Simple Pleasures: Annie Leonhart x Reader

Chapter 9: Lonely Eyes

Author Update, 10/7/24: Hey y'all! Thanks again for reading :) Don't worry, I haven't disappeared! I'm about midway through the next chapter (I'm picky), but life has gotten hectic and I am currently on the job search, which is occupying much of my time. However, I will be back when it slows down enough to give me time to write!

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After breakfast with Annie and your parents, everyone split off for their free time. In the case of your parents, that meant lounging time down by the lake. In Annie's case, it meant a walk around the lake, then a quick dip. In your case, it meant a nice, slow morning to yourself.

You're a creature of habit when it comes for preparing for the day ahead, and after helping you parents with the dishes–they wouldn't let Annie help since she had cooked the meal in the first place–you decide to resume your morning rituals.

First, you get everything ready: your facial cleanser, your body wash and soap, and your shampoo. Next, you grab a clean towel from the bathroom; its white, slightly abrasive fabric protrusions are dry and rough against the skin of your hands and smell lightly of the bleach that was used to clean them. You can retrieve new linens every Wednesday from the central lodge on the campsite, which is a nice luxury that you certainly appreciate in the grunginess of the outdoors. Finally, you pick up your phone and navigate to your preferred music app. There is no reception out here, which is part of its rustic appeal, so you scroll through the downloaded music that you had prepared ahead of time for the drive and for moments like these when you had the cabin and shower to yourself.

Meandering to the bathroom wearing only the towel wrapped around your body, you feel the cold, dark wood against your bare feet. It feels like flat pieces of chilled stone pressing ever so briefly against your soles, sending a new shockwave up your body for the first few steps until they grow accustomed to the temperature of the surface. Once you reach the bathroom, you hang up your clothes on a hook and drape your towel over the edge of a clothing rack. The bathroom is cozy in size, but big enough. It has all the essentials: a working toilet, sink, shower, and even a hand carved, wooden medicine cabinet next to the mirror. Stretching your arms to either side of you, you realize that only about two and a half you's could fit in here if they all outstretched their arms in the same way that you are doing now.

Annie's bathing suit is hanging lazily along the framing of the shower that supports the plastic lined curtain. You smile, remembering how scared you had been when she bravely plunged into the lake, and how giddy you felt when you saw her bob her head out of the water, breathing and full of life. You had warned her to bring multiple swimsuits up to the lake since there was no drying machine in the cabin. She took this heads up seriously and packed three different swimsuits: two one pieces, and one two piece set. With the stern confidence that was typical of her, she said that she will be swimming in the lake every day, and expects that each suit will be dry by the time it is time to cycle to a new one.

That assuredness is something you admire and love about Annie. She had never been to the cabin before, never swam in the lake, never participated in the family routines and rituals that you had only ever told her about, but even so, she would speak about them as if she had lived through them dozens of times. This sort of move would have rubbed you the wrong way if it was Jean or Eren saying it. Eren's delivery would have surely implied that he knows more than you, and Jean's would almost certainly express an overconfidence that almost felt phony, as if he was trying to impress some crowd that was watching him from afar. But with Annie, it just felt right. She said it in a way that communicated not that she knew all about the trip, but that she knew all about herself. She knew that she would want to take advantage of the open body of water and she knew that she would want to be prepared for multiple scenarios. Never once had this attitude imposed on you, threatened you. Instead, it reassured you. You felt that Annie could handle anything that came her way, which relaxed you to your core.