of it all, but it only made her all the more ready for him.

She swallowed one more shaky breath before she said the words he needed to hear.

“I invite you in.”