Cooking With the Corporal (Rivaille x Reader)

With the arrival of winter, the headquarters of the Scouting Legion was completely snowed in. Thus, our training for the day was cancelled.

“Might as well let them all take a day off. We’ve had a long week.” Hanji had said earlier in the day, spotlighting the long and gruesome expedition that we had earlier this week. At least we caught a couple more live Titans as experiments. The brunette squad leader was definitely overjoyed at that fact. Nothing could separate her and the specimens; it was like trying to kill a Titan with a loaf of bread…impossible.

Along with the break came lingering boredom. I, as a squad leader, had several meetings to attend during the day, but when all of those ended as well, I was left with nothing else to do. So while it’s a bit sad for a twenty-eight year old like me to say this, I was thrilled to find several of the new teenage recruits gathered around in the mess hall. The 104th trainee squad, one of the most intriguing group of soldiers that I’ve seen in all of my years since joining this branch. They were an interesting bunch, most definitely. Perhaps they will satisfy my boredom for a while.

The small circle welcomed me like they would to any other friend. Within the short months since I’ve met them, we’ve bonded together fairly quickly. I sat between Sasha, who was munching on a boiled potato, and Jean, who was too busy arguing with Eren right next to him to notice my presence. Connie, Mikasa, Armin, Ymir, and Christa were here as well.

As the conversation died down between the two arguing teens and the brunette beside me finished her snack, the circle grew momentarily silent until Jean spoke up.

“Do you guys think that Corporal Rivaille cook?”

It was a simple question, yes, but one that got us all scratching our heads for the correct answer. Can the Corporal cook? Frankly, no one’s ever been privileged enough to try it. Either that or they never lived to tell the tale.

“Have you ever tried his cooking, Squad Leader (Name)?” Armin asked with a sparkle of innocence in his blue eyes. All eyes snapped to me.

“No. Why would you ask me?”

“Because…the two of you seem very close.” The blonde replied with uneasiness and the rest of the trainees looked away as well.

“You should see the way the Corporal looks at you during dinner.” Jean coughed out.

“How so?”
“He looks at you the same way Ymir looks at Christa after she’s stepped out of the shower!” Connie chipped in and said freckled cadet rose up from her spot to give him a good knucklehead sandwich.

“Ehh…really now…” Rivaille and I were close but certainly we didn’t think of each other in that kind of way. Sure he and I have shared an experimental kiss or two and maybe some other extra, unnecessary nights together, but we’ve never held any romantic attachment to each other partially due to the predicament that we were in. Hearing other female cadets comment on his good looks made me feel weird and edgy sometimes. Also, my heart would inevitably skip a beat whenever his hand brushes against mine while walking down the halls, but these feelings are far too unclear to be classified as jealousy or love.

The rest of the group chattered amongst themselves as I was occupied in my thoughts.

“Maybe we should test out his skills. What do you say, squad leader?” Eren suggested.

I looked up at the boy and grinned. “Sure!”

---
Together, we devised a simple plan.

First, Eren will approach Rivaille with a made up situation and convince him to cook with us.

“Corporal Rivaille, sir!” The dark-haired boy called out as he ran down the hallway to catch up with Rivaille. The rest of us walked together to catch up with him.

“What, brat?”

“I…we…” Eren stopped to catch his breath as Rivaille looked on with clear disgust on his face. “We would…we would like you to help us cook a meal for Squad Leader Hanji!”

Rivaille raised his eyebrows.

“Hah? For that crazy woman? Why.”

“Because…” Eren tilted his head to the left to look at Armin for help. The other boy shrugged with nothing to say. “Because it’s her birthday!” Eren declared as a last minute decision.

The Captain’s face retained its usual deadpan.

“Really now. Jaeger, her birthday was two months ago.” Rivaille revealed and turned on his heels, prepared to leave.

“Hey, wait a minute.” I stopped him before he could move another step further by placing my hand on his shoulder. “How come you remember Hanji’s birthday but not mine?” I complained.

“Because she threatened to not shower for two months.” He answered and I nodded in understanding. Rivaille shrugged my hand off and continued on.

“Sir, please wait!” Connie yelled and Rivaille stopped again with a bit more annoyance starting to show on his face.

“What is it.”

“The truth is…we are planning to celebrate squad leader Hanji’s first kiss!”

The rest of the group nearly fell over in surprise. Even Mikasa had a look of surprise on her face. Sasha made a weird choking sound.

“Hoh…” The Corporal turned around with a spark of interest. “With who?”

“With…one of the titan experiments.”

I flashed thumbs up to Connie from behind Rivaille. It was a believable lie.

“And the shithead didn’t bite her dumbass off?” Sharp as ever, Rivaille countered as he crossed his arms.

“You’ll have to ask her for the details sir.”

“Well then. I suppose a celebration is needed.” Our superior announced as the rest of us silently cheered at the success of step one.
---
As for the next step, our group branched off with one half tailing Hanji and distracting her for the day to make sure that she didn’t mess up our plans. Armin, Mikasa, and Eren were voted for the job initially, but Jean tagged along after being caught up in another fight with Eren.

Ymir left as we were heading to the kitchen, stating that she needed a nap. Naturally, Christa followed her as well, which left Connie, Sasha, Rivaille, and I as the chefs for tonight’s meal.

“This is a really simple recipe.” Sasha chirped as she began to pull out a sack of potatoes and sent Connie off to heat a pot of water to a boil.  Reaching from the inside of her pocket, she produced a package of meat. No doubt, she stole it from the storage room where our rations were kept. Nervously, I glanced up at Rivaille, wondering whether it was even legal to take out stolen food right in front of the Corporal. He didn’t say anything about the goods however, so I shrugged it off.

“Here you go, Squad Leader!” The brunette sang and the sack of potatoes was tossed towards my general direction. The unexpected action caught me off guard and the whole bag of vegetables nearly tumbled down if it wasn’t for Rivaille, who caught the bottom half of the sack before it slipped out of my arms.

“Thanks.” I mumbled and he acknowledged me with a slight nod.

Sasha shouted a half-hearted apology as she pushed us out of the kitchen and sat the two of us down on one of the tables in the mess hall. A small knife was thrust into my hands and we were told to skin the potatoes. After the simple instructions, the teen sashayed out the room with a nudge to my shoulder and a suggestive wink.

Whether it was unconscious or not, Rivaille scooted closer to me as he reached over to take a potato from the bag and stayed that way. Our shoulders were touching and my palms began to sweat at the close proximity between the two of us.

“You do know how to peel these, right?” I asked him, trying desperately to start a conversation.

A loud Thwack! sounded through the room as his fingers made contact with my forehead. The area of skin was already turning red from the sudden attack, I could tell from the pain slowly creeping in and spreading.

“I guess I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Did that hurt?” My face heated up from his question. Maybe he does care after all…

“Uh huh.”

“Good.” He stated nonchalantly. I blinked and my eyes dropped down to my lap. These belts sure are interesting, I thought as I studied the various strips of leather running across my thighs.

He cleared his throat and my head snapped up to examine his potato peeling. With great force, he took out a great chunk of the brown vegetable in one strike. When his first potato was finished and skinned, it looked more like a potato stick rather than a whole.

“Um, Rivaille,” I called for his attention. He momentarily paused in his so-called potato peeling to indicate that he was listening. “That’s not how you skin these. They’re not Titans so don’t try to hack at it with the knife.”

“You think I didn’t know that?”

“I thought you said that you knew how to peel these.”

My calf received a well-rounded kick underneath the table as Rivaille turned away from me to curse the damn vegetable under his breath.

With a smile plastered to my face, I moved over so that our knees were touching. One of my arms reached behind, past his back, and around until his warm hand was underneath mine.

“You see, you have to gently peel it off, like this.” Slowly, I moved his hand holding the knife and grazed off a ribbon of brown skin. It was like teaching a child how to draw.

“I know how to do that…” He grumbled under his breath and tried once more to peel the round object. The result was still the same as a chunk of the potato flew off the knife and landed on the ground with a soft thunk.

I was abruptly shoved to the side and topple off my chair as a grumpy Rivaille picked up the piece and eyed it with disgust. My giggles over his failed attempt heightened as he threw the lump of potato at me.

He sat on the chair again without a second glance at me and began to hack at the vegetables like no tomorrow. I tried to contain my laughter as I watched him peel with such determination it was cute. His lips were slightly parted and his eyes were trained onto the object of focus; occasionally, he would bite his bottom lip as he concentrated.

“Hey Rivaille, won’t you come and help me up?” I requested as my laughs died down.

“Go help yourself up. Do I look like a mother to you? And you should be calling me Corporal, (L/n). Know your position.”

“But I’ve fallen and I can’t get up! Please?”

He glanced at me with my outstretched hand and groaned as he gave in. My smirk widened as I tugged him down just as his fingertips touched mine.

“Shit!” He cussed as he joined me on the floor. Good thing he had fast reflexes, or else I’d be a crushed pancake by now.
“What the hell do you want now?” He demanded with his body looming over mine.

“A kiss from the Corporal!” I announced.

He sent me an annoyed glare and bent down until our soft lips meshed together and his body pressed against mine. Surprised at his acceptance but content, I opened my mouth as an invitation for his tongue to explore mine. He growled lowly and gave my lip a lazy nip before he slipped the wet muscle in.

He took the kiss westward towards my neck, and gave a small bite here and there until I lightly pushed him off.

“Help me up now?”

He grunted, a bit ticked off that I stopped him halfway, and offered me his hand. I was tugged up to a standing position where I joined him back at the table. He eyed my hands with distaste as I picked up another potato.

“Go wash your hands, they’re dirty.”

I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. The germs will be cooked away!” I was still dragged back to the kitchen anyway.

“Are the potatoes finished already?” Sasha asked as we walked in but looked at our empty hands with confusion.

“No, just washing our hands.” I told her.

“Oh. Why?”

“Because I fell off the floor.”

Sasha nodded slowly with a suspicious smirk on her face.

“Okay, just let me know when you’re finished. I’m almost done preparing the meat.”

Rivaille and I walked back to the mess hall and got started right away. We didn’t speak with each other for the time being. Periodically, there would be cadets flowing into the room to eat lunch and some new recruits would cower at the sight of the Corporal and decided that they’d rather eat on the kitchen floor instead.

We finished the large sack by sundown and the dark-haired captain was actually getting the hang of peeling the potatoes.

I handed the bag to Sasha but she just nodded and told us to finish up the rest. Connie and her were going to check up on Eren and the others as well as set up everything else. The tiny pot of water was already boiling by the tiny fire that Connie set up and since the goal here was to see whether Rivaille could cook, I left all of the actual cooking to him as watched him prepare everything else.

After the ingredients were added into the pot and left to simmer for a while, Rivaille filled a spoon with a bit of the stew and held it out to me.

“Taste it.” He ordered and stuck the utensil in my mouth. The potatoes were still a bit undercooked and not quite soft enough but blended nicely together with the meat and other spices.

I nodded in approval. “It’s good.”
---
I must’ve fallen asleep midway through waiting for the food to be finished because when I came to, I was draped over Rivaille’s shoulder as he carried me to the mess hall.

“You finally awake? You’ve been sleeping like a dog for the past hour on the kitchen floor.”

“Aww, and you still carried me all the way here despite the dirtiness of the floor?”

“Tch..” He dropped me off without bothering to be gentle.

One of the tables were set up with Rivaille’s stew in the middle alongside some bread and a large jug of water. Hanji was brought in by Eren’s group and we began to eat.

I took a sip of the stew and paled. The flavor was completely off from what I’ve tasted before as if it had morphed into something sinister during the past hour that I’ve been asleep. The others seemed to think the same thing yet kept a somewhat shaky smile on their faces. Except…well…except for Sasha.

“This is really good, sir! You really can cook!” She complimented through bites of break and stew as she wolfed both of those down.

“What’s the occasion?” Hanji spoke up and the cadets and I eyed each other warily.

“To celebrate you first kiss, the hell did you think. Didn’t Jaeger tell you?”

Hanji’s face lit up. “Oh so you guys heard already? These rumors sure travel fast!”

I deadpanned and the teens stared at her with a blank look.

“Hanji, are you actually serious?” I asked her in disbelief.

“Of course! Let me tell you guys all about it! It happened two days ago when I couldn’t sleep at night…” Hanji excitedly launched into another one of her stories as Connie excused himself to go to the bathroom. “Not so fast there, Connie! I just started, you have to listen all the way to the end.”

A hand tugged on my jacket and I looked to my right. Rivaille’s hand latched onto mine and we slipped out of the room and into the empty kitchen.

“Why are we leaving already? I wanted to listen to the rest of Hanji’s story.”

“You’re going to finish the rest of that.” He jabbed his finger towards the half empty pot of stew.

“Um…I think Sasha will eat it all…” I whispered and avoided his gaze.

He took a step closer to me so that he was directed in front of me.

“I thought you said it was good.”

“It was.” I half-lied. It was good…an hour ago.

I yelped when he roughly bit an expose part of my neck.

“Finish that shit or I’ll make sure you’ll regret it tonight.”

I shivered at the malicious intent behind his voice and the Corporal left me standing in the kitchen with a short kiss. I hesitantly glanced at the pot and turned around to chase after the man.

“Wait Rivaille! I wanna take the punishment tonight instead!”