First Times Anthology

He says nothing.

At the very least, you can be relieved he came to you at all; who knows how he even knew you were here.

Like him, you didn’t visit any of the field hospitals, either. If they’re already clamoring with the injured and near-dead, and they most assuredly are, going would have been no help to you.

You blink rapidly, attempting to clear the film of sleep over your eyes.

Almost done.

“Are you injured?” he asks mildly, the trepidation of his words betrayed by a haze of utter exhaustion that you both share. Night swallowed the smoke-ladened sky twice before evacuations were complete, or so they say.

“No,” you reply, and finally tighten the sutures.

It isn’t a lie, not exactly. Cuts and bruises, a sprained wrist, but you’ll live.

He kisses his teeth and resists the urge to roll his shoulders back to quell the stiff ache knotting his muscles. He would blame it on the position you put him in, perched on the edge of a heavy crate in a tiny room—the only accommodations available to misplaced Scouts from Wall Maria—but he knows as well as the next that there’s no room left for blame.

As he eyes your small bedroll on the floor, the room lit only by a dying, wall-mounted torch, you go on: “I got lucky I guess, if that still means anything anymore.”

“How many casualties? I keep hearing different numbers.”

You’re a Squad Leader, just like him, but your chest flutters anyway. He has a lot of trust placed in you.

It feels alien in wake of the past few days... and how Levi is in general.

Taking a dampened, bloody rag from your side, you proceed to clean the rest of his bruising and light cuts—as clean as you can get him at the moment, anyway.

What the combined efforts of the entire military make of things and what the government says are obviously two different things. The politicians in Sina still deny that the Wall has fallen at all, even two days past.

Pyxis and Shadis are more in the loop than anyone, and they put the numbers in the realm of about 10,000 injured or dead since the Titans started pouring in, “—and that’s not even counting the first attack. Everyone says that the Titans somehow coordinated the attack, as if… they had intelligence.”

“We can’t worry about that right now,” he grunts, and tugs his filthy button-up back onto his shoulders the moment you finish bandaging his wounds. “We weren’t there when it happened. There’s nothing we could’ve done.”

The Scouts were on expedition. Add that to the list of reasons you believe the Titans who attacked Shiganshina somehow planned it.

What if they attack again tomorrow, or an hour from now, and Wall Rose falls next? It cinches your heart to think about.

To Levi’s utter surprise, after tucking away the rudimentary first-aid kit, you stand, but not without teetering.

He jumps to his feet and ignores the pull in his fresh stitches. He can’t allow you to (maybe literally) drop dead, and he tells you so.

“I’m not the only one tired,” you protest, grappling for his biceps in some vain attempt to push past him. “Some towns ‘re isolated, they’re being attacked right now and–”

He snaps your name even though he feels the exact same as you. It’s a pain in the ass to clutch your shoulders—two nights and days fighting in ODM has left his hands stiff at best and constantly cramping at worst—but he tries anyway. He’s going to get you to listen to him, even if it’s the last thing he does.

Maybe it will be.

He orders you to look at him, and despite your terrible vision (you have exhaustion, plus fighting through seas of smoke to thank for that), you let his stormy gaze bore into your own.

He’s even paler now than he was that first month after leaving the Underground, making the rings beneath his eyes look like bruises. He looks so tired.

“You keep going full-throttle like this, you’ll get eaten before you can save anyone else.” His words cut like a knife, but his eyes are tortured. “When’s the last time either of us ate anything?”

Your voice is flimsy. “Field ration. Yesterday.”

It rattles him to admit this, to give you even the slightest indication that he’s as beaten down as you are, but he goes on. If it comes to pass that you died and there was something else he could’ve (or should’ve) said, it’d be another shitty outcome of another shitty choice on his shoulders he won’t forgive himself for.

He’s tired too, he’s starving, and everyone knows things are bad—they’re apocalyptic. Though he doesn’t know any other way to confess this but meekly, like a stupid turtle, he’s out of options and it’s the only way he knows how.

You’re both still alive, and there will still be plenty of fighting to do later. It’s enough for right now to simply go on breathing.

He wants to believe he would tell any one of his other comrades shit like this, almost as much as he wants a bath right now, but truly, only you—your eyes welling up with tears and clutching at his shirt like it’s the one thing still keeping you standing—makes him do and say such embarrassing things.

He doesn’t want to follow that train of thought. Good thing he’s as tired as you look right now.

It’s as if you’ve lost all reason not to speak your mind. “I… I didn’t think you’d actually say that.”

He’s said the wrong thing? Somehow, as always? He isn’t sure what to make of that.

You want to point out how unlike Levi-I-have-no-feelings it is for him to let himself come across as anything other than a brick wall, but him putting so much effort into reassuring you in the first place is rare. Silently, you’re grateful.

Instead, you admit to something too, voice trembling like a dead leaf.

“After that first night, when you didn’t show up with the other squads, I…” Involuntarily, you shake your head. “…I know it’s stupid to worry about just one person, but I was still w-worried, and I couldn’t stop thinking—”

“I’m alive,” Levi tells you, with so much conviction it drops your stomach and has it doing somersaults at the same time.

You’ve been with the Corps longer than he has by a long shot, which is why he can never quite get over the heaps of compassion you have. That’s why he doesn’t tell you that this, being alive, might not be the case tomorrow, or the next.

He also doesn’t admit to worrying about you, too.

The night he was supposed to rendezvous with Captain Smith and the other elite squads at the easternmost section of Wall Maria, his gear malfunctioned, leaving him with no choice but to hold up in a dilapidated village overnight.

He waited for backup that never came, but he got just as lucky too, thanks to the people around too dead to need their own ODM anymore.

But that long, lonely night was plagued by thoughts of worry: worries over you, and whether you’d still be alive when he made it back.

He goes on. “We’re both still alive, but if you want to keep it that way, get some rest. Otherwise I’d have to tag along to make sure you don’t die. Doesn’t sound fun, does it?”

You offer a shake of your head in lieu of the tears threatening to stick to your lashes.

Almost no thought is put into what you do next. While your scuffed fingers have grown cramped clutching at his shirt, his words, thick with comfort, leave your head heavy: it falls down onto his shoulder. Your painful hands fall too, from his shoulders to the front of his shirt. Its white color is all but muddied with dirt and blood, unbuttoned to resemble curtains.

As if paralyzed, his entire frame goes ramrod-stiff, but he doesn’t push you away.

And, as much as he stinks at the moment, he’s a warm, strong presence before you. It feels like fighting gravity to take a step back.

Struck by his silence, you murmur, “Is this alright?”

He feels his heart might just break open his ribcage, it’s pounding so hard. Not a single coherent thought forms, but he can bring his arms up, awkwardly draping them around your midriff.

He swallows thickly, then shuts his eyes tight so as not to shudder when he feels your arms drop to his waist, hugging him tight like he’s a stuffed animal. Like he is something comforting.

At first, his movements feel awkward and stilted, as if he’s a mannequin. You make it seem so natural, holding him close and tucking your face into the crook of his neck, shuddering a breath.

He loosens up completely when you begin to weep, as if your grief somehow validates his apprehension.

He has no clue what to say to reassure you. He doesn’t think words from even the most articulate poet in the world could offer even an ounce of comfort. Not right now.

For this reason, he seals his lips and mimics the way you embrace him. He shivers, at once both torn by an electric sense of discomfort, and serenity.

He opts for the latter, and allows the tension he’s seemingly been holding for days leave through a hitched breath.

He can’t bring himself to hate this, but he can’t love it either. Being embraced by a person he cares for, being embraced—he thinks that the last time this ever happened to him was probably when he was a kid, or never.

It’s only when your cries dissolve into sobs that his hand falls in your hair, lightly petting. You’re both filthy and it feels so odd, but you clearly need him, and he can’t deny you. The comfort of the whole thing isn’t bad, either.

You stop crying, eventually. The heady moisture of your tears dampening his neck is punctuated by the fact that Levi’s legs have gone totally numb from standing here like this with you.

Once you pull away, albeit reluctantly, you scrub your face free of tears, but more than anything you just end up smearing them across your cheeks. He doesn’t have a single clean cloth to offer you, and his hands are disgusting. The best he can do is opt not to point it out and pat your shoulder, then duck his head away like some sort of oaf.

This doesn’t seem to phase you, though you do apologize for hugging him.

He grunts, but says nothing more. He isn’t sure how to sort out how much heavier he feels now that you’ve pulled away.

It isn’t so much of a fight now to get you to lay down. Levi guides you to your bedroll, as he would rather not risk you passing out on him.

It was clearly the right thing to do, because you’re not even inside the damn thing before you drape your arm over your eyes, and you’re out like a light.

Where he’s kneeling by your side, Levi spares your sleeping form a brief look, and has an internal battle with himself whether to scavenge for his own bedroll somewhere or to sleep on the damn floor. Either way, he can’t keep himself awake any longer: that would make him a hypocrite at best.

In the end, he takes his cape, left crumpled on that same crate when he first came in, and tries to gauge whether it’s clean enough to drape over you to use as a blanket, in vain. It’s filthy and bloodstained, but so is the rest of him, and so are you.

He frowns, but covers your sleeping form in it anyhow. Thoroughly, as to stave off the cold.

It’s hell on the stitches you just put in his skin to settle back against the unforgiving stone wall. Still, in some effort to get some rest and be there to wake you when dawn comes, he bites back a wince and folds his knees up to his chest.

He doesn’t need a blanket, he decides. It’s too daunting of a task for his bedraggled mind to wake you, let alone ask for the cape off your back.

Your slow, even breaths ease the tension in his everywhere, despite the chill of midnight. It comes as a surprise to him that despite all of this shit, he manages to float off into a fitful rest.

Levi growls.

He doesn’t indulge the amusement in your tone as he leans further on the tips of his toes, just barely managing to swipe the last of the dust off his bookshelf.

If this wasn’t his bookshelf, he’d gladly abuse his new role as Captain and get someone else to do it, but all this stubborn grime is between him and the dirt.

You regard the subtle peek of his toned back you’re graced with, tutting from where you lean against the door frame to his new bedroom.

“No stools? Couldn’t find a chair to stand on?”

“No. That’s embarrassing,” he grumbles, and finally settles back on the soles of his feet.

You hum, signaling your approach by the clicks of your boots against the shining wood floor; it’s been mopped recently.

You’ve done your fair share today too, as his orders were explicit when he asked you to clean his barren kitchenette and living space. He trusts you to do the job best, after all.

A stubborn smile prods at your lips until you’re within touching distance. He’s crouching now, furiously scrubbing a grease mark out of the baseboard.

“Hey, you,” you say, and gently plop your hand in his hair. “I mean it. About your back and all.”

At the feeling of your hand rubbing at his scalp, he goes totally stiff and sucks a gasp through his teeth. It’s totally by instinct that he ends up snatching your wrist, greeting your startled gaze with peeved confusion.

With the handkerchief tied around his nose and mouth, the scowl denting his features is still sharp, cutting into you.

“Why…” He swallows, unmoving. “Why do you do that?”

You frown. Despite how long you’ve known Levi now, sometimes you feel like a total stranger to him. It isn’t odd for comrades to bump shoulders sometimes, and as rare as it is, he even reciprocates your friendly touch from time to time by rubbing your back, or silently brushing your bangs away from your eyes.

But then, when you get too close, it’s as if he becomes a cornered viper, grasping your wrist or forearm to act abashed and annoyed... while at the same time making no move to force you away. There’s no question that he could, given his strength.

“Why?” you echo him, and relax enough for your fingers to limply lay in his hair. Your question is genuine. “What’s wrong, do you want me to stop?”

He visibly clenches his jaw, as it takes quite a bit of conscious effort to smother the small, involuntary shivers when you play these games with him. Not even touching his hair (where he’s sensitive), but your inclination to touch him at all and spare no answer when he asks your intentions.

Whatever happened between you two after the Wall fell was the catalyst for these feelings, he believes.

Swallowing a little, you repeat yourself: “Does it bother you when I touch you? I don’t mean anything by it, and if you want me to stop, I will.”

I don’t mean anything by it.

He silently curses your words before shaking your hand off and rising to his feet, taking the dust-ridden cloth with him.

He doesn’t look at you.

“Levi.”

“If you want to make yourself useful, get the hell out and leave me alone,” Levi orders, his tone no less harsh than a jagged stone. “Every little thing you do bothers me, alright? I mean that.”

Taken aback by the sheer animosity in his voice, you open your mouth, then close it. You can’t match Levi’s glare; your heart isn’t hard enough for that.

Instead, you don’t say a word back and march out of the room, turning away before he can catch a glimpse of the tears welling up in your eyes.

—

Levi didn’t, in fact, mean that.

The moment he said it he wanted to take it back.

Maybe it bristled him to hear you say that, that what means a lot to him means nothing to you, so he spoke without thinking. He didn’t even confront you about it, which in his mind adds another reason that he’s the worst man in the world to get along with.

You must’ve thought he meant it though: he hasn’t seen you in days. Days, and it bothers the hell out of him. It’s not as if he’s lonely or spiteful, and it’s not as if he doesn’t have anyone to talk to, because he does, but idly chatting with Mike or one of the new recruits just isn’t the same. None of them are you.

What he could do (and has internally fought himself for days on deciding to) is summon you to his office. He could confront you, and apologize. That’s the right thing.

It’s not like he doesn’t know where your quarters are or where you usually go, but clearly you took the stupid shit he said to heart—"leave me alone."—and chose to actively avoid him. If he bit the bullet and knocked on your door, you could just as easily slam the door in his face, or not answer at all.

He’s overthinking this. He should just talk to you, but as much as he rehearses what he would say (or tries to write another note) none of it seems right, not even in his mind.

It’s a bitch to admit even to himself that he misses you. Levi hasn’t even spent much time in his new quarters in the first place, but any damn place he’s gone after that day feels odd and empty.

Maybe he’s the one who’s feeling that way: a walking, empty chasm. It’s pathetic.

His breaking point was reached today. Though it wasn’t your choice or his, he finally got to see you again.

Erwin wanted to hold a meeting with all the Squad Leaders—you, Hange, Mike and the rest—because there’s been talk in the Interior.

Levi calls the suspicions Erwin has of the government implementing a draft to retake the Wall rampaging rumors. He thinks so, but then again he’s been wrong before.

Oh how he was wrong. He can hardly stop thinking about how damn wrong he’s treated you now that you’re a constant in his peripheral vision for the first time in a week. You keep catching his eye for no reason at all.

You’ve always been glaringly good at making the best of a shitty situation, but he underestimated your ability to go on acting like nothing is wrong. Everything about the tone of your voice and even how you sit is calm and in control, but he’s known you a long time.

He knows you better.

No matter how he glares at you from across the long table—something he can get away with, seeing how he’s known for his shitty moods and the topic is graver than death—your tired eyes never even spare him a glance.

He rationalizes in his mind that he just wants to discern whether you’re committed to hating him now or not.

Besides the asinine fact that he thought he could figure that based on facial expression alone, he’s lying to himself. A raging feeling rises in his chest every time you speak, which silently broke open when you finally did glance at him, just to build off an argument he was making for a more strenuous training regiment.

What Levi wants it seems, which is so infuriating to his pride it makes him sick, is to be seen by you, that’s all. Your attention.

It’s no question that he took the comfort you seemingly infused in him just by sitting next to him for granted.

Never did he feel so conflicted, both on-edge and at peace, than when you were close to him—close enough to catch a hint of how warm and real you are. He hates how easy it came to you to lay a hand on his shoulder or flick him on the ear when he said something stupid.

He thought all this fluff of yours just pissed him off before. Now, he thinks he could be content for the rest of the week if only you’d just look at him. How far he’s fallen.

And his utter determination to get himself to stop feeling so panicked and sick, to fix what he messed up between you two, is how he drags you both into a horrible confrontation.

—

“Fight me!” you huff, your jaw clenching as Levi once again darts back when you attempt another jab at him.

With his fists held protectively in front of himself, he glares at you through sweat-soaked bangs. “You have to know how to fight an enemy that’s gonna dodge your attacks.”

Stupid excuse, you think.

Reformed training regiments was his idea, one you agreed with, and so was sparring each other. Why it had to be you, after he finally came out with the truth that he hates being around you, you don’t know.

You’ve gone back and forth like this for long enough to kick up dirt and leave sweat soaking through your short sleeves.

No matter how you argue, he and you keep on like this: An attempt to trip him up or score a punch at a weak spot ends with him blocking you each time. He keeps blocking.

To say this literal and metaphorical dodging of the issue is boiling your blood would be an understatement.

This time, he takes your outstretched arm and pulls you so the world careens as you’re flipped over his shoulder. You land on your back and hit the dirt like a ton of bricks, but nonetheless you’re on your feet again the very next moment.

He faces you, and you can’t tell a damn thing he’s feeling. The pain in your flanks aggravates the fire in your chest, and you see red.

“Dodging? I didn’t think I’d have to fight a damn coward,” you sneer, and surge forward.

You catch him off guard this time.

The next thing you know, the both of you are half-wrestling, half-rolling around in the dirt. It’s hardly even fighting as much as scathing resentment having finally boiled over.

For you, it’s festered for days: sleepless nights, stupid tears. You don’t understand.

Finally, an expression besides total indifference breaks over Levi’s face; his features scrunch up as if he’s in pain as you seize the front of his shirt and slam him back in the dirt.

His boot-clad foot keeps trying to worm between your legs and throw you off, but you don’t let him. You straddle his waist like you’ll die if he gets away, so the most his efforts do is leave the both of you pushing against respective shoulders—shoving away while simultaneously pressing closer than ever.

He grunts when you knock his back into the hard ground again.

The worst part is you can’t even muster the guts to hit him.

Tears of anguish prick at the corners of your vision. “What did you do this for!? Why do you hate me?”

He freezes, has the audacity to look at you like you’re crazy. “What?”

If you don’t keep acting like you’re sparring, others (probably Hange) will catch on, and soon. Your nerves are so shot you’re shaking.

Hurt simmers in your throat as you pin his lower half down with your thighs to hover over him.

Now, you’re close enough to exchange hot breath and see in his wide eyes that Levi doesn’t hate you. More than anything, he looks afraid.

Your heart breaks.

“Why,” you repeat, “do you hate me?”

As if suddenly realizing the compromising position you have him in, he sucks in air through grit teeth before slamming his fist into your nose.

—

You hiss at the sting (and stink) of the alcohol soaked into the cloth Levi presses to your busted nose.

Well, busted is exaggerating. You can attest from personal experience of watching him fight that he didn’t even use half his full strength, but it bled like hell anyway.

Silence passes heavily between you inside the medbay. The sparse number of staff around don’t bother you, nor does any other sorry bastard. Maybe just a glance at the grimace on his face steers everyone away, but as you are now, he and you are separated from the rest of the world by a flimsy blue curtain.

You’re stewing, thinking.

He seems to be working himself up in his head too, made obvious by the half-lidded storms raging behind his irises, just below the suture where you split his brow. Where you hit him back.

After successfully throwing you off of him, he didn’t waste a second to finally, at the worst possible moment, confess, “I’m sorry.”

Ironic how your fist moved on its own after that.

But then, he apologized again, and then one more time when it was just the two of you again in the medbay.

Sorry, I’m sorry.

“You’re such an asshole,” you mumble, with absolutely no conviction; you just want him to know how much he hurt you. “You couldn’t just talk to me?”

Another apology builds on his tongue, but he’s lived a wonderful life if so few words will fix everything he’s wrecked between you. Lowering his head, his mouth starts to grow dry.

“…I’m sorry.”

You shake your head, hating the sting of alcohol in your nostrils. Suddenly, the bed you sit upon starts to feel like a slab of cement. “Levi, please…”

He hates this. More than anything, he downright loathes seeing you upset, especially with him.

He racks his mind with what to say.

With a shuddering breath, you try to work it out in your head. While you’re not a mind reader, and you can’t read him as well as you can understand him, if only he’d just explain the problem... you’re determined to try.

“Do you really dislike me that much, or maybe…” You shake your head at the ridiculousness of the question. “…You don’t like to be touched? It’s a yes or no question.”

Simple, pragmatic and to the point.

Just so he can have something to do with his hands, he makes up a fresh cloth and confirms the more unlikely of your assumptions: the other day, he spoke without thinking; he doesn’t see your close presence as the plague.

But you don’t yet know why.

You count your lucky stars that you have a lot of patience, because clearly Levi and talking through emotions doesn’t mix well. He has lost so much, and though you know close to nothing about how he grew up, it couldn’t have been a good upbringing if he struggles so much just to communicate.

On the other end of the spectrum, it comes naturally to you.

Baby steps.

“Did I hurt your feelings?”

He blinks at you through his bangs as he hesitantly reaches forward and brushes your own off your forehead.

“Don’t say that like I’m a little kid,” he grumbles, embarrassed. “I don’t know. I don’t know my feelings. I just didn’t like what you said, about... it having no meaning to you.”

The last part of his explanation comes quieter, as if to speak the words aloud means they become too real, too true.

You nod for him to continue, swallowing the butterflies swarming in your chest.

He furrows his brow, deep in thought. “It’s foolish to get attached to people, the world we live in. Let alone the job we have to do.”

He scoffs a little, swallowing thickly. What is he even saying? “I feel differently, but I won’t try to make you feel that way.”

“Levi…”

It’s as if he can’t stop now. Your touch on his arm comes as a small shock.

“I don’t blame you—it’s fine, if that’s who you are, but I’m not good for that kind of thing.” He looks away. “Any of it. I didn’t mean what I said, but you’re an idiot if you think I hate you, after all we…” His lips twitch. “Never mind.”

“Levi,” you say again, planting your hands on his shoulders.

When he doesn’t move, yet still won’t look at you, a patient sigh leaves your lips.

Hoping to reassure him, you shift to cradle each side of his face in your hands. His skin is weathered, but soft.

His eyes widen a little, but instead of saying anything, his palms fall over your own, as if trying to silently convey, don’t go away.

Of course, any kind of tenderness with Levi means an enormous amount to you. What that means exactly you’re not entirely sure yet, but it doesn’t seem like the right time to try and say—not in the middle of the medbay with injuries in equal measure.

“More than anything, I said that to make you feel better, but clearly I read you wrong. That’s okay, if you think it’s okay. I’m sorry too.”

With that out in the open, he stares with a peeved sort of confusion, then understanding. He looks empty, in the best of ways.

“Thank you for telling me how you feel,” you go on, smiling a little. “I know you’re not used to that, so thank you. You’re wrong, though, about getting attached to people being stupid. I think you get so caught up in what’s at stake, that you forget you’re human too.”

Levi, as if just the look in your eye is too much for him, shuts his own briefly. “Maybe.”

“Nothing has to change,” you murmur, choosing your words carefully. “Don’t be so quick to shut me out, and I won’t misunderstand you. Okay? This is good, isn’t it?”

“…Yes. If you think that, too.”

It’s as if the air in the room has lifted. Your nose isn’t even throbbing as bad as before, rolling mindless circles with the pad of your thumbs into his high cheekbones.

Slowly, giving any chance at all for him to object, you lift your chin and catch a glimpse of his eyes fluttering shut before you gently press your lips to his forehead.

You taste salt, and although the kiss is as soft and brief as the touch of a feather, it kindles butterflies in your chest to watch a soft blush bloom across his cheeks.

You’ve hardly ever seen him flustered before, but it’s a good look on him, you think.

You laugh, which causes him to duck his head away.

It’s a pleasant surprise when his hands lower to your midriff, then tucks his face in your neck to hold you close.

—

After that day, things get easier. While Levi is still a far cry from the best communicator in the world, he doesn’t shut you out again... not that you let him.

Very quickly, some unspoken boundaries are established.

For instance, he either hates for his hair to be stroked, or it is simply too overwhelming of a touch for him to accept.

He doesn’t explain, but you don’t ask him to. The most that is needed is a brief shake of his head, and you stop accordingly.

Over the next months, this gets easier for him to do.

In a similar vein, having his neck caressed (or being anywhere near his throat, really) and sudden movements is an absolute no. You learn quickly that he hates to be caught off guard, which includes sudden hugs from behind.

For you, things are a little different. It’s enough most times just to pass a late night along over steaming tea together, chatting idly while looking over plans, paperwork.

If you finish first, you like to trace over the sinewy skin of his hand. For as hard and calloused as his fingertips are, it’s comforting to follow the length of his hand and make mindless patterns.

It’s enough, most times. At others, insecurity rears its ugly head. A soft heart is prone to bruising, and in the past yours has been battered plenty.

Despite you and he coming along as close comrades, friends, it’s difficult and, Levi being Levi, exceptionally rare to open yourselves up to scrutiny of the more tender parts of your hearts, bit by bit.

These moments breathe under the darkest covers of midnight, amidst the most vulnerable of conversations. He’ll offer you a word if he finds it and always, a hand to take. In return, you listen with quiet reverence when he speaks (however rare) and offer the same.

Always, you’re under the constant threat of an untimely death, as is and always has been the life of a Scout.

On the battlefield, there’s no room for what we have. What am I doing? Will he push me away if I say this, or that? I know Levi, but do I know him?

Regardless. You love to make him flustered, either by kissing his forehead or idly draping your arm around his waist when you get time alone together... but only in private.

It’s possible that public displays of affection are an entirely different battle for him, but more than anything it feels wrong to expose what softness thrives between the two of you to the world. The tenderness in his eyes, and even a lopsided smile if he’s feeling good-natured, is reserved for your eyes only, so to speak.

There’s no need to pick back up on the discussion of your friendship (camaraderie, partnership?) from the day he and you fought.

Not that there’s any time to.

“Shit,” you mutter, and squeeze your eyes shut once you’re finally out of earshot of a new recruit, the one charged with handling the horses as well as the impromptu stables.

At a now-abandoned castle complex, one that only months ago was one of the Scouts’ most bustling bases before the Fall, the ones who survived today are finally battening down the hatches for the night. Your assigned band of soldiers, plus Levi’s and Mike’s (not to mention Commander Erwin leading this portion of the 250,000-strong charge) is too many. Then again, innumerable lives have already been lost.

Not enough proper equipment, not enough training, not enough morale, not enough.

Dizzy with grief, you hardly recall untangling yourself from your ODM; scabbards, blades and gas tanks fell like a pebble-like weight off your hips. Very few speak to each other, and the painted sunset almost mocks you with its otherworldly beauty. A day like this feels unworthy of a sunset so breathtaking.

Dry field rations go down, and what’s left is accounted for.

Levi isn’t at the exhausting meeting alongside Mike, headed by Erwin.You’re left to assume they spoke at length earlier.

As unsaid as it so infuriatingly remains, no one can escape the horror of this charade. Erwin in his fresh position as Commander doesn’t even address it, simply speaks as if walking circles around this mock retaking of the Wall.

But what choice does he have?

“None of the three branches have been able to breach Shiganshina,” and, “Intel suggests we lost about half of our forces today.”

Fighting words seem hollow, empty.

But without a choice and with so many dependent upon your leadership, you put on a brave face and soldier on.

You hardly realize you’ve even been dismissed until Mike grasps your shoulder and suggests you get some rest; it’s going to be a cold, freezing night.

Just like everyone else, you pick out the same bedroll, but don’t lay in it. It remains untouched by your side where you rest in one of the enormous dining hall-turned-sleeping quarters for the vast majority of the still-living troops.

There are very, very few common people left. The Titans are eating well.

To you and the grief shredding your heart, it seems like everything, and yet nothing is on your mind, for the longest time.

More or less alone with your knees tucked against your chest, you sit, stew, and wait for Levi to finish his duties. It would be far from the first time that he’s found your face in a crowded room, though it’s more comfortable to stave off reality by resting your head in your arms.

You’re a stranger to the silent sobs wracking your chest until the clicking of boots stops very near you, and a calm hand falls on your shoulder.

“Hey,” Levi greets, the tone he uses burdened by invisible weights. “Are you hurt?”

“Hi.” You sniff. “No, I’m okay.”

It’s the truth, although you do all you can—frantically, as if you’ve just woken from a dreamless sleep—to erase the evidence of tear-tracks on your cheeks.

He huffs a little, relieved. It’s only when he pulls away do you regard him and all the tired, solemn storms behind his eyes.

“Mind if I sit with you?”

If he didn’t ask, you would be willing to beg.

No more words are exchanged after he settles beside you, not that there’s anything to say.

To you, and likely everyone, the situation speaks for itself. No matter where the expedition takes you all, ghosts seem to follow. Perhaps the quiet, disturbed by only the slightest of murmurings, gives room for the wronged dead to speak their peace.

Torches die as the hall begins to still with those succumbing to rest, or trying.

You notice that Levi brought his own bedroll (as you expected of him), but similar to you he only sits upon it, as if to retain what semblance of refuge from the filthy stone floor he can grasp at.

It’s tragic in a way, but so Levi it warms your heart all the same.

You swallow thickly, then at your side he speaks up. “Got word that most of the MP forces were wiped out today. Nile wants a retreat order.”

For no reason at all, not much of a response forms on your tongue at first.

Feigning reverence, you sigh. “If it’s the Military Police, maybe it’ll come.”

He scoffs a little, wry as hell. “Maybe.”

You pass the minutes by in companionable silence. As heavy as you feel, sleep seems days away, especially as evening falls to the rule of a cold night. Silence now seems unbearably loud.

At times, you swear he can read your thoughts. Stiffly, Levi starts to open his bedroll, then pauses when he notices you watching.

“You look tired.”

“We could get attacked in the night,” you mumble, and screw your eyes shut to stave off, exactly as he said, tiredness. “Wouldn’t be the first time we went without sleep, but how ‘bout you rest, Captain.”

He stops with the bedroll shuffled up to his knees, and stares at you with a deadpan expression. “Is that a joke?”

A witty reply escapes you. Instead, you pinch the bridge of your nose—a headache is coming on, you can feel it—and manage to shake your head a little.

He watches you, outwardly impassive, inwardly scrutinizing your behavior with a worried mind.

Maybe something happened, he thinks. You’re always worrying about something, always deflecting a horrible circumstance with dry humor.

“I want you to sleep,” he tells you, this time much more directly. “You’re the one who said we’re all human, so when’s the last time you slept?”

“…Can’t remember.”

“Exactly.”

Exasperated, you huddle in on yourself further. It’s intimidating to look him in the eye all the sudden. You’re scared of what you’ll see, despite the facade you can never drop: that you’re okay, and things are under control.

“I’m okay,” you insist.

In your peripheral vision, you notice him twisting and worrying the cheap fabric of his bedroll within a loose fist.

You finally look at Levi straight, him and all the frustration he carries in his furrowed brow.

“Don’t lie to me,” he whispers.

You swallow.

Shivers are momentarily smothered by nerves as you surrender, and tug your bedroll over your knees. If it gets any colder, your teeth will start chattering. Remnants of tears have already dried on your cheeks.

You should be more candid with him. The miserable knot in your throat lurches. “I saw a kid get eaten today. He didn’t even look old enough to graduate from the Cadet Corps.”

He hisses a little through his teeth, then brushes up beside you. It rattles you to the core, how agonized he looks, before his tight-knitted expression morphs into poorly-concealed rage.

“Bastards,” he seethes.

You shudder again. It seems the cold is chewing right through your bones. “I know. But there’s nothing we can…” The words taste bitter. You can’t finish that thought. “Dammit, I’m freezing.”

He grunts in agreement before a brief silence overtakes you both, nonetheless filled by the lazy breaths of your living comrades gathered here and there, asleep. The few who rest alone shiver, or don’t sleep at all.

Then, he says your name. “C’mere.”

You hum at first, not understanding before Levi shuffles the flimsy bedroll up further around his thighs, and opens his arms a little.

To you, it seems more like an invitation rather than an order, but suddenly it doesn’t matter. The stone floors, the wall leaves your body colder than ice. You’d rather be closer to him.

You’d give anything to be closer.

He tuts a little, but no more words come. Instead, he wordlessly guides you by your waist. Closer, more snug—until you drop right into his lap.

Stunned by just how warm he is, you’re almost spurred on by instinct to snuggle back into his embrace. He’s a protective presence at your back, peeking over your shoulder to urge your legs inside the bedroll, between his own.

Diligently, you snag your own bedroll where it was just set aside. It’s with an unspoken air of teamwork that the coarse, but nonetheless thick, fabric is draped over your chest. With Levi’s efforts, the makeshift security blanket is secured behind your back, pinned between your bodies.

The leather straps of both your uniforms—as no one can afford to dress down on expeditions, even to sleep—leaves the situation stiff, but nonetheless warmer, like a roaring bonfire. The icy, deadened world beyond your and his blanket-cocoon is shut out, at least for the moment.

Shivering out the last inklings of cold, you sigh with approval and take his hand. Where before his breath shook with cold as he pawed for touch by your waist, you attach his arm around your midriff, and keep yours there, interlocked.

He tucks his face in your shoulder as his other arm follows and squeezes you tight, and suddenly you’re so intertwined there’s a frolicking ball of fire loose in your chest.

At the same time, you murmur to each other a variation of, Is this alright? Feel okay, comfortable?

“Yes,” you mumble, tone thick with mirth.

It’s with great satisfaction that you feel his frame relax behind your back, though he shifts his legs closer together to hold your own in a sort of a cradle. It’s a strange thing to feel so safe.

“Survive tomorrow,” he tells you quietly, suddenly and unprovoked. Your hair must be a nuisance in his face, tickling his nose, and yet he speaks this so closely to your neck his lips will press to your skin if he isn’t careful.

He clears his throat. “As your superior, that’s an order.”

You wish you were able to kiss his hands; soft lips against rough, battle-worn knuckles, but it’s too cold and you’d rather not ruin the moment by kissing his cheek.

Kissing... something you’ve never done before.

“Tell me that every night,” you whisper, “and we may just live through this whole ordeal.”

You know just as well as him that the mile-high goal of retaking the Wall is fruitless. So contrived and thick with the sick stench of wrongful death.

Still, you fight regardless of the odds. That’s what the Scouts have always done.

“Yeah.”

“And then…” Your eyes flutter shut briefly to focus on the steady rise and fall of his strong chest, flush with your back. “…We can do this again, when we’re back home.”

Home. A silly way to say Trost HQ, but your mind is more taken with Levi at the moment.

Somewhere below the surface, your mind is also still burdened with the images of a hopeless battlefield.

He takes a long time to reply, as if contemplating deeply. It’s not that he’s uncomfortable, he doesn’t go stiff for even a moment.

Finally, he asks what you mean by that.

Hugging for a long time horizontally, you want to snidely remark, but think better of it.

You squeeze his hand, suddenly feeling convicted. “Just this. It may not be as cold…but.” You click your tongue. “I like to be close to you.”

He shivers, even though your blanket-nest shut out the elements many minutes ago. Even though he never shivered much at all.

You can’t see his expression from where you are, but strangely he bumps his head with yours: a shy sort of nuzzle.

“That sounds… so sweet it makes me sick,” he snorts. “Fine.”

“Hm. So you’re holding me like a teddy bear because it makes you sick.”

“Tch.”

The distaste in his scoff is so fake it makes you crack a smile.

He doesn’t go on, but how he truly feels at the moment is so clear to you that you lapse into comfortable silence.

It’s a rare thing for him to get a full-night’s sleep, you’ve learned, especially outside the Walls. Before dawn breaks over the horizon, there is a chance you’ll have to detach, leaving him to report to the Commander and strategize for the next fight.

It’s okay. You’d prefer it—and you’re sure Levi would too—if this moment remain reserved for just the two of you.

Then again, while snuggling under the guise of a maddening need for warmth is commonplace in the Corps, it’s almost guaranteed that when your comrades begin to stir, he’ll immediately wake feeling antsy.

Strangely, the thought doesn’t burden you. Swaddled in Levi’s arms is a good place to forget your worries, and by the way his breaths slow and his stern muscles relax, you’d say he feels that way, too.

Levi’s focus is ripped from the needle and thread in his lap when you groan in pain. He meant to get the holes in your cape stitched before you got back.

Craning his neck around the back of the cushy recliner, he watches you drop onto the couch, and says your name. “What’s wrong?”

And then, Erwin opens the door.

Levi shoves his sewing shit off his lap and has half the mind to ask what the hell is going on, it being the one day off Erwin’s forced on him in the last month.

He appears strangely awkward, and explains the whole situation.

Scoffing, Levi plants his hands on his hips. “Gimme the recruit’s name, sir, or don’t waste my time. By the time they hear from me—”

“It was just an accident,” you insist, looking between Levi and the Commander helplessly.

An objection sticks to Levi’s tongue. By the way your knuckles are turning white, braced against your scuffed pants, he’s inclined to point out that, regardless of some stupid brat mishandling their ODM and slamming you to the ground, you’re clearly in a great deal of pain.

Erwin digresses. You refused a visit to the medbay, and out of a sense of insurance, maybe, he tailed you to Levi’s quarters.

A well-meaning smile plays at Erwin’s lips. He advises that you rest before wishing Levi luck on his project. “I didn’t know you enjoyed sewing. I’ll excuse myself.”

Once he’s gone and Levi has wrangled his mortification, he turns his back to tuck your cape and the rest of the mess back into a neat, wicker basket.

While he organizes, you fitfully shed your stiff jacket and enlighten him to the truth: It wasn’t some recruit that caused the accident, but a new member of your (handpicked) squad.

“That Forst girl? Tch.” The one time he heard of her, it was when you went to him for advice in recruiting three or four Scouts for your team.

No matter. He doesn’t like her. A mistake is one thing, untrained recklessness another.

You blame yourself, and insist you’ll just have to train her better.

He hates your words, but with a rough sigh, he takes to your side to help you shed your belts. Now’s not the time to argue, and he trusts you to look after your own squad.

“Shit,” he mutters, pushing your shoulder gently so he can get a look at your back. Down low, where belts would normally cross at your waist for the harness, there lie angry, dark bruises.

You hiss, and sound a bit tearful. “What’s wrong?”

“You must’ve hit the ground hard,” he says, and stands. “Stay there. Don’t so much as breathe wrong, or I’ll assume you’re dying and take you to the medbay myself.” Then, quieter, “Where you should’ve gone in the first place. I’m not a damn medic.”

You apologize upon Levi’s return. In his hands he carries some salve and plain, unscented lotion.

“She felt so bad about it that she got on her knees. She begged me to forgive her,” You sigh, soothed by the cool ointment he rubs into your welts. “It would’ve been worse, blowing it into a whole thing. I’ll give her what she’s got coming.”

“And what’s that, a tap on the wrist?”

It hurts to laugh. You squeeze your eyes shut at the feeling of him and his rough palms gliding up between your shoulder blades. It seems he’s chosen to give you a massage.

“You mean a slap on the wrist?”

“No.” His clean hand brushes your hair off your back. “Knowing you, it’ll just be a tap.

"Let me handle it, and she’ll know to do right by you next time.”

“Ha. Thanks for that.”

His soothing ministrations pause.

“Yes, Lev'... Just don’t be too hard on her.”

No promises.

True to your observations, he isn’t quite satisfied until you’re no longer wincing in pain whenever you so much as twist around.

It doesn’t occur to you until he taps your shoulder and requests for you to lay on your belly that you’re dressed down to just your uniform pants, and a bra.

You do as he asks anyway. If I didn’t, wouldn’t that be weird? He’d assume I saw something sexual about it…

It doesn’t matter, though. His veiny forearms flex with effort, rolling deep strokes into your aching muscles. There’s already a plainly obvious subtext to the whole thing.

You hide your flaming cheeks in your arms, and he for one is relieved you don’t see his own blush creeping across his face.

Now that you have your half-nudity in mind, it doesn’t go away; there’s no ignoring it. Your mortification worsens every time you sense him moving around it.

“You can unclip it, if it’s in the way,” you offer, and continue when his hands stop dead. You feel light, like your stomach is dropping into nowhere when you explain that you’re not uncomfortable.

Not if he isn’t, anyway.

Wordlessly, you feel his forefinger slip under the clip in the back, and you hold your breath. It should be unnerving, how quick he manages to do as you suggest.

You blink, wide-eyed into the dark abyss that is his sofa.

There’s an awkward hint to his tone when he asks if this is good for you. How the hell do you answer that when panic, wonder, and lust are all tangled in your mind? You’re dizzy.

With a hum and a stiff nod, you shift around a little as his thorough kneading returns, as if that’ll absolve the unspoken awkwardness.

It takes quite a bit of mental gymnastics for Levi to go through with what he’s got himself into, here. Your skin—above the tender bruises, that is—feels soft beneath his fingertips, but…there’s very little left now to the imagination. Your muscles are stiff.

She’s uncomfortable, he thinks, but you just gave him your word that you’re fine. You’re the one who suggested this.

The peek of skin just beneath the stray fabric keeps begging his gaze. He’s wrong for this, and has no right to even look at in this way. Even if you invited him or even insinuated it, he wouldn’t deserve it.

Shame burns in him, so the least he can do is continue working out all the screwed up knots in your muscles, and relieve you of a little pain.

“Are you sure you’re not uncomfortable?”

You tell a half-lie. “It’s fine, you dummy.” Through his curtain of bangs, you catches his brief glance. “Are you uncomfortable, or something?”

“No,” he replies.

A lie, but only partly.

—

It’s a dumb wish of his, Levi thinks, to want to hold someone’s hand.

But not just someone, he silently chides himself, yours. Of all the people who exist in the world, of all the people who have ever offered him a gentle part of themselves in such a way, he would march through hell if he had the guarantee that you would be standing at the end, waiting with a kind smile.

The way he feels around you is impossible to explain. This mass of confusion always waits when he tries to unravel his emotions, but when you plant a kiss on his cheek and he’s left frozen and stammering, he decides his feelings aren’t just confusing, but utterly incomprehensible. It feels like he’s dying in the best way possible. It’s as if the rivers of his mind are streaming backwards and midnight is blindingly bright.

He has feelings for you.

“Levi?” Your voice is tentatively amused from just beside him. “Are you okay? You seem… distracted.”

The way you’ve done up your hair today makes you too beautiful for him to look at. In one of the crowded markets in the thick of Stohess District, he at least has an excuse to appear distracted and look away.

“Tea,” he gruffs quickly, and tugs his blazer tighter around himself. “Let’s stop someplace and get tea.”

He’s thankful for how quick you agree.

Another thing he likes about you is your patience. Even if you can tell, you won’t push him to explain while (perhaps literally) clinging to his arm and begging for an answer.

However, you do love to take his arm.

You ask if it’s alright, and he hums in response.

In his other hand dangles a basket of goods: soft-smelling soaps, a puffy loofa, and per Hange’s request, sugar cookies.

This was Levi’s errand, but he’s glad for your company. On spring days like this, the air remains cold and clear despite the sunshine. Without a cloud in the sky, too.

You really do look beautiful.

—

“Don’t spend your money on me.”

Your lips quirk. “It’s all coming from the same place, isn’t it?”

“It’s a waste.”

As it turns out, you don’t get the opportunity to treat Levi a little, even after he insisted he buy all his little necessities, including yours.

At the very least, the cookies were your purchase. Reason being, so you could get extra and tuck into a few like you’re doing now.

The cafe smells almost sickly sweet with freshly baked goods and the earthy aroma of tea leaves. It’s sparsely populated this time of day, and you’re quick to order your favorite while he quietly bides his time. His eyes scan the shoddily-made board beyond the front counter.

He can scarcely get a word out as the lively woman behind the counter—who, you notice, has been staring—flashes a grin. “I’m sorry if you get this very often, but are you Captain Levi?”

Levi, a little lost, nods curtly. You try your best not to snort as the woman goes on, giving no mind to the billfold clutched in his hand, waiting expectantly.

Then, the blonde jabs her finger in the air, as if she’s just had the greatest idea.

“I knew it! What brings you to Stohess District, sir?—Just tea?” she chuckles at her own joke, the batting of her eyelashes clearly lost on a man like Levi.

He stares blankly. With your lips pinned between your teeth, you jab at him a little.

He assumes you do this because he’s being rude. He doesn’t care much for niceties, but if you prefer he plays pretend-friends with this random shopkeep—fine. Begrudgingly.

“No. My friend and I are running errands.”

You nearly burst into tears.

“Can I pay now? You have a line.”

—

The giggly woman gives you your drinks for free, as it happens.

Before Levi could voice his utter distaste for this idea, you interrupted, shutting down the whole dispute with, "Oh, it’s quite alright," before ushering him along.

Suffice it to say, you link your arm with his own and take your steaming drinks to the benched porch. He sits beside you with his ankle propped on his knee, clearly stewing, so his drink (quite like you) grows cold.

Your heart feels a bit pricked. Stupid. You don’t deserve to feel that way.

“I hate special treatment,” he mutters, clearly unhappy, then notices your faraway frown. He hates that, too. “And yet… a woman like that doesn’t even treat you like you exist. Tch.”

You sigh, settling back against the bench. It’s easiest to agree with him on that point alone, and to be fair, being treated like hot air also bothered you, random shopkeep or no.

Though, do you have a right to that, either? Levi is well-respected for plenty of reasons that you don’t measure up to. Forget his height versus his good looks; it comes even easier than pushing down your feelings to bask in his shadow.

It makes you feel worse that he doesn’t think of himself that highly in the first place.

“You know she was flirting with you, right?” You quip, and feign coyness.

The look on his face reminds of you of one morning you intruded during his morning routine, and found him standing before his bathroom mirror. His pressed uniform top was still untucked, and he was shaving. You weren’t shy in smiling, saying, Heh, look how cute you are!—but he was more than shy: he called you an idiot.

You call this Levi-ism, disagreeably confused.

In lieu of scrounging together a reply, he brings the rim of his mug to his lips and sips his tea. It’s hot, earthy, and helps him think.

If that melodrama in the shop is how women flirt, you’ve definitely never flirted with him before. You don’t exactly twirl your hair and giggle at him, and you’re not so obnoxious that he would sooner pull his hair out than reciprocate and give you the wrong idea.

No, he likes you. Cold terror strikes him at this reminder, leaving his hands uncomfortably clammy. He doesn’t know with utmost, unequivocal certainty that you like him, and he doesn’t plan on asking. ‘Friend’ is such a shallow word for what you two share, but that couldn’t be wrong, exactly.

The real question is why that rare frown of yours is bold on your lips, why—if he wasn’t being rude—you seem so unhappy.

Is she insecure?

Lips pursed, he glares at the clay bricks below his feet. His breathing is so sharp, shallow; equally odd is the space you leave between your bodies, replaced by silence running thick. It must be that.

It’s natural, filling that space by brushing his shoulder against yours.

His stomach flutters at your shyness. It’s not quite a smile, but it will be if he has any say in the matter.

“I don’t think she was flirting,” he says at last, idling a little to kiss the crown of your head, hoping that will prove his point.

You chuckle, your mug of tea steaming in your palm. “No?”

“No. I think men are supposed to enjoy gestures like that.”

A wide smile breaks over your cheeks. Suddenly it isn’t just your drink that leaves you warm. Your gaze scrupulously strays to his free hand, and while it isn’t a strange thing to ask for, you’d rather hear more of his thoughts on flirting. You worm your way in close, your head coming to rest on his shoulder.

“Mm. Is a man’s way of flirting paying for tea? If so… I enjoyed that.”

He huffs through his nose, and your smile grows at his amusement with you. It’s even better when his arm comes to drape around your shoulder.

He should really pay mind to his tea, but he’s more taken up with your grin, how you bury it in his shoulder. Eyes slipping closed to enjoy the whiff of your shampoo, he kisses your hair, and leaves himself there. He has no doubt you know his answer to that question.

As the rising afternoon passes you by, you spend it in companionable silence. When the sun rises high into the sky and your warm drinks, joined with fluffy sugar cookies, are low and gone, it’s time to return back.

Playfully, you bump his shoulder as he stands, your paper grocery bags bunched in his arms. “Give me your hand.”

“You’re…”

He doesn’t have an intelligent response. He sees the smile you try to muffle, then does as you ask. When his mind is uncertain, his body decides.

He gets a cold, draining feeling at first, like fear, but then a wave of happy feelings crashes down over his chest. He can’t move. Your fingers curl around his, linking them, and there’s nothing to save his complexion for the way his face burns.

“Don’t hide away from me.” Your grin is practically shit-eating. “Oh, you’re so cute right now. Are you smiling, Levi?”

You wish more than anything you could somehow take a snapshot of this moment. A sunbeam cast over his neat bangs and pink cheeks. His eyes shine with undeniable fondness, almost intimidating in its affection once you guide his gaze back towards you. There’s a shaky, yet unmistakably giddy smile playing at his lips.

For one moment your eyes meet, and you think he might kiss you.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, tongue darting out over his dry lips. “Stupid that I didn’t mention it earlier.”

Your heartstrings feel pulled taut, like a bowstring. Levi isn’t one for compliments like this; what you did to bring out such a side of him, you don’t know. If you’re beautiful, he must be beyond description.

He squeezes your hand at your thanks, and then you plant a sweet kiss on his cheek. His eyes widen slightly in surprise.

“Shall we go?”

“Yeah,” he returns, his mouth dry like a wasteland. “Some things you do must be games just to embarrass me.”

How could you deny a half-truth? You don’t spare Levi an answer, your thumb sweeping over your intertwined hands.

—

Levi knows there are repercussions to knowing him, to getting along with him.

He also knows you care for him despite all the things he can’t change about himself—aspects that he believes would make you happier if he somehow changed.

Your insecurities don’t matter to him. Hell, all those things you hate about yourself don’t, and why should they? How easily you’re moved to tears, how shitty you are at ironing your uniform, and so on doesn’t matter, because they make you, you.

You’ve asked him a couple times, but he doesn’t know why he can’t hold himself to that same standard.

"It all comes down to the way we were raised," is your nugget of wisdom on the matter.

"Then I was raised like shit," he’s inclined to reply.

“The Captain is rather short, isn’t he?” Christoph, the smarmy rat, chortles. For one of the best in your squad, he’s as headstrong as he is tall.

You hum from beside him, unimpressed. It’s with a certain insistence that you remind him of the paperwork for the Commander you’ve assigned him, tucked under his arm as if it isn’t there at all.

To your relief, Christoph takes a hint, saluting before he takes his leave.

Just beyond the walls of HQ, the torrential rain falling like sheetmetal is drowned by a distant rumble of thunder, inspiring you to frown as you continue your jaunt towards Levi’s quarters.

It may be one of those nights you sleep alone. It isn’t as if you carry out your nightly routine with the Captain every day of the week, undressing, having him cradle you in his arms like he would a lover.

All it is, is he works late when it storms. Alone. You don’t know the real reason why he hates bad weather so much, though the cries of lightning make your skin crawl in equal measure.

Key in hand (it took two years of friendship with Levi to earn it), you rap on the aging oak, announcing your arrival.

He doesn’t reply, but there’s a glow creeping out from beneath his door. You assume it’s alright to enter.

Your plan: Levi hates storms, so you brought along with you one of your favorite board games. In anyone else’s mind it’s asinine—Humanity’s Strongest Soldier playing games?—but scarcely have you ever seen him stare daggers at you with such self-satisfaction when you lose a game of scrabble to him. He acts like such a brat when he loses, too, it’s funny.

While you’re one to put on a perpetual pout until he buries a hand in your hair and indulges you in a rematch.

If all else fails though, you brought cigars. You couldn’t afford very good ones on a soldier’s salary, but he isn’t picky as long as they don't taste like dirt.

Upon your step into his neat office space, Levi's head shoots up from his papers, as if he didn't hear you knock. Immediately, something is off.

“Hey,” Levi croaks, pushing his scraggly bangs off his forehead. Before you can reply he quickly rises to his feet. “Not tonight. I have shit to do.”

You protest with the promise of letting him win at scrabble.

You notice too, that it’s more than just his hair being out of order. ODM belts are still fitted at his waist, criss-crossing down his legs. His collar is rumpled too, a light cold sweat across his brow leaving his appearance in total disarray.

“…I brought cigars?”

This is worse than usual, whatever he’s fighting tonight, even more crushing than the aftermath of the most devastating expeditions in recent memory. He turns you down again and again.

“Don’t look so insecure,” he chides, but not unkindly.

Do I?

Does your pursed frown make it that much more obvious?

Tutting a little, you cross the short distance between you to fix his collar. “Really, are you okay?”

Before you can get him very straightened out, Levi’s hand finds your wrist, forcibly tugging you away.

There’s a carefully-forced distance in his expression, but you don’t let yourself believe this is Levi pushing you away again. He’s clearly uncomfortable.

“Go. I…” His air is winded and lost. “…Just do what I say, alright?”

Your worry isn’t completely cinched. It never is.

His hand slips down to bring your fingers to his lips, a brief peck, which has the opposite effect. Now, it feels like your feet have grown invisible roots in the floor, and to leave him now would be like yanking a plant out of where it’s rightfully grown.

“…Alright.” You nod, hesitant. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Yeah.”

Levi knows there are repercussions to knowing him. One of these is all the baggage he keep inside, wrangling and stinging. To drudge up the past seems such a tired activity, because as is the word, it has passed.

To tell you is to bare tons of screaming, sensitive nerves, which leaves him vulnerable, and Levi is not a vulnerable man. He was born in a dark hell, got raised in it, and lived in it for years and years. Unlearning what he’s internalized since birth kills him, or it feels that way. Pushing not just you, but even his own rational mind away keeps him safe and steady.

He takes a trying breath and studies his hand. It’s shaking, just a little.

No secret that he hates when the sky cracks open, howling and slamming its fury into the tired earth.

It isn’t the storm, but the nightmarish scene woven into its very clouds, carried in the rainwater. Memories he’d rather not know crawl out of the woodwork and freeze him stiff. Hot blood, snapping jaws, last words.

He idle there before his desk, arms crossed for long enough for his feet to go numb and stiff in his boots; even changing out of his uniform feels unthinkable tonight.

He can’t escape this nagging feeling of coming danger, of danger right around the corner, or…

He loses the thought. What it is that he’s so anxious over is impossible to pin down exactly... but he has to be ready for anything.

What’s worse than usual—because this night isn't unusual for him—is the season, the month. This time, three years ago, he lost his friends in the harrowing maws of monsters, battered by bullet-like rain and bathed in blood.

Tonight is cruel to him.

With nimble fingers, he dims down the lamplight on his desk, and drops into his seat heavily.

The wind howls and cries, begging his stinging eyelids for no rest, and the cracks of lightning which bathe his dim office space in flashes will kill him by heart attack before he ever finds a wink of sleep.

You perpetually invade his mind, cramping his chest up with a certain longing. Guilt, also. It’s not like he slammed the door in your face, and you understood (like you always somehow do), but all the same; he closed you out, locking himself inside.

He swallows heavily, and glares at the shadows plastered to the walls. It doesn’t even sound like Isabel crying out for help anymore, not like in his memories, but a new, crueler fear.

Independence is a facet of himself he prides himself on. He needs no one and never asks for help. It wouldn’t kill him if you fell to that same fate, but a tender part of himself would crumble and die nonetheless.

Such a thought reminds him of your musings about a job at HQ: aiding Scouts like himself who struggle with mental wounds. Not only would it suit you, but you would be safe, or safer.

But (selfishly) he craves that spark in your eye and sheer elation sprouting over your face. This, because for some time he’s considered making you his Lieutenant, his Second.

It would drive you crazy anyway, not being able to charge out beyond the Walls anymore.

There’s as much freedom outside as terror, all that death, a cry out to hang on, just a while longer. Bloodthirsty beasts killing and devouring, swallowing mouthfuls while still snapping their jaws for more. Getting fat on human guts.

He can’t seem to catch a damn breath. His glare hardens as his mind runs away from himself. Ancient, wretched feelings. He can’t keep seeing you in Isabel’s place anymore. The light in your eyes lost, a gaping expression frozen in fear.

It’s killing him.

Hastily, he reaches and strikes a match, pushing the lantern to life so quickly he nearly blows the damn thing out. Rain pelts against glass and thunder shakes the floor, the latter in the same manner his hand does now.

He needs to write something, a note of apology, simply put. As much as he can’t get your lifeless visage out of his head—so much so that it’s easy to convince himself that you’re dead already, dying now, with nothing he can do about it—you looked so disappointed when he turned you away tonight. It doesn’t matter if that’s his occasional habit or not, he owes you an explanation.

You know him, and he knows you better. He rationalizes that sharing Isabel and Farlan with you will keep them alive in some way; not cheapening their lives, but making their memories that much more meaningful.

Besides, he doesn’t have half the mind at the moment to explain in so many rambled, curt words.

Somehow, you always manage to hear him out anyway. He needn’t even say a word.

—

You’re not asleep. The golden hue creeping out from beneath your mahogany door tells him so, but Levi still isn’t sure whether to count his blessings or leave you unbothered. To know you're alright is enough reassurance to leave him on his own, or that’s how he’d prefer to feel.

Maybe it’s too late in the night for it to be anybody else, or you recognize his curt knock when you hear it. You come to the door after just a few moments, concern just as quickly replacing the pleasant surprise etched into your features.

“Huh, there you are…”

“Hey.”

Wordlessly, you step aside for him to all but flee inside. He plants the note in your hands and strides across your living space—the fireplace a small, dying bundle of flames—to waver near your gaping bedroom door.

As far as he’s concerned, you’ve invited him in, but he received no request to stay. There’s always a chance, and he’ll sulk for the rest of the night before he forces any of his bullshit on you.

You read the note, and he watches your expressions morph: your thinking face, to the furrow of your brow, and then a tender, troubled frown.

His knuckles turn white against the oak, because he wants the short apology to get across his point. How embarrassing it’d be if his hand shook too much to leave the thing legible at all.

Finished, you fold the parchment and place it on the long stretch of your coffee table, speaking as you approach. “I’m not upset with you. I know you get stressed when it storms, but why apologize for needing to be alone?”

Because, I’m afraid.

He fixates a glare at the floor. “Could I stay the night?”

It’s with a tender touch and even gentler tone that you reply, “Of course,” and follow him into your bedroom.

You’re gone only briefly to put the lights to rest while he perches at the foot of your quilted bed and tugs off his boots, then pops the top buttons of his collar. He’s over often enough that you keep a pullover or two of his that he can change into.

At your return, he jolts so hard that it makes your heart drop in kind. That damn storm, for whatever reasons he hates it, worries you more than the nightmares he gets. It’s terribly unnerving to see Levi afraid of anything.

You set his boots by the door and kneel to loosen, then unbuckle the leather belts strapped across his chest.

Making sure to keep your eyes low and your tone conversational, you decide to prod a little. “I’m glad you came. The storm… I hate to leave you so stressed by yourself.”

He grunts in reply, though you note the tremor his hands have taken as he braces himself against the mattress and allows your hands to unwind the belts hugging his thighs.

Like the storm pounding away at the rooftops, there’s a fierce one going on behind his eyes. It breaks your heart.

Then again, asking the reason may not be such a good idea, or a necessary one for that matter.

“Is there anything I can do?”

He gives you a thoughtful glance as you set aside his tangled belts, so the gasp he emits at a shuddering stroke of thunder is cutting and raw. To your distressed frown, he can’t even hide how empty and ragged his breaths are anymore.

He swallows, his gaze elsewhere. “Not sure.”

“Stay here,” you order gently, and nod to his clothes. “I’ll get you something to change into.”

“No. You don’t have to.”

“Levi…” You sigh and roll locks of his tousled hair between your fingers.

“W-What?”

“Hush.”

You bring him a fuzzy, dark sweater, which he pulls on in privacy.

Then, he trails behind you into your small kitchenette to brew a cup of tea. It isn’t so odd that his gaze tends to follow you, but tonight he lingers close to your side on more than one occasion, and he’s almost constantly distracted. He isn’t one for a constant stream of conversation anyway, so a natural quiet falls between you, lifted only by your occasional humming.

He cradles the cup between both hands, and the earthy taste seems to quell that harsher-than-usual crease between his brows.

You nurse your own and stroke his back in slow, easy circles; a little more of the tension seems to leave his body. It was pelting off of him in waves before.

Your chairs are brushed up close together, with your head resting on his stocky shoulder. With every one of his deep, even breaths, a pace you set without having to say a word, he grows lighter. You sense the steady rise and fall beneath your temple.

“Will the rain ever stop?” he mutters, clearly peeved with the constant barrage battering against the roof, the windows, the earth.

You consider it. Summer storms like these are seldom so forgiving. Hopefully, the reservoirs in the cities don’t flood—

Or maybe that isn’t quite what he means.

“…It always does. Give it time.”

He frowns gently into his empty cup. “You always know what to say.”

“Do I?” You raise your head.

He does the same, leaving the both of you so close together that that rare blue hue in his eyes makes an appearance.

His gaze, stubbornly, doesn’t leave yours.

Quieter, “Even when I don’t say anything at all?”

“Yeah.”

A grateful smile finds your lips.

In turn, he seems more at ease than he has been the whole night. A frown still tugs at his lips, but his eyes are soft, unguarded.

He leans a little closer and kisses your cheek. Why your stomach plummets to your feet at the gentle kiss, you don’t know; it wouldn’t be the first time he initiated something like that, especially as of late.

With your cups empty and washed, you carry yourselves to bed.

As brutally as he holds his troubles to his chest, he speaks quietly and randomly, once darkness falls over the bedroom and he’s securely tucked in your hold. “I lost those friends I’ve mentioned before, in a storm like this. A couple years ago.”

Swiftly, your memory of that expedition crashes into your conscious mind. Farlan and Isabel. He’s only mentioned them once or twice at the most tender of moments, like now. Everyone has lost someone they love in this world, but you still feel it’s unfair to him. Especially him, who you know has lost so much.

Your hand buries a little deeper in his hair, soft and disheveled.

His arm, draped across your middle, tightens its hold when he presses his head closer to your chest, right over your heart.

Softly, “Do you mind telling me more about them, in the future? I just remember… Isabel was always so excited about everything. With you, it was like night and day.”

A rumble of amusement. Your scratches drift a little further down to the prickly base of his undercut.

In truth, you’d love to hear he talk more about them. Even if he chooses not to, you don’t plan to forget these small, tender pieces of himself he chooses to share with you.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, content. “Sure.”

“Hey, I think I’m getting the hang of this.”

Levi has always had hobbies a little softer than the way he portrays himself as. Mike or Hange would blanch if they knew he enjoys threading a needle and making scarves, for example. You know he sews, crochets, and surprisingly, dabbles in reading.

That’s a pastime he took to especially after you opened up him up to the world of books. There’s the typical slice-of-life affairs, and secretly (as in, tucked in the lowest of his dresser drawers, secret) contemporary romance.

After years of lending him your own tattered blouses to stitch up, then watching him work at it himself, a few months ago he started showing you the ropes. He’s just so good at it. Apparently, he learned when he was a kid, just out of necessity, but there’s something to his calm frown and steady hands that makes you think he’s just talented.

You, for one, have finally managed to stick a thread through a needle’s eye without pricking the sides. Mostly.

“Hm.”

He sounds just as disinterested as a man like Levi could ever sound. A little discouraged, you crane your neck over the back of his velvety armchair. In one hand you hold a small sock—in case you ‘wrecked’ it, in his words—and in the other, your triumph.

Your breath catches, and in case he can somehow tell, you hold it. Hastily he’s writing something, bent over the edge of his desk in dark, pleated trousers rather than his usual uniform. It’s not like you share his quarters, and the chaos that was Mayfest has again settled into calm waters of normalcy since that evening—so you’re allowed to ogle at his backside in a tight pair of pants, if quietly.

Sewing suddenly doesn’t interest you much anymore. His lips are still pressed together, focusing, so you decide to fool around a little.

The fabric may as well be firmly pasted to that round ass. You imagine it’s just as thick as his thighs: at special moments, you’ve sneaked in little pinches and strokes here and there. They weren’t too romantic since you figured out he’s ticklish in only very specific places—but still.

He looks good. He really does have a small waist, too. Your imagination runs away from you a little.

“Hey, Lev’.” You make your voice as placid as humanly possible. “I’ve thought about it and I think I really like the Military Police.”

Nothing—just a small sound to show he heard you. Your eyebrows shoot straight up to your forehead, laughter bubbling up in your throat which you manage to not let escape. An opportunity like this is simply too sweet to ignore.

Quietly, neatly, you shift your things off your lap and dawdle on your feet a moment before allowing yourself to drift over to him. It’s easy to feign interest somewhere else, and then once you’re close behind him, take a handful of the same round ass you were gawking at not a moment ago.

Levi reminds you a bit of a steel spinning top, how he immediately straightens up and bats your hand off his backside. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think there was steam pouring out his ears.

“W-What the hell are you doing?”

You mimic his aghast expression. “Oh, so you do know I’m here.”

“You’re…” He presses himself flush with the wooden desk, flustered to hell. His expression pinches (as always), like he’s tasted a fresh lemon. “You’re a pervert.”

You arch a single brow, gauging his reaction before moving in.

If he was much angrier, you’d have something to be worried about. It’s not the first time he’s called you a pervert before reeling you in for a kiss. You think of the last time he snapped your bra straps when you were in bed; all because you wouldn’t stop shifting around, trying to get comfortable.

These last few months have been fun.

He does nothing but stare you down when you cage him against the desk with both arms, leaning in close and pressing a fragile peck to his lips. “Oh? But I couldn’t help myself.”

Levi curls his hands into fists, but that doesn’t keep his whole body from shuddering. He’s normally so in-control, but when specifically you take that away—well, he’s hot under his collar.

He was signing off on documents a moment ago, and barely registered what you said. With a wrinkled brow and topsy-turvy feelings raging inside—notably, the heat in his lower half, which is winning the rest over—he knows why. It’s the way you’re looking at him. He’s one silky word out of your mouth away from kissing the hell out of you.

“Liar,” he breathes.

“Your ass just looks too good in those slacks.”

If he could somehow overdose on air, he would be dead. It isn’t fair. You’re close enough to feel him hardening in his trousers, but if he didn’t know you as well as he does, it’d be impossible to tell whether you’re simply getting another laugh out of flustering him.

“Daring today, aren’t we?” he mutters, regaining his literal and mental balance. His hand dives beneath the straps tethered around your torso, yanking you in so there’s no space left between you from the chest down. He’s feeling like quite the daredevil himself.

You meet him in a bruising kiss, only for your own to part when his palm slips into your back pocket, stretching down to take his own share. He grunts at the sound that escapes you, and molds his palm with the seat of your ass. It fuels a fire in his belly and the rush of blood in his ears. It’s still not as loud as the smacks from your kissing.

He wants to tell you that he wants your hand back again, that he wants you all over him, but all he can manage is a breathy “Fuck,” between breaks for breath. Your noses keep bumping together.

He burns. It’s with a fluttery twist of lust that a soft, sweet sigh leaves your lips, half-mounting him so your hips have perfect access to the spot between his legs. You grapple the desk as not to crash right into him, and shiver, shamelessly.

“Levi–”

You breathe each other into a wet, hasty kiss. Yes, he decides, he’s going to kiss the hell out of you.

He tastes sweet, in a subtle way, with the slightest hints of earthiness from his tea that’s coupled with something purely Levi that it makes your heart and every little eager nerve of yours sing.

You’re out of practice and him, experience, but it no longer matters, not when you want each other this badly.

Somehow, based somewhere in instinct, your hands find each other on the desk on either side of his waist. His squeeze on the rear of your thigh disappears so he can lock them together, all-in.

The position has its drawbacks. Your straddle over him slacks a little, so—without thinking much beyond the throb of your heartbeat—you press right up against his solid body with a slippery whine. You’ve never felt him hard like this, not on purpose.

You see it when his lids flutter, and he pulls a lungful of air between his teeth. Your fingers grope together, uncoordinated. Briefly, you get the idea to reach around and take his ass in your hands again. That’s before his own slip around your wrists, trapping you against him.

Regardless of the fact that you should have him caged in, he’s the one in control; this is the way he wants you, and it makes your face heat. You hike your thigh up around his waist and roll your hips, bumping your knee against the wooden surface in your haste.

Licking pleasure causes a moan to roll through his throat, the first sound he’s made at all, and just like that the spell is broken. He smacks back against the desk, breathing hard. His fingers fumble away from you; all this without a clue why, but he’s horribly embarrassed.

“Sorry,” he croaks.

At first, you don’t think you heard him right. “What? No—are you okay?”

He stares at you, desire quickly bleeding away to shame. The fact that you make room and watch him, worried and earnest, darkens the feeling. He feels exposed, and meeting your eyes feels like confessing everything, so he can’t even look at you straight.

“Yeah. Sorry.” That’s the second apology that tumbles out of his mouth. “I didn’t think…”

He doesn’t know why he makes a fool of himself like this. It’s too much is a defense that comes to mind, which doesn’t make sense because he’s nothing if not glowing in your presence.

He chose this with you, whatever ‘this’ is, but the rest of the jagged lines that make Levi up won’t straighten out, so you can’t match up. They aren’t even defined, as you’ve never sat down and talked about it.

You’re still so patient with him, even now: “Hey, I don’t need that. You did nothing wrong.”

He knows. That’s the crux of the problem. If you were to ask him what exactly begged that Sorry, he wouldn’t be able to say. He’s never been scared when hooking up with someone in the past. Then again, you’re so much more than that, to the point that it hurts.

The issue of stopping is redundant because sex has never been, isn’t, and never will be thing your relationship revolves around. He isn’t torn to bits because he pulled away, and you could care less about that when he’s backed into a metaphorical corner, white-knuckling his desk for dear life.

“It’s okay,” you say right beside him, frowning at the feeling of rigid steel that is his shoulder. “You don’t have to explain. But if something happened in the past–”

“It hasn’t.” He’s confident of that.

You nod. “But if I overstepped, I just need to know. So I don’t do it again, okay?”

With a shake of his head—being snuck up on by someone he knows as well as you hasn’t been the issue for quite some time—he takes a handful of your bandaged fingers (all that damn sewing), then squeezes. It helps him to calm down, and by the way you deflate, the feeling is mutual.

“No.” A peck to your temple. “It’s good.”

Unlike before, when every damn thing you did was like an electric shock to a hundred nerve endings, at least then it was mutually exclusive. It was either something you both wanted, or it wasn’t, and you stopped: that was that.

These days, though, things are different. You pull him closer, and he’ll kiss you; take him to bed, and he’ll happily become your personal furnace for the evening. When you both want it, you make it clear in one way or another—emphasis on or another, in his case.

Too much is a new issue, gauging for how long and when to pull away. It’s like dancing in a field of bushfires blind, wondering when you’ll get burned.

He hates how insecure he’s made you feel. He can tell. No one can read you like him. Like an optical illusion resolving itself, he finds it written all over your face.

“Are you sure?”

With a small, deadpan look, he brushes your hair away. To his own fault, it’s a little messy. “Are you blind?” Another crumpling feeling of embarrassment. “–Or deaf?”

It’s like your voice is carried on a breeze. “Hm. Not the last time I checked.”

“Then that’s your answer,” he returns, glancing down and straightening your collar. His fault again: it’s rumpled.

“Just so you know, it’s good for me, too.”

Levi tuts to smother how that makes him feel. He made you feel good. You liked it. You liked his hands on you, and his tongue licking into your mouth.

He’s inclined to call you a pervert again, but only rolls his eyes and pats your head. Like a puppy starved for affection, you duck beneath his hand, not that he would dream of throwing away the chance to wrap his arm around your waist.

Even affections like this feel different from the era before the festival. She feels it too, right?

“Just let me know,” you mutter just below his ear. “And sorry, about your papers.”

Some of them fluttered to the floor; too bad he’s a little distracted. He’s also never told you about that spot below his ear, come to think of it.

“I do. I will,” he assures. He can’t even remember what shit he was signing off on before you jumped him. “Do the same.”

“Mm.”

Comfort puffs and swirls like a calm cloud in his chest. Maybe it’s in his head alone, this spiky, demonstrable change, or maybe that’s what he wants to tell himself. The one thing he’s sure he has pinned down is, somehow, he’s more terrified than ever; even more than before.

Of what? A million things. One of those just might be the fact that you’ve never rutted up against each other like bunny rabbits before. Levi is the same person who, when you ran your hands up and down his jaw and leaned in for the first time after the fact (the next afternoon, actually), he stalled when your lips met. It was like being cradled by a butterfly wing.

But it wasn’t that he didn’t want you and it wasn’t that he regretted it: it wasn’t the worst-case scenario that always comes to you first, usually knocking you sideways.

Somehow he simply didn’t expect it, you finding him just after the sun reached its peak and—wanting to kiss him. Of course he kissed back, he always would, but he still had to stop, pull away and ask, “Wait, are you sure you–” and you never let it go.

“I thought you were gonna show me your progress. Don’t tell me you’re dressing up like a mummy for fun.”

You gawk at him. “Mummified—fingers, maybe.”

You stretch your fingers in front of yourself and wiggle them, as if that’ll prove the point.

He bites his lip, pinching hard in efforts not to smile. The strain in his cheeks dissolves into mild stupefaction when you clarify that you need to change clothes—panties, specifically.

“Fine,” he coughs. “Go.”

You don’t share a living space. He still makes a small mental note to do your laundry again. His reason, and eventually yours became that he buys impeccable fabric softener. He can also scrub pretty much any stain out, even hot cocoa—he knows all the tricks.

He can imagine you now: “Sweetie, do you mind ironing my clothes? I can’t do it like you.”

Why does that make him feel so giddy, still? You make him want to iron your clothes for the rest of your life, as long as it pleases you.

And then, he gets thrown in the ditch of ‘rest of your life’, and the fear shoves him to his knees once again.

—

Why the hell do you always have this effect on him?

Today, at the end of a long stream of paperwork, your palm slinked around the nape of his neck, and you asked to take him for a picnic—which isn’t unheard of at all. At least twice a month you end up dragging him somewhere (occasionally, it’s the other way around, but Levi is more of a homebody).

It was by a lake like twilit glass, beneath one of those ancient, gnarled oaks that must stretch its roots just as far below ground as its branches pierce the sky. He took the liberty of making these sandwiches with light, fluffy bread; these didn’t stand up to your bright lipstick, smeared with even brighter, tangy strawberries.

You insisted on popping a few in his mouth, just to return the favor by brushing a few stray leaves out of your hair; tucking the prettiest flower he’s ever seen in his life behind your ear, too. You were the one who wouldn’t quit babbling about it, calling it that, but that sentiment only became truth when he put it there.

He raised a brow. “Doesn’t seem very equal.”

And then, a strawberry between your fingers, you just kept on smiling at him.

He allowed his eyes to rake up and down your breezy summer dress and sighed evenly through his nose. “You smile at me too much.”

“Have to do it enough for the both of us.”

He snorted, then it was your palms swooping around the backs of his thighs, inviting him into your lap. This, with the promise of giving him a crash-course in making crowns out of (“Are you serious?”) daffodils and all manner of wildflowers.

Levi sits now, perched on the edge of his bed with his hands braced over his knees. You’ve just left—a few minutes ago, actually—but he can’t get his dick to calm down, not after your lips and hands were all over him, kissing just behind his ear and roaming up and down his chest. His tongue darts out to wet his lips, and traces of your lipstick still persist.

You got to the flowers eventually, but before that his hands were on you. You’d teetered onto your back and brought him down with you. Turning it over in his mind, the word that rounds out the experience perfectly is honey-glazed.

Just your noses bumping together in a maze of smacking lips, the heat of your breath, and the salty-sweet taste of your skin beneath his tongue. He remembers now, fighting so hard to breathe over the sweltering haze of strawberry rolling over his tongue. It created a pulse in his head that pulsed on and on.

“Sweetness,” he muttered between wet kisses, royally whisked away out of his mind. The shakes in his hands gave him away; the nervous shine in yours. “Look at you.”

You grinned at that—some cheeky comment about needing a mirror. He kissed it off your face, knocking your teeth together.“Gonna report me to the brass, Captain?”

“Brat,” he huffed.

He touched you, too. He asked, and you slotted your thighs around his hips and spared him a look that set a fire in his belly before you took his palm, guiding it beneath your collar, where the strap had fallen away.

Swallowing heavily, Levi pops the collar of his shirt open. He just buttoned it, but it suddenly feels too warm to wear it at all, the front of his trousers too tight, too hot.

Your skin was warm like an oven, and the weight of your breasts so soft in his palms. He could hardly believe his ears when you sighed in his ear and asked if he wanted to see.

He unbuckles his belt with haste, an earnest shudder following when he palms the front of his pants. He hangs his head, though it isn’t the first time he’s had to touch himself when you leave your mark on him, like some kind of vixen. Really, all it takes is a look and suddenly he’s left in the dust, hot and bothered.

Recently, all semblance of control has begun to dissolve when he’s around you and he’s losing his mind.

He squeezes, then he thinks, to hell with it, and shoves his trousers down to bunch up at his ankles. He kicks them away, lets his shirt hang loose at the front and scooches back to lay down. His heart stomps against his ribcage.

Never has Levi wanted a woman so badly in his life. Without guidance on what to think or do, the memory of how you touched him and cooed in his ear rouses back to the surface the moment he wraps his fist around his dick.

With a few loose pumps, he’s just as hard as he was before that long stroll back. There was you, whetting a handkerchief and cleaning lipstick stains from his skin, evidence of where you explored him—but he almost wishes you didn’t. He strains before his eyes, squeezes his round cockhead, and spit-soaked lips part as he throbs.

A gravelly sigh. “Shit.”

For no reason, he’s searing hot with embarrassment. But desire this time has a louder voice, and wins out.

He nudges his briefs down, kicks them away, and spreads his legs. What he wants, what he imagines, is you crawling between them. Then again, if you were here his own mortification would kill him rather than just running his blood a little hot. He’s hopeless.

It’s good, though, even with just his own hand. His cock is thick beneath neatly trimmed, wiry hairs, pulsing when he traces the long vein on the underside. He never thought about it, whether it’d be good for you, whether he’d look good…

Would you do this to him, too? Cup his heavy, round balls and glide a tight fist—just the way it runs his blood the hottest—up and down? Would you praise him, Oh, that’s good, baby. Fuck my fist—there you go, or tease him? So fucking needy, Levi.

He sinks his teeth into his free hand and sighs, high in his throat. The scene is so vivid it begs his imagination; neither would be unlike you. In fact, he guarantees you would tell him to let you know what he likes, and if for some reason he needs to slow down or stop, you would still want him after. You’re so good to him. You’d drag his arm off his face and order him to be louder.

Let me hear you.

He’s wetter now—he hears the slick smacks of his fist, and he feels the hot coil in his belly growing even hotter. He dares to glide his free hand over all those tensing muscles, flicking his hard nipples on the way, and flops his head back on the pillows.

It’s really hard to be quiet, much more than he thought it’d be—or how it usually is. He doesn’t get off like this on a whim, not enough to commit the act to memory. He just knows you’d want to hear him moan, and that’s enough to inspire the sounds to rumble in his chest.

He dips a finger into his wet slit, and his hips give a small jerk. In small circles he teases all around it. What if it was her mouth?

“Gon’a–”

With trembling thighs, he sinks his free hand into the pressed sheets and feels his toes curl. Every muscle tenses, so hard it hurts as his cock begins to twitch. Pleasure pulses on, red-hot, sweet, warm. Throbbing waves wash over him.

His cock throbs, and spills thick cum all over his fist. Some of it even streaks his stomach in white, and when he thinks his climax is ready to recede, he groans low and pleased and throttles a little harder. He doesn’t get off nearly as much as he should.

It’s messy, horribly messy, and if he weren’t squirming all over the place surely his back would be making the tightest arch.

By himself, he’s never had such a mind-bending orgasm in his life—that’s what he realizes a few minutes later when the clarity slams into him and he realizes he cried out aloud to absolutely no one; except you, maybe, but only in his fleeting imagination.

—

Things are the same as they’ve always been. That’s what Levi wants to believe.

It takes outside intervention to shove the facts in both your faces—other than Hange shooting you both the look when Levi just so happens to pour two cups of tea and set one down front of you during a meeting; other than Mike, whose nose screws up when he sniffs the air and you both know he knows you’ve been wrapped up in bed together.

None of that ever mattered in the past. Remarks and jabs dissolve into awkward passes between moments—a look, a joke to be forgotten. It’s the same with everyone else among Levi Squad, until it isn’t.

Oluo gets a kick from poking at you, but it still isn’t as fun to him, apparently, as joshing around with Petra like an old married couple. He goes tight-lipped whenever Levi’s within earshot, and to Oluo’s credit it’s all in good fun.

With Eld and Gunther, things never stray beyond professionalism. They make good drinking buddies for you (and if you make your sad-dog eyes at Levi, him too), and they’re damn good fighters. All of them.

Levi has known each of them for years, just like you. It’s a web woven by mutual respect and trust, which is why what happened didn’t rattle the squad as much as it very well could have.

The six of you have just wrapped up a brief discussion in the echo chamber that is the dining hall. It’s late, and with so few bodies, shadows dance across cobbled walls.

You flash Levi the briefest of smiles. “I’ll have that report on your desk by tomorrow, Captain. G’night.”

You both know it’ll be sooner than that. He nods like a bird would, and watches the last of his murky tea swirl in its ornate cup as he swishes it around. Petra is usually the first to bed; she’s damn responsible, which makes it weird that she’s still here, nervously tapping the table. With it so quiet, she might as well be playing drums.

He asks the question cordially: “What’s wrong with you?”

“Could… Could I ask you a question, sir?” she stammers.

“Go on.”

The tapping grows a little more frantic. The question is whether or not they’re friends—a pretty stupid one. There’s life-or-death business, straight-laced and coarse, and then there’s camaraderie.

You or Gunther are the ones who do all the pep-talking when Petra needs something, though. Levi isn’t exactly someone people go to for comfort. Rather than a matter of her ODM belts fraying though, it seems a pep-talk is what she needs. She’s hardly ever this nervous around him.

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she requests that they talk, as friends. It drops his stomach to unknown, wretched places, but he agrees anyway. People—a friend who ‘wants to talk’ never has good news.

They might as well get out of the dining hall, though. It’s a clear night out.

Beyond the front doors of HQ, the air is cool and breezy, which is surprising for the new summertime. Along the way an occasional firefly will glow to life, intent on getting to wherever they get to. Pondering the lives of the fucking fireflies distracts Levi from Petra’s obvious, unbearable anxiety. Unlike yours, it’s infectious.

He strolls alongside her, keeping in step as she goes on about her father. His letters—and by extension, hers—naturally pass by his desk occasionally. He knows the man is a tad overbearing, how he never wanted her in the Corps, but any set of parents with half a brain are wise to think that way.

“He wants me to get married,” she chitters, clearly troubled by the idea. “Can you believe that? I’m so young.”

Levi isn’t young anymore, and he doesn’t have a family, but he empathizes. “People are too young for plenty of the shit they go through with, whether they got a say or not. So if you have a choice, make up your own mind.” His advice is better than usual. “If you wanna get married, then go off and do it.”

“Oh, no! I don’t want to, that’s not…”

His stroll stutters. “Then, what did you want?” comes the blunt question, and he (to the best of his ability) rectifies it: “Just… get to the point. You have a concern, speak it. Or go to someone who gives better advice.”

Petra scrubs her arms as if it were cold, and stares at the ground like there’s something interesting there.

Confused and a little concerned, he stops too.

“It’s related to that,” she finally says, and looks up (it’s always strange that she’s shorter than him), but she can’t meet his stern gaze.

His brow wrinkles. “Yes?”

“Well… a lot of people admire you—and it’s more than warranted. I look up to you, i-in my case, literally.” She shakes her head, but his lips twitch, because it’s funny. “I try to find someone, but no one quite adds up to you.”

You’ve helped Petra with love troubles a million times—he knows that already, sort of. Without thinking, he shifts his footing.

“So…” she trails off.

He blinks. “I don’t know how to help with that. Find someone different to admire, I guess.”

Her head whips up to look at him again, startled. It’s combed over with a small laugh, and she smiles, ruefully. It’s with a sinking feeling he realizes he misunderstood.

“No,” she chuckles, entirely to spite the muck of awkwardness. “That’s not what I… do I really have to come out and say it?”

He would prefer that; if she stopped bumbling around the issue and disproved what he’s thinking this is. Assuming usually ends in Levi making an ass of himself, because in social situations it’s not uncommon for him to be wrong. The crux of what makes their squad work so well together is communication, anyway; during business hours or no.

Crossing his arms over himself, he tells her so: “Yeah, you do. So just be out with it, Petra,” and watches her pass by him and plant herself on a bench. It has no back, so she’s forced to hunch in on herself a little. Maybe she’d be doing that anyhow.

It’s quiet for a long moment, so long years could pass and he would still be frozen to the spot, maybe morphed into a statue. Then it’s confessed, anxious and unbearably quick, but nonetheless firmly, like Petra is ripping a bandaid off.

She has feelings for him.

“I know this is unprofessional of me.” Her eyes squeeze shut. “I’m sorry. But, if things stayed unspoken, I, I was afraid I’d regret it.” That stings, a little. “But no matter what the answer is, I’ll find a way not to now that you know.”

“…I see.” The words seem to drip off his lips. He idles stupidly, brows furrowed. Then he comes to terms with what she’s admitting and lets it sink in. “But you can’t get the-the wrong idea. Look…”

Their eyes meet somehow, and it feels like touching a hot stove. Levi could go on and on about ‘unprofessionalism’ himself, which is precisely why he doesn’t. There was never going to be another answer, but that’s only a nugget in the reasons why this feels shitty.

He’s not good at this. He’s given a million, deathly-worse pieces of bad news before, but unlike anything else, warring with feelings never gets easier. It isn’t like killing monsters, no matter how he wishes it was.

Will you and he stew in regret if things go unsaid, and why haven’t you both discussed it? Petra wouldn’t have been so inclined to say a thing if everyone knew, and he wouldn’t have to crush whatever fantasy she has of him in her head.

There’s never been a good, safe time—times are never safe. So, does there exist such a haven as the right time? How could there be?

Petra must be braver than Levi, because right now, in the simplest meaning of the phrase, seems to be it. But whether it’s safe, or good, he just can’t bring himself…

“Ah.” Her voice is lighter than air. Her head hangs again, ashamed. “I’m sorry, sir. If you’d prefer if I was booted from your squad, then I’d understand.”

Now that’s just ridiculous.

“You’re a member of an elite squad,” he tells her, “not my dog. Don’t talk like that. But I don’t…” He swallows, collects himself. “Do—you get what I’m saying, or what?”

“It’s fine,” she resolves, nodding. True to her word, her shoulders sink, like something heavy has tumbled off them. “I understand. I won’t mention this again.”

“Good.”

“Of course, Captain.”

Petra rises to her feet. Her face is splotched with red, especially her eyes, but she hastily wipes them with her sleeves and sniffs.

It’s easy to stay friendly with Petra because that’s the way he’s always viewed her. Things will work out this way, but he can’t say the same for the web of fluff entangling you and him. It’s a dull, anxious twist of realization.

As he passes her, he pats her shoulder in efforts to be reassuring. “Look. You’re a valued comrade, and we’re not at each other’s throats, are we? Don’t beat yourself up. That’s foolish. Just go to bed.” A pause. “Sleep well.”

“Thank you…” She wipes her eyes, where tears are clinging. “…and the same for you, Levi. Goodnight.”

Right, of course.

He doesn’t remember the walk back; even the fireflies join the fog at the back of his mind. Once he’s trudged up the stairs, swiped out his keyring and retreated into the warm glow of his office (you must’ve lit a candle once you realized he’d be late), he starts to deflate. Knowing you’re here, especially at the end of the night, makes him feel better.

He has work to do, but getting this off his mind will be impossible if he doesn’t let you know. Keeping quiet about the confession—as inconsequential as it is—would feel hollow, like a betrayal to you. It wouldn’t be right.

The smell of roasted cedar immediately swells when he enters. You’re lounging cross-legged on his sofa, chowing down on a bowl of blueberries snug in your lap with one hand, propping up a thick novel with the other.

Flames lick in the fireplace, which casts the room in gold. It’s serene, almost domestic, and this huge wave of—relief crashes over him. It feels like coming home, and that hurts.

He leans back against the closed door, thinks in a string of curses, and closes his eyes. His face feels hot, and the room’s gone blurry.

You notice him, or did, a moment ago, and greet him once he plods over and plants himself in the armchair. He immediately shades his eyes with his hand, wrung-out, exhausted.

It’s better not to ask, even though it’s clear something happened. He’s still in uniform, pressed and perfect as always, but you know him well enough to tell. You ask whether he’s eaten dinner, whether he’d like some berries, and he gently turns down your offers—he ate earlier.

“You think of me too much.”

“Hm. Wrong.”

Your feet take you to his small kitchen. There’s a kettle on the stove from earlier, which you lift and pour steaming, earthy-smelling tea in a mug for him. It’s black, no good for relaxing, but knowing him it’ll get the job done.

You take the saucer to Levi, who doesn’t appear to have so much as twitched since sitting down, and hold it out. Immediately he lights up, and sets the china aside so he can cradle the cup in both hands, savoring the heavy aroma, its warmth. It never tastes quite like the way he makes it himself, but close enough—it’s good.

By the way the sofa whines under your weight, it sounds like you’ve sat back down. He wouldn’t know; his eyes have drifted shut again.

Quietly, “Thanks, sweetness.”

“Anytime,” you quip, and curl up like a cat against an armrest. Back to reading.

By the time he’s drained the cup and his stomach is warm, he’s recuperated enough to collect his thoughts. He pulls himself into a proper sit, and informs you quite plainly what happened. You deserve to know, and it’s not the end of the world. It doesn’t break the squad like snapping driftwood, and it shouldn’t break you two either; though it rattled him, sure.

“…Oh.” A little wide-eyed, you stare at him. Your reaction startles even yourself a little bit. You flounder, opening your mouth, then closing it. A wave of cold, cold feeling breaks over your chest.

He turned her down. That makes sense.

Unless he made that choice, not because he entirely feels nothing for Petra, but because he feels some obligation towards your own feelings. Levi makes time for everyone in your squad, but everyone is close to Petra—everyone who has a brain, anyway—because she’s open, and supportive, and one of a kind. Just like him.

You frown. It feels like you’re falling. You couldn’t bear it if Levi contradicted how he really feels for your sake. It wouldn’t be like him, but stick the words for your sake in the equation and he’s made plenty of sacrifices before—life-risking ones included. You can’t count the number of times he’s quite literally shielded you from attack, completely compromising new, raised scars and a dislocated shoulder, or (not so literally) a broken back. It’s never the case that you do too much for him—as he’s often insisted, over more meaningful things than fruit—but completely the opposite.

He frowns as you launch into small questions about his choice. You can’t help but sate the craving to ensure that what he said is what he really wants.

Since forever, it’s been a slinking thought creeping around the back of your mind: What are we doing, if not just spending quality time together the way lovers would? That title alone is blacklisted from your relationship—however you should define it as.

Am I holding him back? Not in the scope of his reputation, or the dream you both dedicate your hearts for, but in life. It’s never been clear, and that’s how it’s been between you two since (what feels like) forever. It’s as muddled as it is perfect; in many ways it’s perfect, but so fragile. What are you supposed to do while you’re drifting, stuck in the threshold of a grand promise like that?

How, concretely, does Levi even feel? What does he want? You realize that you don’t even know, not that the lives you two lead give you much opportunity for prancing in fields without a care in the world.

Now’s a good time to get the answer. With your book effectively forgotten, you’re sure to forget everything else until you know for certain.

You both idle now in the space between the golden sitting room and the dim kitchen. The more words that pass between you, the more he becomes (more and more) impatient.

In your defense, this isn’t an issue of flipping to the wrong page of a book—or however casual he thinks this whole conflict to be. You’re not overreacting. This is important.

“No,” you insist, “I’m not trying to judge your choice, I just don’t understand, because—she’s Petra!”

His befuddlement sinks into a glare. “And you’re you. What’s your point?”

“My point is…”

You’re not sure. The topic of a potential relationship with people outside your merged bubble isn’t something you two have ever talked about; not in such frank terms as someone outright confessing their love to one of you. That was especially true before you and he kissed for the first time.

Christoph was different because, to you, he was objectively unattractive, and he never outright spoke the words: I love you! Go out with me! Be with me! into existence. This is different, so much different. She confessed to him.

Anxiously, you pull at your sleeves and step away. You need to think.

“Are you…” He doesn’t understand. “…upset, because I turned her down? I didn’t do that because we’re—exclusive, or….”

He trails off, at a loss. Fact is, you’re not exclusive—that’s not a baseline you ever established.

While you stand there, very clearly upset, the possibility that you’re feeling insecure comes to mind, but that wouldn’t make any sense. You ought to be pleased with him if that were the case. He told Petra the truth: he doesn’t want that kind of relationship with her.

“I know,” you say, a little stupidly. You meet his troubled eyes head-on. “We’re not. That’s fine. I’m just—I am upset.”

His brow twinges with confusion.

You shake your head, resigned. “You deserve better than for me to be upset about it. I shouldn’t be, but Levi, if we’re not in a relationship, or dating, or exclusive…”

Each press of the words, for him, stings.

“…Why did you tell me all about it? That seems personal, since me and her are close.” You frown, deep in thought. “She probably would’ve told me, actually. I’ve known Petra a long time.”

Frozen on his feet, he stares at you like the front of a door. Not even a reason comes to mind, because he doesn’t know. It never crossed his mind not to tell you.

“I see,” he replies, lips twitching.

What does he say? You’re right. And now, he’s rendered you frowning miserably, anxious, likely tearing up your sleeves. He did wrong by you, too.

“What’s on your mind?” You free your sleeves, opening up a little, and wander closer, if just to show you’re not angry with him.

He isn’t looking at you. When there’s no reply, you tilt your head. “Of course you’re free to make your own choices.”

I just think Petra would be a better one.

You swallow again: it feels like there’s no saliva in your mouth. “I just think Petra is really great, but if that’s the way you feel, then I’m glad. I’m just—worried I’m holding you back.”

A little incredulous, he jerks his head to look at you. “What? How does being—content with our situation mean I’m limiting myself?” He doesn’t understand at all. “Why the hell should that even matter?”

“Because you have the opportunity to be even more content than you are now!” you insist, then tear apart inside. Really, what gives you the right to micromanage Levi’s happiness?

He keeps his voice carefully even. “I don’t care. There wasn’t ever gonna be another answer.” He’s actually angry, you belittling yourself like you’re nothing but a pastime for him. “Get that through your thick skull.”

“I’m sorry,” you mutter. Even as you speak, you sense a rift pulling you apart. “I’m just insecure.”

He huffs and retreats a little, leaning against the doorway. “Shit. Coulda fooled me.”

You’re reaching the end of his patience. Briefly, you close your eyes, seeking a breath. There’s insecurity, and the blunt-force claw of selfishness, too. It’s an ugly facet of yourself—and not the real issue.

“But there’s something else.” Again you swallow, but there’s a snag there this time. “I also got worried ‘cause I don’t want any of this to stop, I want nothing to change—because you’re the best person in my life, and, I don’t feel like I deserve it, so I’m so fucking terrified you’ll…”

“I’ll what?” Flush with the doorway, his voice is low, and thick like molasses. “Get bored of you? You’re smarter than that. But think about our fucking jobs—we’re always in danger. You’re the oldest veteran besides Eyebrows, and I know what I’m doing, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“No–”

“You need to be prepared for the worst. Are you not?”

It’s this type of thinking, specifically, that’s been gnawing at his bones for months. Life could change, or end, at the flip of a coin; it always has. How you could possibly forget that, he doesn’t know, unless it’s his fault for lulling you into a false sense of security.

The best person in your life? That’s practically a screeching alarm, warning to something horrible about to happen, either to him or you. He hopes it’s him—in a sick, destructive way. Everyone who’s ever talked like that, or showed it in even a fraction of that way has left him behind; living or dead, but mostly dead. Nothing has ever stayed as long as you.

You don’t answer.

“If I got unlucky, you’d have to move on,” he insists, leaving no room for argument. “And if it were you, I’d do the same.”

“Levi–”

Your eyes look like glitter. He can tell you’re about to cry, but you can’t not be prepared for that. He can’t wreck you. He can’t do that to you.

“Listen,” he goes on, “f’you live with regrets, you might as well count yourself among the bodies… You’re right, I shouldn’t have told you. That was shitty to Petra.”

“I know.” You’re not entirely listening, too busy cracking wide open. This conversation left Petra a while ago. “I’ve had so many friends die. You were there for that! But we’ve made it this far–”

“And one day we won’t. I thought the same about–” he sneers, “–n’ look what happened to them. The world will chew you up and spit you out all it wants—it a-already has. You deserve better than me or this shitty world could ever give up–”

Hearing him talk like this is a punch in the gut. “No. That’s not true! I just want you!”

His eyes go wide. “It doesn’t matter what we want! Don’t you get it? This world is cruel. It’s not gonna listen to you or me and let us stay happy, no matter if we’re Titan-food or two fat, ugly nobles.”

“Wait, you’re happy?” you sniff, picking at the skin of your fingers. Hope hurts. “I make you happy?”

Realizing what he let slip, he seals his lips. It’s like his insides have dropped inside a chasm, that’s what it feels like, and no longer in a good way. His chest caves in.

He knows—what he feels for you is so rare, maybe he’s never felt it in his life: call it happiness, call it anything good. Never could he keep it. It’s been ripped away each and every time, so eventually he stopped reaching for it.

The first time he kissed you was the first time he reached out again, resolved to the fact that things would be different. Of course they are, and more than that, they’re new, and overwhelming. You want him, and maybe you can tell the feeling’s mutual; or not, by the way you belittle yourself so much.

Either way he’s sick to death. He refuses to wait around for you to be ripped away. Not you, not yet another person he failed to protect. Terror forces him to say nothing.

Yes, Levi’s happy, but his lack of reply tells you that he won’t allow himself to be. You’re not the same. Be it a bloody death, or how cruel the world is—you could never bring yourself to care. It’s hard to say whether he’s a coward, or you’re a fool.

“So… what?” You brace your head with your hands, sounding like a strangled bird. You feel like one, too. “We can never be happy?”

By his sides, his hands curl into fists. “…No. I guess not.”

But he foolishly believed you could be, once.

It’s always the hardest words to say, the lowest thing to do—but it’s true. He knows this. It’s cruel and it’s unfair, but you’d be fooling yourselves to believe otherwise. Isabel’s severed gaze, and Farlan, waving goodbye. People with faces and names and lives. This world is too bloodthirsty to let happiness stay.

You stand, arms crossed tightly, like you’re hugging yourself. Then you snivel, a wet sound.

Automatically, he straightens up and looks down at the floor. Things have always easily reduced you to tears, so he’s heard you cry, but it never gets any easier to listen to. He feels ripped out of his own heart. Everything he feels goes against what he’s done here.

Without another word, you sniff, and begin to move. He’s never felt more disgusting, foolish and evil than that hope twinging. In the past, he couldn’t pry you off with a hammer when you were upset: you always completely latched yourself to him. Maybe that’s why you’re carrying yourself like that.

The soft, wet sound of your weeping retreats down the hallway. It’s hard to breathe. He did what he gave his word not to. Maybe you don’t even remember, it was years ago, but he’s pushed you away.

But it’s true, the same thought protests. Was there any other option where you could possibly maintain this dance of friendly romantics, and face the threat of it all being torn to shreds—every day for the rest of your lives?

If you shared each other completely…

A long breath. He doesn’t know. He’s never felt this for anyone. Imagining the opposite, losing you, it would be worse than loss. Worse than the biggest bone in your body shattering, worse than staring down at the blood pooling in your palms and getting the first inkling of what you’ve done. Loss hurts like hell, so he can’t even imagine.

But hurting you hurts like hell, too, so he must be damned either way.

The side-door to his quarters shutting is a gavel going down. Muffled, further away, your retreat from his office is a ghost letting go.

—

It feels like a vicious whip has cracked a jagged line through the center of everything you are. The result is manic, and it’s numb and raging—all at the same time.

Numbness easily pilots you back down to your hall, to your dark, oaken door. You stare for a while, hating that you left. There’s a thousand things you could’ve said, and a million more thoughts still crammed in your head. It’s Levi, so you simply can’t think of it any other way.

The crest of the door-knocker is a stormy gray, above which sits the coppery plate proudly displaying your rank as Lieutenant, followed by your last name.

The knob is cold when you grip it, and incidentally the chill reminds you of Levi. Here’s where the knot in your throat lurches, and the shapes in your vision stretch as it clouds with tears.

You step inside, and go to bed.

‘Crying all night’. In your life you’ve cried plenty, but a phrase like that only ever rang as true as ‘you’re perfect’, or ‘endlessly, forever’. A contrived game of hyperbole and extremes, usually to play up terribly average feelings. Say it enough, use it enough, and the meaning will drain from the words.

But your entire body lurches with the force of your sobbing, screwing your shoulders up as far as they’ll strain.

You can’t get over it. It’d be easier, somehow, if Levi didn’t want you. No, you make him happy, but he refuses the eventual heartbreak. In his case, he can’t afford to be distracted, not the most valuable soldier the Corps has. What only rubs salt in the wound is you understand why he said what he did.

When it grows late and your tears have dissolved to whimpers, the pool of anguish sits like a stone in the center of your chest. As heavy as your body grows, as soaked as your pillows, as heady as the blankets framed around your face—that dull urge to weep keeps grasping. It feels like you could cry yourself to sleep. As long as you remain in this dark, drowsy void, you could keep crying, on and on until you wake, weeping in shallow gasps.

This turns true, along with the fact that people are more than capable of crying all night long.

It’s early in the morning. You can tell by the gray that waits outside your drawn curtains. Somewhere, a mourning dove is crooning, outshined by a drill instructor shouting his commands. HQ is already awake.

A deep, shaking breath, and more grief worms its way up your parched throat. Your eyes feel somehow chapped when you open them, and sting when you shut them. That’s not exactly fair—but neither is anything.

Curled up, sleep is drifting back in, warm and inviting.

It’s easy to write off most of the jabs Levi throws as dry, poorly-timed jokes, or instances of him ‘just being an asshole’—his words, anytime you asked. But he always means the things he says, in lieu of chattering along without a care. He’s not good with words, but only because he fails to say what he means much of the time. That’s not his fault.

Last night, there was hardly any room for deciphering a different meaning between the lines, “You deserve better than me or this shitty world could ever give up,” and “If I got unlucky, you’d have to move on.”

He was worked up. Case in point, you never talk about either one of you dying: that’s like seriously discussing how likely it is that humanity will one day eradicate the Titans. He’s never yelled at you, either. Not like that, when he wasn’t Captain Levi of the Survey Corps, but just Levi.

You sniffle, cringing at your sloppy-feeling, clogged sinuses, and wish he’d never brought up Petra. Then again, the thought persists, a conversation like that had to happen eventually.

Your relationship, or a hypothetical one—you try to sort it out by yourself.

Friends—even friends with benefits—don’t hug and press little kisses all over the other’s face to wake them up after the nights they stay together have bled into the morning. The only benefits that you and Levi really shared in that sense, was each other. It was never going to work, lines jumbled and unclear like that, but.

With a small whimper, hot tears drip down your cheeks, which you smear in the pillows. Thinking about it isn’t helping.

You’re deeply inclined to sleep in, but chastise yourself for your laziness. There’s work to be done, if only that means interacting with Levi, or rather, Captain Levi: the most shallow, professional part of who you know him as, completely on face-value.

And it goes about as well as you expect.

Long since springtime came and went in its unfurled blossoms and light, smoky days, summer has come to take its place. It’s blisteringly hot outside, and while weighed down by fourteen kilos of straps, gas and wires, while also wrangling the new recruits—to mold them into certified Scouts (though, no one is really a Scout until they make it back that first time)—you’d rather be shoveling horse shit.

On the other hand, Levi has plenty of excuses to be stricter than usual. If a disagreement over gas tanks or something else just as asinine breaks out, he’s quick to break up the fight with just as much tenacity: a swift kick in the ass and a few biting curses at the ‘brats’. Hange, in honesty, just likes to make them squirm, while the stablehands (and Petra, you notice) aren’t happy with any of it.

You’re perched in the hulking tree branches alongside Eld, guiding screeching, unsteady wires—and the new blood attached to those wires—when it happens.

Like a lonely marionette, you’ve been on auto-pilot since breakfast’s gruel. Maybe it’s hours of muscle memory finally derailing, or you haven’t kept as hydrated as you should for the sweltering sun. Either way, one moment you’re coasting through the air, and the next, your vision’s a green spinning top.

You hit the forest floor pretty hard, and for a while you can’t find the strength but to stare up at the blinding gaps between the leaves above, heaving and hot and fuzzy.

Eld leaves no room for argument when he clasps your hand, urging you to your aching feet: “Let’s let the Captain know, just in case. It’s the right thing to do.”

“No… I just took a fall. That’s all.”

His bright bangs flop in his face when he shakes his head. “It’s gonna be me, or me and you. No offense, Lieutenant, but you look like hell.”

You hate to see where this is going, but you smear the sweat off your face, and let it go. No doubt you feel like hell, that’s for sure.

The first, brief look of alarm on Levi’s face when he first catches sight of your skin and uniform scuffed, scraped, dirty vanishes in an instant. You have the guts, at least, to come out with what happened, but he still deals you quite the verbal whipping for it. His tone is just about as sharp as the kickdrum beating between your ears.

Levi dismisses Eld with a jerk of his head, and then his eyes are squarely on you. “You idiot. I didn’t see the sun for twenty years and even I know what fucking heatstroke looks like.”

“It was a mistake,” you insist, curling your toes in your boots to stay steady. Wavering now would just be embarrassing.

“Yeah,” he sneers. “Mistakes kill people.”

You grind your teeth like shaving wood, willing yourself not to speak. You’re getting chewed out by your Captain, not your friend (Whatever he is, you admonish yourself).

“I’m just tired, sir.” Emphasis on the last word. “Didn’t sleep much last night.”

Several beats of silence are clogged by the thick air. He won’t look at you, or maybe he can’t. Finally, he decides to let you off for the day.

“Get it together. You’re dismissed.”

Cheers to you for maintaining maturity. Still, you scuff up a little bit of dust than you meant on your way through the grassy courtyard. The hot shower you take burns like acid, fostering a new batch of bruises dotted up and down your limbs. You burn on the inside too, ashamed.

Will we ever talk about this? If your performance keeps slipping, yes. Will we ever talk the same? You don’t know.

You get to thinking.

It’s accepted that shouting matches are a normal part of relationships. Maybe it’s even expected, but still: The sooner an argument like that sweeps through a relationship, the worse-off two people are for each other—especially the more it goes on. If that’s the case, it makes you wonder if you and he are still persistently bared to each other on an artificial level.

You’ve never landed yourself in a shouting match with Levi before last night; not a real, world-ending argument over such vague, precious topics like commitment.

Did that make us wrong in some way? A better question: Why the hell should it?

It’s a depressing thought. If it’s inevitable that two souls are bound to grate and screech together when rubbed the wrong way—is anyone truly ‘made’ for each other? It’d be the case then that some things are made to be broken. They tumbled out into the world deficient and cracked.

Does everyone tolerate? Does love mean you still have to settle?

You make yourself sick thinking like this. Too nauseous to eat, but knowing full-well you should, you decide to wait until the dining hall clears out.

Hopefully, Levi is eating enough too. You can’t help worrying. He tends to forget.

You’re smoothing the headache out of your temples when there’s a light, almost shy knock on your door; too soft to be Levi. You’d recognize his even if you went deaf.

Petra practically oozes concern when you summon her in, all the way down to the tray she carries, crammed with leftovers. She didn’t spot you at breakfast, either, so she decided to come by.

You sniff, take the tray, and gently place it down on your desk. It’s also crammed, just with cluttered paperwork. “Thank you.”

“Anytime,” she says kindly, and picks at her fingers. It seems she picked up that habit from you at some point. “If there’s anything I can do, well, you know.”

She, for one of the few of your closest friends, knows the sort of ‘crybaby-turtle’ you are—Oluo’s words. You’d be damned to ever let your nature bleed onto the battlefield, or onto your closest comrades, who you’ve bled for.

It feels good, not having to pretend in front of her, but not even Petra knows about you and Levi; not any of it, no one. You hate that she was the catalyst, but it’s not her fault.

You reassure that you’ll be alright with a small shake of your head. “What’s new with you?”

“Well… I embarrassed the hell out of myself in front of Captain Levi the other day,” she laughs. “I hope he hasn’t told you.”

“It’s nothing,” you remark, “I think gossiping went out of style for him forty years ago.”

She sniggers at that. No one (including him) knows his age for certain—Levi doesn’t even use a last name—but not even recruits will bet on forty. His looks speak for themselves.

“Well, he’s been in a mood.”

Your interest is snagged. “You think so?”

Petra gives you a look that says everyone thinks so, but she’s still a little ashamed about gossiping. “So, I’m sorry anyway. You two are just—connected in a way, you know?”

“Hm. Maybe.” Playfully, you knock your boot against hers. You needed that. “Really. It’s alright. Maybe Oluo will get down on one knee one of these days, hm?”

“Agh. As if.”

You can tell she’d rather you open up and let her know what’s wrong, especially after your fall this afternoon, but she’s just as quick to trust you and leave well-enough alone. Demons follow just about everyone in this regiment, and you’re a hard shell to crack anyway.

She bids you goodnight. It’s stomach-churning to finish your supper, but you manage to force it down before strolling to your bookshelf to pick out a book.

“Oh,” you mutter, and slide a paperback off the pine shelf. Levi will be missing this one right about now. You sigh, and hug the book to your chest. Shit.

Just as you suspect, he is.

Levi frowns into the drawer, the lowest one he always has to crouch to get to. His fingers play at the polished wood, glaring into the emptiness. He looks mildly resentful and a little hollow behind the eyes, but that’s just his thinking face, more or less. The one he can’t find, you were reading together; bought in the most pompous bookstore in all of Wall Sina—or it must’ve been.

His gut reaction is to let you keep it, finish it on your own time, and if he never gets it back, so be it. Your duties are slipping, along with your mood, and you, and it’s all his fault. Guilt like a millstone roils around in his chest.

It had to be said, he reassures himself. You’re both better off not getting involved, or you will be. You must be. Feeling piss-poor and empty isn’t the newest feeling, but he never planned to drag you down with him. He tells himself again that you’ll bounce back, but that reassurance feels emptier than the first.

The sounds of your weeping retreating down the hallway needs to be worth it.

He rubs the bridge of his nose. Still. No matter how this thing between you ends, he shouldn’t have left things like that.

She walked away first, one part of his mind meagerly protests.

Because you made her cry, berates the bigger, seething part. What kind of piece of shit gets ‘I want you’ screamed at him and does that? What’s wrong with you?

Plenty. He rolls it around in his mind as he makes the trek through cobbled hallways, speckled with shadows thanks to the wall-mounted torches. The way he was brought up wasn’t exactly pretty, but that’s not an excuse. You know so much of it now, anyway.

When he quit locking up like a rattlesnake whenever you so much as wrapped your arms around him, you asked much later if the man who raised Levi ever hugged him. The ridiculousness of the question took him by such surprise that he actually laughed.

He shared a cigar with me, once, he remembers telling you. Then he added, The expensive ones. From Mitras, as if that cushioned the blow.

You really teased him for it, but you had to. Otherwise, it’d just be depressing.

Either way, the crux of the issue, and the conclusion he’s forced to come to, is maybe he never learned to hold people no short of arm’s length, but it’s that no one ever taught him any other way.

It’s almost like when he was learning to write just a week into his promotion to Squad Leader, when reading and writing became a requirement rather than a privilege. Everyone around him could do it without a second thought—some with their eyes closed, even—while he could barely manage making out the letters of his own name. The words he was an expert at no longer meant shit, either: eloquent ones like ‘tavern’ and ‘KEEP OUT!’.

You’re not obligated to mend a bone that snapped before he was born; you deserve better than that. If he had any say, he’d want your relationship to be smooth sailing and sweet, as close to perfection as you can get.

Thing is, he isn’t convenient, or perfect—or any of those other things you deserve. In some places he’s odd and broken. In plenty.

Sometimes, often, he even gets a sneaking, oozing feeling that he’s deceived you in some way when you make it so clear how highly you think of him. He never got that part: Why you seem to bask in his shadow so much. He can’t help but feel he poisoned you, because those horrible words you attach to yourself, so utterly incorrectly, is him.

He feels even less than a human being at times. If there’s anything he was taught, it’s that his body is a weapon, and he’s to make it in this world. Not much else matters other than avoiding getting dulled down or broken in half.

So no, the serial killer who raised him never hugged him much.

With your door—your plaque spelling your name across its face—staring back at him, he once again scrounges together the nerve to knock. His knees have locked up, along with the rest of him, but if Petra can get the balls to confess to her superior officer what she did, he can at least do this. He needs to.

He needs to fix things, or patch them over. Something.

You made her cry.

Levi raises his hand, and knocks. When the door cracks open, then whines a little further, he instantly forgets everything he planned to say—about the book. Keep it, he wants to tell you, but what comes out is: “You look constipated.”

You idle behind the threshold a little, sort of like a little kid. “Uh-huh, I know. If I lose any more sleep, I’ll start looking like you.”

That casual remark makes panic shoot through his belly for some reason. He might as well just be out with it. “I wanted to talk.”

“Okay,” you venture. Rather than a little kid, you now come off as a wary, wide-eyed cat. “If it can’t wait… Is it important?”

Important? He sure would like to think so. “…I’m not here for paperwork.”

The air turns thick. Now, you aren’t even looking at him: you’re glaring at the floor, swallowing as if there’s something stuck in your throat. The next few moments, he doesn’t really hear before the door shuts. You tell him, “I’m sorry, but I can’t. You make me too sad.”

An apology sticks to his tongue, but if he opens his mouth, it’ll just be told to the door. His lips twitch, not understanding.

Why did that hurt so much? You didn’t tell him you hated him, you didn’t even slam it in his face. Levi makes you sad, that’s all, but suddenly the sky is falling inside him. He can’t even feel the floor beneath his feet.

Okay, he reasons to nobody. If he makes you sad, removing himself ought to make you happy. Maybe it won’t for a while, but… If I give it time, it should. In retrospect he was conceited for expecting anything else.

In any case, he’ll try his best to do right by you.

As his steps finally start to recede, you’re left at the door, sniffling, idling. You cry too much—which isn’t his fault. It’s just the fact that you’ve never felt more disgusting, hopeless, and evil than that hope sticking to you like cobwebs. Some part of you is so angry with him, but you wanted him to stay, too. It’s not fair.

You can hear Levi’s sardonic quip now: “Fair. Is that a joke?”

This whole mess reminds you of the first real night you stayed together—a million years ago, it feels like. Maybe three or four. For once, he actually slept, but his hands visibly shook when you crawled into his arms that night.

It worried you, whether he was anxious beyond all measure, or you were overstepping bounds he wasn’t ready for, but he insisted he just wasn’t used to going to bed with someone. Now, you’re sure he was afraid—of waking you with a nightmare, or being close to someone, or every bad thing, all at once.

He was warm and solid, and he cradled you to his chest, your breaths falling in sync with the rise and fall of his own. It felt so safe. He must’ve felt that way too, for you woke even before him, and strapped on your uniform back in your own tiny quarters (fit for when you were still a Squad Leader).

But a few minutes later, there was a rapping on your door. It was Levi of course, strung-up and glaring, but his eyes gave him away. By then you had an idea of just how often they do.

“You could’ve told me you planned on leaving first-thing. I told you I’m not used to this.”

“Oh.” You were a little blindsided. “I just wanted to let you sleep in.”

His eyes grew sharper. “Well don’t, you shitting idiot.”

You were flabbergasted then, but now you look back and know he felt abandoned. Even though he was still the one to approach your door this time, now it’s your turn to feel that way. Maybe you both do.

You’re so tired of crying.

On the other hand, Levi has never been a crying person. He couldn’t do it even if his Commander ordered him to, not even if he wanted. After you told him to go, he let the front of his desk bear his weight for a while, jaw locked up and aching.

You’ve seen him at quite a few of his rock-bottoms, in a state of icy grief or blood-red rage, but he’s still never been so pathetic as to let you see him blubber and sob like a baby. If he can’t do it alone, how can he expect to let you witness that horror show?

Doesn’t matter. You don’t want to see him at all.

So, he gets started on paperwork: he scratches dry parchment with the end of his quill so long that the inkwell runs out. Without pausing to mind his aching neck, he replaces it and gets back to it.

He writes some notes, too—ones the recipient will never see, so there they sit. He works some more. He throws the notes away. Sunset drowns in the dark gray of evening.

Levi is, self-admittedly, so good at math that he can tell distance with a single, squinted look. He’s always been that way. The logic is a comfort to him somehow, so that night he ends up calculating the Corps’ budget as far as two months from now. Sooner or later, he finally feels the hunger pains sinking its jagged teeth into his stomach.

Eating isn’t a new chore to forget, no matter how important it is. He lived with hunger for so long, it became just like dealing with sore feet, or aching fingers after quite a bit of writing; it’s just another task to get done a few times a day. Once he let you in enough for you to notice his weird patterns, you really jumped on his ass about it.

It used to piss him off, because it was his business and he didn’t get why you cared so much. Now, as he manages to scarf down some leftovers that taste a little better than cardboard, he just feels shitty the ritual of you reminding him has been broken.

Falling asleep would be a pointless fight, he decides.

Unsurprisingly, Commander Erwin is awake this late—or this early, rather. The lantern on his desk is burning its weight in oil when he drops an even stack of papers down.

Lately, Levi has driven himself so hard into the ground that the stream of bureaucracy has whittled down to just a few drops, but, “if you’re looking for something to do, allocate some funds to buy a suit. A few select officers of each regiment have been invited to Mitras.”

Levi’s nose screws up. “You mean it’s time to kiss more pig-ass. Play politics, right?”

The shadows dancing across the walls make Erwin’s chuckle seem a bit more foreboding, but, as usual, Levi’s right: he has a knack for shaving the fluff off Erwin’s words.

Rather than play politics though, it’s almost entirely Levi’s job to stand around, keep his mouth shut, and look like Humanity’s Strongest Soldier. Erwin, Hange and Mike always do him the favor of ass-kissing, but if possible, “bring your Lieutenant. She’s just as impressive, but unlike you she has a clean mouth.”

“Tch. You’d be surprised how many idiots around here don’t brush their teeth,” he grumbles. Then, he steps away from Erwin’s long desk, and connects the dots. “Wait. You said I have to play dress-up for this. You wanna make her my date?”

Levi knows he’s being bitchier than usual, but Erwin’s cool gaze gives nothing away. He simply locks his hands under his chin, and explains: “Officially, yes. Nanaba is joining Mike in the same way. Unofficially, it isn’t my business. I’m not interested in disciplining you or her for fraternizing, of all things.”

If Levi and you are in bed together, Erwin doesn’t need to know—how relieving. Fair, though. Recruits crawl in bed with each other all the time. Still, this little revelation boils his blood to no end.

Fucking shit, Levi thinks with disdain. What great timing.

If just the sight of him at your door is enough to make you sad, a hokey date-night in Mitras will send you spiraling—better he not tell you and spare you the anguish. The news will find your desk on its own, and sooner or later you’ll learn to coexist, just like that.

But…

It’s when he’s sat hunched over in the reclusive safety of his quarters, shining a blade, that a selfish sense of possession swoops over him like an evil shadow.

Levi pauses with the cotton-white handkerchief clutched in his palm, thinking hard. He needs to think. You’ve always pointed out that he spends too much time in his head.

No matter what, he’ll always try to attract your gaze; let the room be crowded, dark, or empty. In some ways he feels he’ll die without it, hence how he needs you just to function. The crux of the issue is that if you did die, he really might just follow you. It’s pathetic.

He imagines cradling you as the life in your eyes is fogged by muddy, gray film.

Worse. What if he isn’t there when you land in trouble? What if he could do something, but fails? What if your blood splatters his cape, proof of his helplessness and your painful end?

There’s a title he carries—Humanity’s Strongest—but still, somehow, he always manages to fail in protecting the ones he cares for the most. For you, if there was something he could’ve done, or done better…

His expression screws up, because that’s wrong: No matter what it’d be his fault. Whether it’s logical or not, it’s how it is. If he’s strong and that’s his right to life, then he’s the one responsible for flubbing that one and only talent, and by extension his duty, over and over again.

He’s never told you this, he realizes with a hollow feeling, but he still finds himself anguished that he did nothing for his mother in those last days she spent bedridden. He knows he was just a kid, but he can’t convince himself that means anything, even now.

His old friends, faces with names and lives—those deaths ended up leaving him stronger. He was able to channel the grief, and mold it into power. But when he inevitably comes up with the image of your body amongst the dead, his hands pick up a tremble.

A carefully even breath. The knife he cradles in his palm is old, rusted a coppery brown and whittled down at the edges from years of wear and (literal) tear. It’s the one that clashed with Mike’s and Erwin’s blades; it’s the one that carried him through a good portion of his years running with gangs; it’s the one he brought up from the gutter.

It’s no longer good for practical use, but he never lets go of things, even when he knows he should. Even if he can’t hold them or even see them, they stick in his mind. If he doesn’t get it together–

“Shit,” comes the curse, then a small string of others, one after another. A clean, brittle snap of the blade. Where now two pieces lay in his palm, the metal around the break is especially weathered, like terminally-sick silver.

Levi knows his way around a knife, so he knows the art of fixing them up. There’s not a damn thing he can do for this one.

He can’t idle on the equally-anguished snap somewhere deep in his chest. What does he do with it? It’s useless now. His last tie to his home is dead and gone.

Home, he thinks with sorry spite. That’s a funny word for it.

Without thinking, he tears his cravat from around his neck, craving air, and stands. His step stutters, but he can’t help it. He needs to pace.

Levi doesn’t have a home, or a family. His meaning is the cause, with the Corps, and maybe he found a family once, but they were wiped out.

The knife means nothing, the Underground wasn’t home—it was a dead-end gutter where dogs are born, lay, and die. Maybe home was his mother, but she laid and she died, and he was so young when it happened. He doesn’t even know what home means.

The broken knife suffocates in his tightly-knuckled fist. It’s too dull to pay any mind to. Crushing it is better than feeling sorry about it.

He senses a pattern. That’s his way with all precious things. Whatever soft, golden thing sprouted between you two, he crushed it before the grief could ever snag a chance to crush him. He’s a killer, in the most elementary sense of the word.

Dull, burning hatred. He hates what he’s done here, and he hates himself for his actions.

At a loss, he crosses the threshold between his personal quarters and his office, swipes his keyring out, and jams it in the small lock of a desk drawer; the one closest to the floor.

There’s a ponytail holder of Isabel’s he only noticed he still had tethered around his wrist after the fact, a pair of ancient dice, and a dozen other odd things within a sea of strung-out patches displaying the Wings of Freedom. Most are bloodied, aged stiff and brown. He has nowhere else to put it.

He sniffs. The heaviness sinks somewhere way down in his chest, as heavy things do, and slinks away; dull, but unbothered. He’s not equipped to do anything else with those feelings, much less unload all of this bullshit on you. Even on good days it was hard.

He shoves it down deep instead, buried like a chest crammed with rotten, cheap treasures. It’ll find its way to the surface in another way—a pattern he believes because you explained it to him. He’ll just have to wait and see what it’ll be.

—

Two days later, Levi breaks his finger.

He’s running himself ragged with all manner of exercise he can manage by himself in Trost HQ’s claustrophobic gym: maintaining a plank until sweat from his brow drips to the mat below and his core is on fire; pushups until even he loses count; donning a pair of gloves and bruising the hell out of the leathery punching bag until Mike, who’s bracing it, gets knocked on his ass—or just about.

Mike’s the one who grins in approval, a smirk curling despite his bare, heaving chest. Much like a dog, he sweats buckets, so much so his skin looks more like tinfoil. He asks how much Levi has managed to lift lately, and sensing a challenge, told him honestly: “Two-hundred.”

“Shit, man…” Mike gawks at him in disbelief. “What’re you made of?”

It’s well-known that Levi’s abilities stretch far-beyond the best in the Scouts, or the military as a whole. You were always of the opinion that he’s the strongest man alive.

The times when you and he trained together, one-on-one (something that didn’t happen as often as it should, come to think of it), you worked off each other constantly, building strength, endurance. You never managed to knock him down, though, other than that one time years ago; you caught him off guard by demanding to know why he hated you. That was because he pushed you away.

He abandons that train of thought. Few people can take him in a fight, at any rate.

He believes the closest you ever got (fairly) was when he requested mid-plank for you to add more weight onto his back. He’d been able to maintain the same position for several minutes, and all he had to show for it was a bead of sweat broken over his forehead.

You indulged him gladly. Only, you were kneeling beside him, pressing both hands to the sharp planes of his shoulders. You were helping out gravity more than giving him a challenge.

“S’not working,” he huffed, and shrugged your hands off, adjusting his tight brace above the floor. “Sit on me.”

You were incredulous with him. “What, like a pony?”

“Ugh.” He rolled his eyes, flicking his sodden bangs away from his eyes. “Sure.”

“Only if you neigh.” You said this like it was the chief requirement.

“…Fucking neigh. Hurry up already.”

You chided him for acting bossy, but you quickly lurched into action. Your chief complaint was the sticky sweat pasted to his bare back. Still, he could feel you staring, gliding over the places where his muscles were pulled taut and flexing beneath his skin.

Levi, at the time, felt prickled that you might have been scrutinizing some particularly ugly scars with your eyes; those still stubbornly raised, the color of severely diluted blood. You weren’t.

He grunted and strained under your weight. With a whole human body managing a recline long-ways as if he were a hammock, who wouldn’t?

He dropped—according to Hange’s stopwatch—after another hour and twenty-two minutes. As a result you were severely bored, and babied the hell out of him for the next few days until he could at least stretch his arms above his head without every one of his muscles locking up in that crumpled way he only gets after a good workout. He thanked you, told you he owed you, even, but you never asked for anything back—not even for him to give you a proper neigh.

He hates you for that, he swears he does. You went out of your way by the hour to make his days a little easier, and demanded nothing in return. That only happens in storybooks, or so he thought. Either way, he didn’t deserve you.

No, he corrects himself, not just ‘a little easier’. You managed to make him look forward to eating, as if it were a candlelit date instead of a task to get done, you made swirling, happy feelings break over his chest by doing so little as yawning too widely, and at the end of so many days, he learned to hate sleeping a little less. He was less defensive, and smiled more—yours was just that infectious. But when your heart broke, he wanted to protect you, too. He could’ve handled feeling as broken as you, at least for a while, so you wouldn’t have to brave it alone.

And he still wants it. You make him so happy it hurts—that’s why he can’t stand it.

It was just an accident: Mike saw an opportunity, bet he could take him down in under five minutes in the ring, and Levi rose to the occasion.

That gigantic hound of a man was the strongest in the Scouts before five years ago, so they duke it out anytime Levi actually agrees to it. Most times not, especially if Hange bets on money, chores, or gods forbid gets Erwin wrapped up in the gambling.

This afternoon they weren’t present, but even if they were, he wouldn’t have cared. The blood in his veins was boiling to fight, which is unlike him. Back before he met you, it would’ve been: he had a much shorter, nastier temper before the sun ever shone on him, but fighting has always come as natural to him as flipping a page. Everything else seldom does.

It must’ve been right before he kicked Mike square in the chest, putting him down for the count. They were rolling around quite a bit before then, so maybe Levi’s hand got pinned at some point. Doesn’t matter—it’s no one’s fault.

Mike even grasped Levi’s hand and shook it at the end, but he didn’t get the lurking sense of his ramrod-stiff finger until he stepped in the shower right after. It’s his left index finger, and it’s puffy and swollen. In sharp contrast to the others, it’s taken on a morbid, maroon color.

He was weary when he first set his eyes on it, and he’s weary now as he kneels before his gaping bathroom drawers. This exhaustion somehow supersedes all his physical wear and tear.

He grinds his teeth to keep from wincing—despite the fact that he sits alone—as he roots through his drawers. It was only when he saw the ugly thing that the length of his finger started throbbing. That didn’t go away, and now it’s tender and flaming simply on sight.

The first-aid kit—where is it? He doesn’t misplace things: organized would be his middle name, and he considers it his last as long as he doesn’t know it. The only reason he even keeps such a thing is to avoid siphoning resources from the medbay in cases of minor grazes like this.

He shuts his eyes as he smooths his sopping bangs completely off his forehead. The least he did was pull on a pair of briefs, but he couldn’t dry off before attending to this. Scavenging for a memory when he can hear his heartbeat in his mangled finger is a bitch.

The cabinet is deliciously cool when he leans his forehead against it. And then, it comes to him as all terrible revelations do, sinister in its clarity, abrupt and sinking: His first-aid kit is in your quarters.

You got sick of him tending to his injuries by himself—hiding them, you insisted—and all but pilfered it from him. He teased you about it and pretended to throw a fit, but he didn’t even think of it, not until now. He didn’t care, because if you had it stashed away he could do the same. It felt good to take care of you, even though he couldn’t stop the injury from happening.

He squeezes his eyes shut, wobbling around a dozen heavy, clunky feelings. It was more than just patching you up, too. You, taking care of him like that, he liked it—or the idea of it. It was nice, you keeping it for him. Reserving his well-being for the front of your mind, no matter how slight the hurt. No one ever did that for him before. He used to be so alone.

The acid-cork in his throat breaks like popping a tap. Hot tears spring to his eyes, and a croaked sound escapes before he can stop either of them.

With another wave of weariness, he comes to the realization that he’s so sick of hiding away, covering up, locking down and burying the key. It’s like the hint of something split him the moment you met, and it never stopped since. Only, he didn’t realize it until the something started to take shape.

It’s like you cracked him, and like a dam he’s broken open, impossible to stop. He’s crying, and it feels like he can’t ever stop. It’s as if he’s been flung from his own reins, throwing him out of control. It was his choice that let him ruin things all by himself, but he’ll die before he brings this to you; he normally would, after he got a hold of himself, but he makes you upset just to lay eyes on.

He’s out of control. This realization tosses him into an electric panic: The pangs of his heart reaches his ears, he begins to shiver, and his hands morph into prickly icepicks. He hasn’t gotten one this bad since Kenny left him.

Then, something else. That sense of danger that’s resided in him since he was young prickles, sending the shaking and anxiety and impending doom-feeling into overdrive.

Only on instinct does his body kick into action, but completely deprived of thought, all he can do is slam a cabinet shut, cringe at the reverberation, and pin himself against it, gasping noisily. The danger isn’t real—he’s in his bathroom at HQ—but the sense is never wrong, either. His eyes dart around for a weapon, but when he doesn’t see one his hands reflexively curl into fists. Big fucking mistake.

The wince, this time, is audible—it shows all over his face. Pain rattles him from the static in his head to the curl of his toes. He hears it through the cotton stuffed in his ears, but he can’t be bothered to muffle it anymore, if he’s even capable of that much thinking right now. He cradles his scathing finger, pinned between his folded legs and his chest, and feels himself from the perspective of a broken spinning top.

He’ll swear to the end that he never heard you knock on his door, nor unlock the door and go on searching for him until you heard the slam coming from the depths of his bathroom. You rapped on the oak in an endless mantra of Levi’s name until his head jerked up, finally hearing you.

You knew better, so much better than to barge in on him in the middle of a panic attack. With his clamoring gasps for air stretching through the door, barging in on him would’ve done nothing but plummet him into worse places. He’s broken parts in that way: When he’s in dire need of comfort, that’s the last thing he’ll reach out and grab for. It weighs too much.

He hears your voice through the wood, and sighs high in his throat at the sound of it, relieved and a little helpless. You haven’t spoken this tenderly to him in so many days, so hearing it now is like falling back into a bed he’s slept in since birth.

For a while, you simply go back and forth; mainly you, guiding him through it. You tether him back down to earth, as dizzyingly rough a return it is. Sooner or later, much later, you gently ask if it’d be alright for you to come in, but he’s not ready for that just yet.

The first-aid kit—Levi’s first-aid kit—dangles at your side when you do come in, after he has more clothes on his back and he’s wrangled the air back into his lungs. In… and out.

The first order of business in his mind is how you knew, and if you were somehow forced to come, to leave. In yours, it’s his stiff, swollen finger, which has reached the color of rotten gala apples.

You came because Mike mentioned it, you claim. You’re here for Levi, though, and that’s enough of a reason.

Gently, you knock the door closed with your booted foot. “So? Sit down and let me do this for you.”

Objections, immediately. He tries to sound firm despite the croak still thick in his voice. “You don’t have to. Leave it here and I’ll handle it on my own.”

You shoot him a look—displeased, but patient.

“I’m fine,” he insists, but is sure to add, “I’m fine now.”

“Levi–” you plant the kit down on the counter, “–there are a million things I could’ve done instead of this. All he said was you were pushing yourself much harder than usual. I still came straight here, didn’t I? I got worried.”

“Because–’cause you have the med kit,” he stammers, and screws his nose up in shame with himself. “I can splint my own fucking finger. Leave. Get out.”

Your face goes hard. “You want that?”

“That’s what you said you wanted,” he points out, not resentfully, but plainly; like it’s an argument on behalf of a ghost.

The tension hangs in the air. You’re still hurt, and you’re angry about what happened. You can’t pretend you’re not, not anymore, and not when he’s standing right in front you. All this time, you didn’t dodge all his bullets, just denied that they hit you.

The next words leave you in a long breath: “Levi, what’re we doing?”

His lips twitch. Sensing the path this conversation is going down, he crowds up against the counter without thinking. “…Don’t know.”

You want to ask what distressed him enough to make him panic, partly because of how rare it is, but you know you won’t get a straight answer.

Telling him it would make you feel a lot better if he sat down gets him to at least give you a chance, however reluctantly. He perches himself on the edge of the tub.

You plant yourself next to him and pop open the cotton-white kit. This part comes so easily you can talk while your hands work: “I really wanted you to stay the night you showed up, but I was upset, too… But I think that’s understandable. Don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Obediently, he spreads his hand over your knee when you tap his wrist. You elevate it a little.

“Can you feel this?” You take your pointer finger and carefully trail it down from his third knuckle.

The way he cringes tells you he can. While beaming red and stiff like a tree branch, it isn’t bad, all things considered. Splinting it would still be safer though, no matter how quickly he heals.

“I take it you won’t go to the infirmary for this?”

He makes a low, unhappy sound. “Not if I don’t have to.”

“…And if I ask you that you do?”

“Same thing.”

Taken aback, you pause with the two pieces of metal bracing his finger. You didn’t expect him to say that after making it clear that it didn’t matter what either of you wanted, but he made it just as obvious that he wouldn’t dream of leaving you.

You decide not to comment: it’s high-time you stopped belittling yourself so much. Look what happened last time.

“Hey…” he mumbles, swallowing around the acid-shot of pain as you delicately splint the injury. Busy measuring his words, the silence drags on.

“Hey,” you say.

“…I meant what I said. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel the same as you.” He remembers what just transpired, and tenses involuntarily. “I realized that. Then… I. I thought there was danger where there wasn’t.”

“Oh, honey…” You sigh, quietly lending your ear as he wanders through an explanation. All the while, your hands go on working, taping the splints. Levi can be chatty when he wants to be, but he takes time with his words anyway.

It doesn’t surprise you much that that discovery would make him panic. You get the feeling that he’s afraid most times. Maybe the root of it isn’t that physical anymore, but the fear is still there, nestled just beneath the surface.

All you’re afraid of is him disappearing on you for good while it can still be prevented.

“I don’t know what–” he swallows. “We can’t. I can’t go through something like that all over again.”

He could go on about how you deserve someone decent enough to follow through when they’re told that you want them, that he’s mangled and jagged in places, that he’s not good—but he doesn’t try. He knows you don’t see him that way, not one bit.

The splint is finished. You wrap up with a tired shake of your head and stand, striding out of the bathroom without saying anything. You leave the first-aid kit behind, too.

That troubles him enough to rise to his feet. He follows you out into the sitting room, where so many dear memories lie. It feels like defacing sacred ground, inhabiting it like this.

You’re sitting at the table next to the window, clearly swathed in some anguished thoughts. He has no idea what to say to make it better—honesty and comfort go together like oil and water.

“Look,” he begins, eyes darting aimlessly from your face to the floor. “We can’t ever be normal. That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

“Friends?” The idea scrambles your brain. You look up at him, brows knit. “Maybe it’s easy for you to cram all your emotions into a tiny box in a dead-end ditch where they’ll never be found, but–” you shake your head, “–we can’t be friends, anymore or otherwise. I’ll always see you as something else.”

To him, you’re implying you want nothing to do with him. Not an option, he decides immediately, because that’d be even worse than if you died. You’d still be putting too much syrup on your pancakes and fighting with more tenacity than anyone in his squad and scrunching up your nose in your sleep—but you’d be strangers then.

Your jaw drops, hurt. “You think, after all I’ve cried over you, I’d be okay with not having anything to do with you?”

As you speak, you quickly rise to your feet and plant your hands on his shoulders, giving them an even shake; as if to wake him up.

“All? You’ve–” He’s busy being jittered by the first hit of your pearly perfume, along with any bit of your touch in days to think straight. He feels stuck, like roots. “Don’t cry over me.”

“Then don’t make me cry,” you shoot right back, stepping away and planting your hands on your hips. You’re determined to stand up for yourself this time.

“I…” He doesn’t know what to say to that. Either way, you could, you will. There’s always a chance. The difference is there’d be nothing he could do then, and no way he could make it better, not any longer.

“Stop that,” you sigh, like you’ve heard the argument—the root of his doubt—a million times. “We can’t think in ifs. If everyone spent all their energy worrying about dying, there’d be no point in doing anything. Is five years still not long enough to prove to you that I’m capable?”

He grinds his teeth. “You’re more than capable. I’m just…”

You fall back in the smooth, ornate chair and sniff. It’s asking too much for Levi to ever finish that sentence and admit he’s scared. Love hard, lose it, and you force yourself to stop loving; he’s lost so much, so he’s entitled to that fear, but you’re so sick of being scared. “Is that any way to live?”

It isn’t. He knows that it isn’t. Freeze up at the wrong moment, and it’s all over. That’s how most recruits go out, or the ones foolish enough to join the Scouts, anyway. Not death by Titan, but fear.

Losing another person precious to him, not by death, but by his own fault isn’t something he could tolerate. You’ve had some close scrapes of course, and you’ll have more, but while you’re both here you have a choice.

But…

One day it’s almost guaranteed you won’t, and if he lost you for good, it wouldn’t leave him that much stronger for it; it wouldn’t be like Isabel and Farlan. Your end would sap the life right out of him.

Stop that, your words remind him. How can I even bitch about that when she’s sitting right in front of me? What good does it do?

None. Seeking a little support from the table, he’s silent for a long moment, letting the words stir, thinking deeply.

It would be like taking his heart and leaving it completely in your hands. Whether it gets shredded would be no fault of your own, because he trusts you. It’s the odds. Just as well, yours would be in his hands too, and he hasn’t taken care of it lately like he should. Yet you bare your heart, and persist.

“I need… to think,” he decides, and eyes you above your hand, which you prop up your chin with. “Maybe that’s asking too much, after wasting so much damn time, which—was shitty of me. Sorry.” He hangs his head a little, avoiding your eyes.

You deflate, relieved. He’s not the only one who’s wasted time.

If he needs a while to choose what’s best for him, or to come to terms with things, you don’t hesitate to grant him that. All you ask is that he makes the choice. This rift torn between you has felt like tenderizing a nerve, every damn day since that night. You never want to feel like that again, not when it’s perfectly possible for things to be okay. “–is that okay?”

He nods, circling around the table. Once he’s right in front of you he crouches down and rests a reassuring hand on your knee—his good one. He needs you to know that he means this.

It takes him a moment to find the right words, but it takes you the same amount of time to lean forward, smoothing the ramrod-stiffness of his shoulder. His mind goes blank. He missed you like hell.

“I swear to you.” He finds your other hand, takes it delicately between his injury, and kisses it. You’re too precious to throw away—he will never, could never. He hears your breath shudder. “Understand? I’m serious, so don’t worry about those things that scare you.”

He also wants to warn you not to get a single scratch before he can settle on this, and that if he lands in favor of putting his heart in your hands, he wants to make it perfectly special the way someone like you deserves. You’re one of a kind. A moment like that—just like the night of Mayfest—leaves no room for any sort of heartache trailing behind. That sort of mushy fluff he can communicate by squeezing your hand, and the small look he quickly shoots you.

Your eyes gleam like he’s just as precious, which stings in the best of ways.

“Understood.” You squeeze back. Your other hand rises to the top of his head, petting.

A long breath he had no way of knowing he was holding leaves through his nose, and the tension, it feels like, eases away like runoff from a river.

The utter relief on his face must amuse you. “Cute. Relax a little.”

With a small grunt, his chin lands on your knee. Your fingers buried in his hair feels too damn good—always too good. That’s familiar, at least, but after it’s all said and done—whatever that may mean—it won’t matter if it feels normal or not. It’ll be good, because you’re good in any sector of his life.

“Stop, ‘m not a damn cat. You’re using that against me.”

You tut a little, and then your bound hands break away. His eyes shoot to your face, confused and a little torn, only to watch you press your fingers to your lips. At once you place them on his pout, and by the look on your face, you did it on purpose.

He smacks a small kiss to those fingers, leans up and catches your soft cheek, and takes his time leaving one on your forehead, then the side of your mouth. When it comes to the quirk of your pink lips, he stalls a little. He can’t decide if it’s appropriate or not to leave you hanging. He eyes you, wanting.

You tilt your head, lashes fluttering a little. You resist the way the pull between both of you yanks. “Take your time, ‘Vi.”

That’s a funny thing to say when he’s half-straddling your leg, not to mention his hand straying over your jaw. You have the collar of his shirt wound up like a knot, wanting just as much. He just needs time.

“Don’t worry,” he tells you again.

Over the next month, Levi’s quality of sleep takes a nosedive. It starts to become an oddity for him not to jerk awake every other night in a week, if he can get his mind to shut off at all.

And not just that: he’s even quieter than usual. Distracted. It takes a few tries of his name for him to hear you, but ironically enough he’s never strayed so close to you physically, no matter where you are: his kitchenette, the hallways, a crowded courtyard, and so on.

You tease him for staring; for the way he tends to idle to your side no matter who’s around, but all he can do is look away and complain that you stop being so ‘worth looking at’ if you don’t want his eyes on you.

You can’t say you’re surprised. He’s been forced to come to terms with “this lovey-dovey shit”, so no wonder—not that you don’t quietly revel in the attention. You remark that he’s just the sweetest for being so attentive lately, and smack a kiss on his cheek while you tend to his mending finger. He can make a mean face all day, but he doesn’t put up a fuss.

Then again, when you mention that you’re worried about him, he spares you a shake of his head and rakes his fingers through your hair.

“Don’t,” he tells you. “You’re good.”

You trust him. Plus, he isn’t pushing you away. It’s not like he’s been slaving away at his desk at all hours of the night (on purpose), and he’s been eating alright; and doing a dozen more little tasks for you than usual. The most telling of which—no matter if it’s just a training exercise—is that he takes good care in quality-checking your ODM.

You count your lucky stars that the Corps’ next expedition isn’t for a few weeks, but HQ is abuzz with papers to push and check to balance, even so soon. That’s the exact reason you’ve both taken to spending late nights burning candles at both ends to get it all done, with an excuse to spend some much-needed time together. Even better, you get to cook up warm meals for him and try your damndest when this or that needs cleaning (even though his brow scrunches up when it’s not quite up to his standards).

It only takes a few weeks for the splint to come off too (a medical phenomenon, as far as Hange is concerned), and a few more for it to both look and function normally again. Very little bitching was involved whenever you fixed up his splint, even; not so much when you insisted on kissing it better, but no matter. You’re happy just to have him.

Things aren’t perfect—more like your relationship dangles upon a tightrope at the moment—but you trust him, and you suspect he’s coming to trust you, too. Since the day you found him in the bathroom, torn to ribbons, a lot more of those moments have begun to seep through the cracks of your day-to-day relationship.

This means—in the hazy purgatory-hours of three or four in the morning—he’s gently rolling over and nudging you awake with his forehead, both hating that he needs something from you and trusting that it’s okay to need anything at all.

Where you’re curled up, facing away, you rouse back to the waking world with a flurry of blinks. “Lev’?”

“Can’t sleep,” he whispers, and tucks his face in the warm shade of your neck. “Can you–” A pause. “Forget it.”

You blink the remnants of sleep-fog away, fighting a doze. Curled around you, his chest could double as a heated blanket. “Want tea?”

Lately, you’ve been perusing the more exotic tea shops in Mitras. It started out as a dumb pastime before turning useful. You’ll taste-test and mock-review a bunch of sugary crap, and between that and all the joking, it’s exhausting to him; forget even the nightmares. A lifesaver is what it is.

While a grossly appealing idea, he shakes his head.

This snags more of your attention. You roll over in the tangled comforter and take him into your arms, where he gladly surrenders; like that is what he was waiting for. And there you lay, like two spoons in a drawer.

“Can I hear you talk about it?”

It’s much easier for Levi to ask a favor, you’ve found, as long as you present the request like it’s something that you wanted all along. More often than not, that’s the case anyway. You like doing him favors; he’s done so much for you for ages.

His forehead wrinkles and a little more softness bleeds into his dark eyes. Many moments pass.

“…I guess. I just wanted–” His lips press into a thin line. “Don’t indulge me. Don’t want you acting shitty tomorrow if you lose sleep.”

The least he (begrudgingly) decided to wake you for was what you’re giving him now: a little attention, or swaddling him up in your arms, or some warmth to vanquish a bunch of chilling thoughts. He imagined resting his head on your chest, but he’s not that picky.

“Too bad–” you yawn, “–you’re being indulged. I’m listening.”

He has to look somewhere else. “…Would you live with me, if I asked?”

The roundabout way he shares his feelings is a bit lost on you at four in the morning. You blink lazily and glide your hand beneath his shirt to rub his back, up and down. You know how nice it feels, since the rampaging waters of your mind are silenced when he does the same for you.

He murmurs your name, beckoning an answer.

“Would I live with you?” You test the words on your tongue, idling in the aroma of his clean hair. “You’re so cute.”

His brows knit. “What?”

“‘Cause it’s obvious. I’d do anything you asked me to.”

“…W-What?”

“You heard me,” you whisper. It wouldn’t be unlike him to ask you the meaning of life during a picnic or something, but whatever he means by that, it’s a yes.

The silence lingers. “…I would, and, if that’s your weird way of asking if I’d move in with you, that’d be good. I keep telling you I get our clothes mixed up when I stay over.”

A feeling claws at him to pull away, but he can’t. He buries his face in your throat instead.

The meaning of his question didn’t get across the way he meant it, but you answered more than enough. It’s his fault for being vague, but how can he be specific when he can hardly unravel his own feelings? He didn’t mean it in any other way besides you and him, living side by side, until you lived no longer. That’s all.

Hours and days of sleep deprivation is exactly like being drunk, but without the incentive people have for drinking in the first place. From his heart to his limbs he’s heavy, and he thinks zigzagged instead of straight, but there’s no buzz about it.

That’s why your foolish answer inspires hot tears to spring to his eyes; maybe it’s all these nightmares he’s been dragged through lately, too. He’s so tired. All this shit leaves him feeling vulnerable, with that day as the trigger.

Staying away from everyone and needing no one was an ailment he didn’t know ran in his blood. If you’re his life support in that way, he ripped it out, and only then did he see that way of life was only out to kill him.

If only both those things weren’t so painful.

“I don’t deserve that,” he hisses; not cruelly, but with all the desperation of someone staring down a loaded gun.

“Honey…”

You don’t go on, though you were honest and he’s as wrong as could be. It means so much to him. The most he communicates is through the mirrors in his eyes; when they’re soft with affection, or glassy when he’s primed to break.

He doesn’t even cry to you, so to sense hot tears against your throat means you tread on razor-thin ground.

“Don’t be stupid. I don’t deserve that,” he repeats.

“Who cares what you deserve?” you whisper. “It’s your choice.”

He wants to curl up and disappear into nothing. The first part is easy, but the second is impossible, just like finding a way for you to be wrong. He grasps at straws instead: “Is it yours?”

“Of course. Even if…” Never mind ifs. “You make me so happy.”

“Yeah. I know.”

But his voice comes like he’s been gargling nails. Him making you happy—what a double-edged sword. It’s easy to loathe that he can’t convince you otherwise, just like it’s easy to loathe that you two could be wrong together; not because you aren’t the best person in his life, but because tragedy follows him. But, if your mind is made, it’s not his right to try and change it.

You kiss the top of his head, and he feels pleasant pins and needles. “It’s the same for you, right?”

“Yeah.”

You want to hear him talk some more: about his doubts, or about anything. Of course he’s scared, but he bears that weight silently. Always has. You’ve reminded him over and over how he can’t carry the burden of the world upon his shoulders (neither can you, for that matter), so he doesn’t have to be alone in his own burdens, either. You remind him.

“I’m here,” you say. “I’m right here.”

Maybe he’ll tear your shirt from how hard he grips it, but that’s okay. He’s tucked himself against your side, in your neck for so long your skin begins to grow swampy, but it can’t just be that: his breaths are pinched, and so small. You think his eyes are squeezed shut, but somehow you know for sure when a knot rips, gets blown to ribbons, or dissolves into pieces. You know for sure that he’s crying.

Instantly, tears spring to your eyes. You’ve never heard Levi cry. Suddenly, a frantic urge swallows you—to protect him from the very shadows in this room from prying to hear, even ghosts, or the lightning bugs outside, or everything. You cradle the back of his head, hold him tight, and make sure they don’t.

“You deserve so much, Levi,” you whisper, hushed. “I’m here.”

He pushes closer as if he means to barrel right through you, and speaks like scraping metal together. “Fucking. Pathetic.”

“Let it go.”

His shoulders wrack freely with sobs—ugly, hiccuped things that he can at least bury in your instead of himself. He’s not good enough to not cry, and he’s not good enough to be anything but consumed by shame when he does. A normal person doesn’t kick a beaten dog when it’s down, but he’ll do it to himself, all the while hating that it dared let itself be beaten in the first place.

Forget it all.

His tears turn into sloppy weeping. It feels as though it will never stop.

Get a goddamn hold of yourself, he thinks. This is ridiculous, sits on the tip of his tongue, but he can’t get a hold of himself, and you keep saying you’re here, and you keep calling him my Levi, so what comes out is: “Don’t leave me—behind.”

“I’m scared too, honey,” you whisper, because you refuse to lie to him. “So don’t leave me behind, either.”

It’s wrenched from down deep in his chest, all this wet blubbering.

He’s thankful you don’t make a promise you can’t keep—rather, you don’t lie to him. In the same way, he still wants it; to be tied with you like two black and blue ribbons; blood to blood, mind to mind, heart to heart. It’s worth what it costs, or he will die to be proven wrong. His love will crash into dust.

It was his own promise to make a choice, but that feels wrong somehow now, as if no good alternative to what he wants exists, let alone one that would leave you happy. Maybe—just like back then when Petra confessed—there was never going to be another answer.

This is all he can do. Let go, if only it could happen all at once, like shattering glass. Sometimes that must mean holding him like a loaded gun, but you’ve both carried each other this far, haven’t you?

He’s unlearned so much along the way, but never has it felt so profoundly like dying until now.

And you never stop talking to him—being here. You sound a lot like how downy feathers feel, all around, everywhere, always.

You say, “You’re so good, angel,”, and you tell him that even if being this selfish makes you two the worst in the world, that you wouldn’t regret it, not for a second; but his choice is his own and you will be here either way. He has no power to scrounge a reply, so all he can do is listen, and remember you.

Even when he wrings himself out, a millstone up high in his chest wobbles. It feels as though it will never stop, and maybe it’ll never dissolve into crumbs he can’t feel. That doesn’t mean it can’t crack in half so he can live without it crushing him.

You run out of meaningful quips, and meander on other insightful things, like how his hair smells nice. “You were sweet to iron my jacket yesterday,” you say, and “Maybe Oluo and Petra will stop bickering one day,” and this and that and this: “I’m here.”

He imagines you make all this noise for him, or to keep yourself awake. Either way, he surprisingly cannot, and he drifts as though between the underside of a silky-smooth stream and just above it where it runs lazily.

It gets him lost, and when awareness reaches him next, silvery-grey dawn presses through the curtains. The colors are all dull, like they’re just waking up.

He raises his head from your chest, cracks his eyes open, then closes them and feels their sting. While he gets back all the air he lost by breathing long, slow and deep, he smears the sticky, cold tears away with baggy sleeves. It’s too warm, but the cottony texture feels good to rub his eyes with.

What a mess. Guilt trickles into his stomach, because this is your sweater. He’ll wash it later.

Then, your sleeping face and the utter peace etched into your soft brow. That’s good.

He doesn’t like to see you asleep; not because you’re not the most beautiful woman he’s ever laid eyes on and he gets an excuse to stare, but because of other reasons. It’s already morning anyway, so he decides to poke the sleeping bear and wake you up.

His kisses are butterfly wings—to your cheek, the tip of your nose, then the smooth stretch of skin just below your eye. There’s some longing feeling picking at him to kiss you all over, and even then he still wouldn’t be satisfied.

Your lashes give a tiny flutter, but you don’t wake. His lips find your forehead, and he watches it wrinkle a little. One more, just above your lips, where the air you breathe passes through. Your fingers twitch over his shoulder, where you must’ve held him all night—or since hours ago.

This reminds him of your stubborn insistence that—in the case of his nightmares—you claimed you had them down to a science: “It’s mostly when we’re sleeping on opposite sides” and, “Well… you always reach for me when you wake up.” He rolled his eyes, then retorted that all you needed were a pair of goggles and you’d turn into Hange.

But maybe your theory isn’t just a load of hot air. He’s a light-sleeper (a ‘hair-trigger sleeper’, Mike says), to the point he’s woken before to some faceless soldier padding down the hall; outside his living space, outside his office, past his door. Whenever you’re whimpering and twitching in your sleep and he rouses you awake, your arms usually find him in the same way you described, just like a shot’s gone off. He believes you that much.

With a deft thumb, he traces the length of your cheekbone. You’re really beautiful.

Heart clenching, his lips meet yours just briefly; long enough to get an idea of their light chapped state. For just a moment he thinks that did it, but your hold on him only tightens a little. Fondly, he kisses you again.

Even after that day he made the promise and decided not to kiss you, it fell apart not hours later when you gave him a peck without thinking; he had brought over your laundered clothes in the evening, the hamper braced on one hip. Your eyes blew wide, but all he could do was shake his head, a little stunned, but not surprised.

“I changed my mind,” he told you, “If you’re gonna be so forgetful then—forget what I said.”

He resists the urge to sniff away the last of his stuffiness. What’s worse, his eyes must be red from crying, bruised circles underneath. It’s not a pretty sight to wake up to, but just when he’s entertaining the idea to let you sleep in, you take a big breath and open your eyes.

“Morning,” Levi rasps, somewhat unceremoniously, and gently knocks his forehead against your temple in a manner you’ve endlessly described as ‘kitten-like’. He does it anyhow so you don’t get a look at the state of his hair, let alone his face.

Your hand plops in his hair anyway. “Mm. Awe, this is just like sleeping beauty. Are you my prince?”

He scoffs a little, not because he knows the story (beyond your anecdotal version) but because you called him that. His bad attitude doesn’t stop you from pecking him on the lips, though. Once, twice, but he leans in for a third, a much longer one; to get across that he’s thankful.

“There’s no curse,” he mumbles, and pecks your lips again. He can’t get enough, and neither can you, if your hold on him says anything. “You’d wake up anyway.”

“But are you my prince?”

“…If you never shut up about it.”

Your lips break into a small grin. As you smooth the worry off his brow, you let him know he’d make a very handsome, albeit grumpy prince, and reach around to give the back of his thigh a squeeze. In a perfect moment of weakness, you manage to make him crumple right on top of you. He’s so sensitive there.

He makes a low, warning noise, and raises up with his forearms, which lie at both sides of your head. That’s when your mouth strays below his ear, suckling.

Pleasant shivers lick through him. He dares to play at the hem of your stretchy top, where underneath lies soft skin warm like a furnace. He feels you.

Neither of you have time for this, fooling around, which is why you sigh longingly at the hint of hardness trapped between your bodies, and make an attempt to tame his mangled bedhead instead, where below lies a grumpy expression.

“G’morning,” you murmur, and squish his cheeks.

“Ugh.” His brow draws further, but you know and he pretends not to that he might as well be a razor-eyed teddy bear. “I said that already.”

You snort a little, but you didn’t forget last night. “Do you feel better?”

Levi pries your hands away and kisses a few of your fingers. “I’m hard. What do you think?”

This makes you laugh, shedding the last of sleep from your bones. He plants your hand over your mouth, both passing the kiss on, and in efforts to shut you up. This only makes you laugh harder.

Especially warm heat curls low in your belly, no matter if he meant it as a joke or not. You’re dying a little to know if he’d be interested in doing something about that, and despite how scandalized he looks, he doesn’t say no. Tragically, both of your schedules are jammed full of tasks for the day.

Tonight, or as soon as possible, whenever, is his opinion. If you want to measure the right time to screw around depending on how much he likes it when you kiss him all over, you’re wasting your time.

A white-hot thrill rolls through you. That’s enlightening—if that’s the case, a bit sooner than ‘as soon as possible’ is your preference, personally.

—

“Not gonna fall asleep.”

You snicker. Usually when Levi says something like that, the opposite is true, but a disgruntled huff against the back of your neck insists he’s serious.

It’s been a long day, but somehow, someway, you managed to drag yourselves (mainly you dragged him) to bed early. While the late-summer sun has long-since sunk below the horizon, the oil lamp on his bedside glows, and you’re so warm. That’s thanks to a hot bath, plus Levi, who’s always run warmer than most.

You skate your fingertips along his tough hand, easing aches out of it from the ODM; a massage was his demand if you wanted him to turn in early. His hand is tense, but he’s a little tense all over.

To be fair, you are too. Because of (finally, for once) taking things easy, or the stubborn daytime heat, you’re dressed down to just a pair of thin panties and a summery camisole: the sort someone might wear to go swimming, if they’re so privileged.

In comparison his bare chest rises and falls at your back. He almost never dresses down this much, which you used to chock up to his extreme need to be ready and dressed in case of absolutely anything. That was until you learned that it’s not just hyper-vigilance, but the whole idea of being exposed.

“Are you kidding? I’m practically naked,” he grumbled once (on a night just as stuffy), all the while dressed in a tight-fitting t-shirt and cotton boxers.

You haven’t forgotten this morning either, but ironically it’s not on your mind when you squirm back against him—he simply radiates heat like a furnace. A disgruntled noise follows, which (naturally) has you giggling and doing it again, this time harder, this time using your hips.

He inhales sharply, and his hold around you grows tight. “Hey… Don’t start something you can’t finish.”

“Hm…” You pretend to measure your hands. “You have long fingers.”

A little gasp leaves you when he nips at your earlobe. Heat wobbles in your lower half.

Dumbfounded, you turn your head, and you get to watch your hair whip at his face. “Did you just bite me?”

His sharp gaze narrows, calculating. “No.”

“Liar,” you laugh, and shift back around.

You fear you’ll pop like a firecracker from nerves. As much as you push his buttons, you don’t have the guts to start anything, not when it comes to something you’ve never done before.

It’s back to his veiny forearms, where muscles ripple beneath his pale skin; his pallor is like porcelain, in this light. You can’t imagine how lifeless his skin looked before leaving the Underground.

Like molasses, he eventually relaxes and becomes a blanket draped around your back again. He peers over your shoulder, eyeing where your curiosity currently lies: the fat, round scars dotting his forearm the color of full moons.

You normally don’t talk about such things—the past, that is—not in any excruciating detail, at least. He’ll tuck his hand beneath his chin and listen aptly as you gossip about anything, but even for you, some shadows the past holds stay there, buried.

“It wasn’t the man who raised me,” he mutters, reading your mind perfectly. “But they are from cigars.”

You feel a blip of surprise, hearing him speak so plainly. Many (too many) traumas in his skin make him up, so intricately-webbed stories don’t exist for every single one, as he’s explained to you before.

You ask for more, if he doesn’t mind sharing. Maybe it’ll ruin the mood, but you care about this more. Plus, he has a nice voice.

By the tightness in his brow, he’s grasping for an unpleasant memory. You lean over and kiss the tip of his nose, and he bashfully ducks his head.

“It’s not a nice story.”

You give his hand a squeeze. “I don’t mind.”

One last time, he searches your face for any objections, then starts: “It was frowned upon to have kids where I lived, when I was younger.” He pauses. “Obviously. So the owner always had it out for me.”

A thread of rage winds around your heart. He must see the look on your face, because he shakes his head.

“Nothing we could do. It was his roof we lived under. That freak made plenty of threats–” his lips twitch, “–never mind. I had babysitters when she worked, so he was hard to avoid.”

He stops there, and just so he doesn’t feel pressured to continue, you worm closer and dot kisses where the scars lie. The tissue feels rough, fused somehow, where his skin will never be the same. Your lips touch each one.

He sighs through his nose, a quiet, even breath, before it lands on the slope of your neck, nudging you like a chipmunk. The gesture is very cute, so much so that you somehow smile after such a tale.

“I have shitty stories too.”

Levi visibly deflates, relieved now that the spotlight is off him. He waits patiently.

You doubt there’s a thing he doesn’t know about you, really, but as for scars, there’s the stretch marks streaking your skin in places; a strange feature for a longtime soldier—let alone a Scout—to have.

You only joined up at fifteen, the age where teenage rebellion snarls its loudest and barrels through with intent to inflict as much havoc as possible. Still, if you could go back, you wouldn’t hesitate to do it all over again.

“I always wanted to go outside the Walls—but I think it got worse after we moved to the Interior.”

That is, your father found the sort of pompous, nothing-work that kept your family more than fed. He was alongside the same people who call Levi ‘the Commander’s dog’ just five years past his recruitment.

The caveat of your cushy life back then was the memory of your life before it, when your knuckles were tough and the air was fresh and stained with dew, a shadow of what the air outside the Walls is like.

Levi knows, but not the details: like how hard you fought your family on joining up, how much you hated and bickered and fought just to get another lungful of that same air. The marks on your body have always reeked of shame.

Running away was selfish, maybe even suicidal, but Scouts are the only people who don’t fight for their own lives. If they did, every speck of grass out there would belong to the Titans because no one would dare fight them.

“It’s not shameful to make your own decisions.” His low voice rumbles by your ear. “If you put it that way, waiting would’ve just staved off the inevitable.”

You’re lulled into a dull sense of comfort by his reassurance; his hand, too, moving mindlessly just below the hem of your shirt.

“Thanks.” Thick words of affection stick to your tongue. You have to blink in your stupefaction, for how naturally they floated to the surface. “…I appreciate that. You.”

Suddenly, you would do anything to just not think. With a little haste, you roll around in his arms and kiss his cheek, his pink lips, then his jaw, and his lips again.

This time, he meets you feverishly, rolling over so you drop in a heap right on top of him. Your lips smack obnoxiously, but you don’t hear. Your noses mash, and in him you taste bitter tea, and mint leaves. When he breaks it, his face is flushed like pink late-spring flowers.

Levi blinks like he can’t quite believe his eyes. His lips part, then close. “Okay.”

Fondly, you grin. Your hand roams up and down his chest. “Okay? Okay-what?”

“Okay-good,” he huffs, “I don’t know what made you do that, but okay. Good.”

In reality, he doesn’t know what he’s saying and his mind has been reduced to syrup and butterflies. He wants you closer, so he pulls you there.

Shivers rise up on his skin; all from your hands riding up his bare chest before splitting apart to scoop up his jaw. And all the while, you just keep smiling at him—not the one where you’re laughing at him behind your eyes, but the one that makes him feel fragile and happy.

Your foreheads brush when you kiss this time. Soft lips leave him, then your eyes skitter down below his jaw. “What about this one?”

He blinks lazily at you. “What one?”

You make a little motion towards the pasty tear seared into the skin below his adam’s apple, a silent ask of permission. He shrugs, then feels a shiver run up and down his spine when your finger glides across the thing. It’s overwhelming, like being cut without the blade.

The slice—made with an actual blade—is old, so old it’s hardly visible compared to his pale pallor, but it’s there. A close call, he tells you, from back when he was surviving on his own, but not for very long.

“That’s scary,” you mumble, somehow afraid; not of the close call so much as how simple and yet how devastating a slip-up like that must’ve been; a cheap shot that gave him no chance to even defend himself.

“Yeah.” His lips dip to your hairline. You smell like rich shampoo. “It was, at the time.”

You stroke the fine line a moment longer, then lean in.

A feather-light kiss ghosts his throat. Immediately, goosebumps rise to his skin and heat trickles into his lower half. You almost never kiss him there, but only because that place is so vulnerable.

“Sorry.” Your voice is just as soft as the press of your lips. “I should’ve asked first. Is this okay?”

He watches you carefully through his lashes, then nods. As you slowly speckle kisses down his jawline, then down and down, he feels himself twitch and harden. His hand drops to your waist, where your camisole has ridden up.

You must feel it, but you don’t stop, and that’s new.

He finds himself half-sprawled on his back with you flat on top, kissing his throat. You’re hesitant at first, mindful of how sensitive he is, but when his breath breaks and he leans back to make room, your confidence grows.

They linger, grow hot and open-mouthed—and it’s good. With nothing else to do with his hands, he fingers the hem of your panties, and pins his tongue between his teeth. His spare falls in your hair so you don’t leave, especially when you trace the scar with your tongue.

Then, your teeth. He hears himself gasp, his chest lifting at the suction of your mouth. You hum while a small sound slinks its way past his lips, and it’s so much he almost retreats. Thing is, his lower half is nearly fully hard and throbbing. He realizes it’s not too much, rather it’s not enough.

“Marks,” he whispers. With a handful of your hair, he guides your sticky mouth lower to a place his cravat will cover. You hum like a songbird, but oblige. The wet trail you leave cools on his skin, and he shivers hard.

Desire claws at him. His hips involuntarily twitch, then roll up into the heat between your thighs. The sound you make has him abruptly rolling you over so he can treat you the same way. Your pulse races under his tongue.

“Yeah, ‘Vi.”

The way he hovers over you now reminds him with chilling clarity of a time many expeditions ago. You both work (and fight) so well together that some moves have you acting in tandem, and once, something went wrong. Before your body could slam into the earth, he forced his wires slack, seized you, and your bodies went barreling.

He took the brunt of the impact—that is, he shielded you—and when the world was right-side up and still again, he found himself on top of you just like this. The difference is, right then in the heat of the moment, he couldn’t slip his palm beneath your head and kiss you like the world was ending. He was also injured then, and you gave him quite a bit of hell for his actions later.

Didn’t matter: All he saw was you falling out of the sky, and he acted. It doesn’t get any more plain than that. Just how a strangled embrace can wordlessly speak, ‘I thought I lost you I thought it was over stay right here,’ you murmur now, “Please. Don’t stop.”

You coax him in for a sloppy kiss. He didn’t plan to, and he doesn’t, not until you take his plump bottom lip between your teeth and he’s forced to pull back for air. It’s hard to breathe; after all, his head is already buzzing.

“You said not to start something I couldn’t finish…” comes the quip, then your lopsided smirk. Another pillowy kiss. “…What if I can?”

Levi pretends those honey-soaked words don’t make him throb. “Always such a smartass.”

He takes your hand and places it in his hair in silent permission. When you kiss him again and your tongue parts his lips, heavy and wet and scathing hot, it feels like the very air is being dragged from his lungs.

Somehow, it’s so much different than the countless kisses you’ve shared. Your tongues glide as gently as silk, as if tasting each other rather than devouring. This has none of the roughness he’s used to from sexual encounters, not even the hurry. He shivers in excited fear.

Then harder when you tug at his dark hair, ushering him the slightest bit closer. Another small sound vibrates the kiss. Almost immediately you make the kiss bruising, and when you suck on his tongue, he moans. An eager heat joins the blood in his veins.

When he hears you too, the sound vibrates the warm fog in his mind. Your unsung praise, not to mention your lower half shifting somewhere beneath him and caging in his waist, encourages him to take the lead.

What he knows you enjoy he does best: he makes himself a little more heard, slipping his hand past your waist to grope at your plump ass, while his free hand flirts with the hem of your fine top. The way your body twitches and bows towards his own tells him he’s doing everything right.

When you pull away—to find air, to shudder a sigh, or both—he doesn’t wait. He nods your head back to reach your neck. You taste like salt and heat and trace perfume.

Once he can get a wrangle on a proper thought, he asks if you’re good. It’s not the most eloquent way to check in, but it’s the most straight thought he can manage. He’s never this nervous around you anymore. It’s like as long as you’re touching in any way at all, he gets the same sensation as dragging socked feet across carpet and touching cold metal.

“S’good,” you reply, and to prove yourself further, your hand falls over his and drags it up, underneath your top. He finds silky-soft skin, then your ODM scars etched down your waist in a V shape. Since the fabric is so stretchy, very quickly the rest of your top follows suit, so everything from your collar down is exposed to the cool air. You’re glad to be wearing a bra.

It’s not exactly a word, but a sound on the tip of his tongue very close to your ear, like the air’s been sucked from his lungs: “Oh.”

You feel oddly vulnerable beneath his silvery eyes, so you speak in a rush: “Are you good?” Then you get distracted. “Gods. You look so fucking pretty, Levi…”

It’s the pink peaks of his nipples that have the praise roll off your tongue; the swell of his cock through his briefs too, which is almost too perfectly visible. You wonder if they’re small on him, or if he’s just that hard already.

His perfect brow knits together. “I’m? I’m good.”

Then, it’s bunches of kisses on your wrist, to your elbow, then the slope of your collarbone; all places a partner otherwise wouldn’t pay mind to. You‘re flattered, but it tickles. You find yourself giggling, only to be cut off by his hand dipping into the cup of your bra, and shuddering from what he feels there.

Then he snorts, and when you look up, his eyes faintly gleam with mirth.

“Cute bra.” His fingers skirt across the loose frills at the bottom, then he gives the bow in the middle a tug, right below your cleavage. “No way you wore it just for me, right?”

Fighting every urge to squirm, you bite at your lip. “In your dreams.”

But you did. You think he can tell you did, too, by the way he looks at you, which is why you squeeze your tit through the fine cotton and slowly rock your hips against his.

You get what you want: his lips part with a small groan, and suddenly he’s stooping over you and meeting you halfway, where you’re soaking wet, he’s hard and you’re both bleeding heat. Your thighs part, inviting him in.

Maybe it’s what you should’ve expected, or maybe it’s Levi, but between your thighs, he’s so much harder than you expected—hotter, too, like it’s pelting off him in waves.

The friction is mind-numbingly good on your clit, but there’s too much fabric barring you from him. You need more.

Levi moans soft, drives his hips down hard, and must feel the same way. His gaze lifts to you, looking for direction.

You give it by leaning up just a tad, and reaching behind yourself. The sound of your bra coming undone is near-soundless, as is his palms roaming your dips and curves like you’re unfathomably beautiful. Maybe it’s your heart roaring in your ears.

It isn’t exactly the first time he’s seen you topless—you’ve fooled around before, and in general, life as a soldier sometimes requires communal-showering—but you find yourself stiff with nerves anyway.

The sigh that leaves him shakes as his palms roam further. “Sweetheart. Can I–?”

“Yes.”

Your tits feel soft and warm and full in his palms. You’re already whimpering. He bows his head and gives you his hands while his tongue traces the gnarled ODM scar straight across your chest—something he always wanted to do. Then, he sucks one of them into his mouth.

“Oh, Levi.” Your sigh sounds more like a ghostly whine. His tongue is heavy and hot, teasing around your nipple, then flattening his tongue so it’s brought to an aching peak. With his spare hand he gives your other the same treatment.

It seems he’s unhappy that he can’t do both at once; he squeezes them together, eyes glazed, and while you moan for him, he bows his head and digs in. He sucks on your tits and indulges himself until your nipples are raw and his lips are deeply pink. You immediately miss him when he leaves—the cool air is nothing like his buttery mouth.

You scoop up the back of his head, combing his undercut backwards in efforts to steal more and more of his lips. His hair is all messed up now, but you think he’s too turned on to care.

Just below, you’re stunned to feel him throbbing. He meets the rolls of your hips like you could possibly get anywhere without taking off the rest of your clothes.

“Levi, baby,” you try.

He whines softly, like he can but doesn’t know if he’s allowed to. Two lithe fingertips slip beneath the hem of your panties, tugging, playing at them.

Your voice is small. “Please… touch me, if you want to.”

If you want to. He thinks he’ll die if he doesn’t. One of his hands falls between your thighs, beneath that yet another little bow decorating your panties. He makes a light sweeping motion up and down where you’re clearly the wettest with two finger tips, and you jolt. “Levi.”

You must really fucking like that. So, he presses down on your soaked mound with one wide palm, and rubs. Your hips practically jump into his hand, and he gets chills. You get so damn loud.

“So fucking wet,” he breathes. You’re positively soaked through the thin, cotton fabric, actually. He feels the wetness gather on his palm.

You gasp in kind, rutting up so he cups your pussy just right. The friction is to die for. “Levi, please. Quit teasing me.”

“But you like it,” he retorts, and parts your thighs a little wider so he can skate his fingertip in circles. He presses down a touch harder in a spot where your voice shakes. Admittedly, he isn’t quite sure what he’s doing.

He’s so hard he’s aching. It doesn’t help that his dick is trapped. He doesn’t want to squirm, so he reaches between his thighs, palming himself. He thought it’d be embarrassing, but the way you practically ogle the sight of him now erases his doubts.

“Shit.” Dark eyes flutter. His cock is actually pulsing.

You lean up on your haunches, ask, “Can I–?” and he pins his tongue between his teeth before giving consent. You’re nervous and so is he, but you’ve both earned that right after years and years of flirting around each other and doing next to nothing about it.

He saw your hand moving, but he still goes rigid when your palm lands over the obvious bulge in his briefs. In some effort to reassure you, or guide you along, his hand falls over your own, and he rocks his hips. His jaw falls slack. “Ah.”

“Oh.” Your lips part at the sight of him so earnestly rocking into your touch. You feel electric. “Off?” Again, your voice sounds ghostly.

He hesitates. In his version of events, all the attention would be on you, not him, but if that’s what you want, it’s good enough for him and the hot ache twisting in his lower half.

He tugs at his waistband, freeing his cock, then shoves the stretchy fabric down much more so he can kick it far away. His dick slaps against his rippled stomach, dusted by dark hair that trails down and down between his thighs. He’s hard to the point of straining. Your lips part at the sight, your breath growing heavy just from looking.

He’s thick, too, from the base—where his balls are fat and swelled—to his plump, round cockhead, where cum has beaded and dribbled down, practically begging for you to wrap your hand around. It’s a pretty pink, too, a shade lighter than his lips, but just as dark as the blush stretching down his neck.

“Is it–” he squirms, “Am I…”

You remember yourself. “So fucking pretty, honey. Fuck, it’s so thick. Gorgeous,” you babble.

Closer. You tug at him until the wide planes of his thighs are flush with the bottoms of your own. Then, you bend your knees to give him room to get even closer. Anything closer.

He squeezes his eyes shut even though it’s the praise he craved so badly, and tugs for you so you’re propped up against a few pillows; no matter that you’re already close as can be.

“C-Can’t just say that.”

“I mean it. And you like it,” you huff, just to get him back for earlier. “S’twitching, so hard for me.”

You run your palm up the wiry hairs just below his navel, up his chest, chiseled and packed with muscle. It’s so easy to adore him.

You can’t imagine ever tiring of this; until he got sick of it you’d touch him—while burning with the satisfaction of how he twitches and squirms from the littlest touches—and admire the strawberry peaks of his nipples, how soft his skin and how rough, how he moans for you and how he complains when you compliment him.

You want it all. It’s deviously appealing to spread him out and map every one of his scars with your tongue. You could leave wet trails over the curves of his muscles, and bright red bruises along the dark indents where the ODM has permanently made its mark on his body.

Levi watches where your gaze goes, feels your hands wandering all over his body, and his heavy breaths become open-mouthed panting. He can’t help but squirm—your pretty hands are groping his tits, for fuck’s sake—and yet he lift his hips, craving more.

“C’mon already. Fucking—wasting time.”

“Oh?” Your pointer finger finds his chin, lifting his head up. “I’ll take all the time I want. You deserve to be admired.”

His brow wrinkles, absolutely helpless. After pulling away, he doesn’t even realize his thighs have pinched closed a little. It’s becoming more and more clear just how deep his embarrassment, or fear, runs.

“Don’t.”

Your brows lift. You didn’t expect that; like years before, outright pulling away when you shower him with compliments. Then again, the most you ever did was pat him on the head. Now this, well.

With a quiet apology, you kiss his temple, tasting salty sweat, then his chin. And you are sorry. You didn’t mean to upset him.

He takes this ample opportunity to kiss you. “Can it be your turn now?”

“Yes.” You almost laugh. “Please.”

Surprisingly, he hesitates before letting his palm roll over your cunt, barred by (those goddamned) panties. Your whimper rises into a moan when he thumbs them to the side and dips into your slit.

Oh, fuck. One finger glides between your soaked lips, causing your pussy to flutter so hard your jaw goes slack.

“Are you–? Shit, pretty girl.” He shudders a sigh at the way you practically hump his hand; or rather, at the sight of you. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” you whimper. You vaguely register that that’s not at all the question you expected, but the thought runs off the rails as soon as his thumb rolls around your clit. Heat sweeps through your belly. “Oh. ‘Vi.”

You make a quick grab for his heavy shoulders, craving support, but he stops.

He lurches back to look at you. “Did that hurt?”

You could cry. A wet whimper falls from your mouth instead with a sharp shake of your head.

His obliviousness makes you question how much experience Levi really has; not that it’d be a bad thing if it wasn’t much, or if it was bad experience, but you figured he’d know it would feel good, playing with your clit like that.

“No, it’s good. Really good. Do you not know?”

His mouth opens, then closes. He pats your thigh, motioning for you to lift your hips so he can help you shed your (most definitely ruined) panties. You do so like a shot’s gone off.

He finally gets a good look at you, but he doesn’t look at you for long.

“Not about—someone like you,” he manages, and picks at the sheets below you.

Your brows lift.

With a sharp twist of embarrassment, “Sorry… I should’ve said. You got so loud, screaming like that, I got worried.”

The shot of surprise passes you by when he exaggerates so much. You deny that with a giggle, and gather more pillows behind yourself so you can sit up without all the strain.

With your ankles resting by his waist, his knees hug your own. The position is strange—if you launched forward you’d drop right into his lap—but you both have plenty of room to kiss and touch each other.

“I’m sorry, for assuming.”

Anyone would. He shrugs and invites you closer by the small of your back, then kisses your shoulder, shy.

“Hey, I’m a good teacher.” You let your foreheads fall together.“You’re really good, but not scream-worthy, Captain. Maybe one day, hm?”

His chest lifts. “Fuck.” His shoulders drop. “That’s not fair. Fuck you.”

A little snag of curiosity wants to exploit just how much he likes his rank being used against him. Instead, you flick him on the ear as punishment, and kiss him before he can bitch any more.

You have an idea, and you tell it to him—touching each other at the same time.

“If you can focus on two things at once, sure.”

As he says this, his palm slides down, and strokes your slit.

He watches your expression pinch, your chest lift, and he’s fascinated by just how soaked you are. It’s too easy to imagine his cock slipping right between your folds, plunging inside, but it’s an overwhelming image, too. This is the first time you’ve done anything at all, or he’s pretty sure.

He asks, just to know for certain, but at the last possible word his voice dies a little. Your hand is so close to his cock.

Touch me, he thinks. Touch me, touch me, fuck me.

Sheepishly, you nod, which is why he guides you with his free hand, his other much too busy stroking around and around your pink clit. The way you lift your hips like that, it reminds him—in a twisted, perverted way—how your body moves when launching off with the ODM.

Focus—what a joke.

Every one of his muscles draw tight when your hand takes the base of his cock in a loose grip. The air thickens somehow, laced with electricity.

He helps you stroke up and down, so slowly his hips stutter forward for a little more. A little tighter, and he shudders. Cum oozes from his slit and dribbles down his cock.

“Oh,” you say.

Once you’ve picked up on the way to properly work him—and you’ve always been a quick learner—the resulting slide licks tender flames at his insides.

Each time he opens his eyes to watch you pump him, while your wet cunt is right there, he feels profound satisfaction. It’s not just the sensations, but it’s you touching him, you moaning all sweet and soft when his thumb rocks your clit. Amazing chills run through his bones.

You don’t notice his guiding hand fall away; only feel it when it falls over your shoulders to hold you closer to him. He looks so gorgeous you forget the rest.

You stare. Levi almost never wears short sleeves or shorts, so if the rosy pallor of his face was anything close to tan, the rest of him is porcelain. Because of the sweat, or the sex, his pink lips, his eyes, and between his thighs (where he runs the hottest) seem to shine, almost.

Under your hand his cock is hot and slippery. Thick, too. He doesn’t even need length for it to be impressive; intimidating, even. It feels different to touch than you thought it would. His skin in particular has always felt deceptively soft, past the callouses, muscles, scars.

He sounds so pretty, too. No matter if his teeth are constantly hooked in his bottom lip, the softest, sweet noises escape him anyway. It seems he hates the sound of his own pleasure, but there comes a point where he just can’t help it.

He flicks your clit. You clench around nothing, and a soft sound escapes your parted lips.

“Fuck.” He shudders as your finger scales a large vein on the underside, where he’s sensitive and throbbing and coated in cum, and you agree: “Yeah.”

Soon, it becomes unbearable. “Can you—use your fingers? Please. It’s-It’s easy.”

Of course he can, but since you got undressed he’s been curious: It’s not just the sweet, heavy air of sex in the room that makes you smell so good, does it?

His fingers are webbed in your cum when he pulls them away. He’s just about dying to taste them—there’s no way, with how saliva floods his mouth that there’s anything gross about it—but your lost puppy-eyes are out. It can wait.

Your hand falls away from his cock to spread your legs for a better angle. Along the way you’re trying your damnedest to keep a train of thought and explain that, “You almost never have to… prepare me, or anything, and you don’t need anything extra–”

And then a single finger is prodding, circling your rim, and your head is spilling back onto the pillows. You gasp out loud, and it leaves in a quiet moan when he shallowly slips it inside. Then deeper.

Like a dimwit, his mouth drops open; it’s just that your cunt is so hot, like a velvety cushion growing somehow tighter around the intrusion, swallowing him in. His cock pulses in the air, helplessly.

Doesn’t matter. He’s watching your blissed expression for any signs of discomfort before gently bullying in a second one. It could be totally unnecessary, but that’s the way he’s used to doing it.

If you were feeling good before, you’re fucking euphoric now; especially when he decides he’s done with testing the waters and starts short strokes. Gently, he stretches his fingers apart, then curls them inside. He’s just down to the second knuckle.

“Oh, fuck.” Your thighs squeeze his waist tight, so he does it again. It’s the easiest thing to pick up a steady pace, splitting your pussy open around two fingers. His are slender, so they don’t add up much to how thick his cock is. If he goes on too long imagining your tight, pillowy heat swallowing in his girth, just how full it’d make your cunt, the image of the gorgeous woman before his eyes will run away from him.

You’re moaning, dragging your nails along the big planes of his thighs, and when you beg for more, he’s laying you down a little more and giving it to you. It’s a stupidly appealing thought to drag it out, to tease, and make you whine for him, but he wants to please you more; this time. This time he wants to watch your expression split with bliss as your tight pussy gushes around his fingers. Maybe he’s drunk on you.

“Levi,” you gasp, “Levi, Levi–”

He whines and finger-fucks you harder. The pain is dazzling when you pull his hair this hard.

A little further down, the soft weight of your tit feels so good in his grasp; looks good, too. It reminds him that he’s the one making you feel good. You’re calling his name. His.

You’re close. You feel it—licking pleasure cresting into a sweltering wave, that buzz rising into a roar. And he’s right there, kissing all over your throat when you’re too far past the brink to move your lips properly to kiss him.

Your hand shoots between your legs to rub your clit, but quickly he nudges it away and adjusts so his thumb can take over for you. In the same way his fingers plunge into your cunt, he blankets your clit in quick circles without his pace faltering even once.

He breathes hot and heavy by your ear, says, “Shit, you’re so close, aren’t you? My pretty girl, so tight–”

It’s enough to make your thighs shake and your back arch. “Levi–”

“That’s right,” he noses at your throat, “come all over my fingers.”

Your cry hits the ceiling, but to him it’s louder—the hot, sloppy sound of his fingers fucking your cunt. It’s so much wetter.

You’re coming for him. He has to hold you flat on the mattress while you moan all pretty in his ear—his fucking name—and your cunt no longer hugs him, but squeezes so tight he struggles to keep his pace. He moans along with you, but he’s not so caught up that he can’t fuck you through it just right and watch you while he does it.

Only when your back has collapsed back on the bed does he slow down, dragging his fingers through your shakes and little whimpers. Not only did you somehow turn his name into a prayer, but you’re still clinging to him; you’re curled around him like you’d fall away from earth if he disappeared.

Past the aftershocks, your thighs twitch, then fall loose around his waist. There’s a question on the tip of his tongue—whether you’re good; it’s second-nature—as he pulls his fingers from your fluttering hole.

But you beat him to it. “God, ‘Vi. You just…”

You trail off. He thinks you’re just speechless, but he goes to smooth your hair from your face, making sure you’re laying comfortably again as he does so. It’s not in him to assume a single thing while you’re high off the first time you’ve done this, after you came that hard.

“You were…” Maybe he’s speechless too. Just now, he remembers what he said in the heat of the moment and chides himself silently. “I didn’t hurt you.”

It’s a question, really. You shake your head. The kiss you share next is a wreck that smushes your noses together. You glow, it feels like, from your feet to your twitching fingers. There’s a pleasant buzz rolling on in your head, and it sings when he sighs into the kiss.

“Sorry,” you huff, partly amused. “I was–”

“–good,” he finishes for you, and kisses you again, this time chaste. “Don’t be stupid.”

You snort, but then he goes to pull away. Your hand lands in his wrecked hair, leading him back in; not unlike taking a dog by the scruff of its neck. “Wait. Where are you going?”

“You came already,” he reasons, brows knit. “So you don’t have to.”

A laugh bubbles up in your throat. “Oh, I fucking will.”

He lets you hoist him up and into your lap. “…I don’t get what’s so funny.”

And he really doesn’t. He’s serious. It’s not like you’re obligated to get him off unless you want to. Maybe it’s prudish to be so self-sacrificing—as if his balls aren’t fucking aching at the moment—but he doesn’t believe this, or what you have here, is transactional, or obligated—or expected. You can do it if you want to, but.

“Honey. It’s not that serious.” Sat up, you guide his arms up and around your shoulders so he’s spread in your lap. His thighs hug your waist, your knees bent a little. There’s not much wiggle room for him.

“It is,” he insists, secretly hurt. “In what world is it not?”

That’s not what you meant. Rather, there isn’t a speck of doubt in your mind that you want to—it’s hardly even a question, but you appreciate him for keeping you at the forefront of his mind, like always.

You sense that he’s sensitive about this topic (which in hindsight you should’ve had in mind from the start).

“Oh,” he breathes. He wasn’t expecting that. “Okay. Obviously I would.”

“Can I kiss you?”

He watches you for a moment. In this light, in this moment, his eyes appear a tad more blue, like a twilit sky. He’s searching for any hesitation on your face, and finds none. He nods, but then: “Wait.”

“Hm?”

His fingers are still webbed with your cum, two of which are pruned. Cautiously, he brings them before your lips. Your expression is only mildly scandalized, more smug, which is what has him squirming a little.

“Have you ever tasted yourself?”

You look very pleased with yourself. “Haven’t you?”

“Are you crazy? That’s–” He actually gives it some thought, and his nose screws up.

Yeah, but not mine, is how he’d answer that, but he doesn’t. In his experience, cum tastes pretty gross. But then, you push one of his fingers past your lips, sucking, then leisurely painting his finger with your tongue.

Your hot mouth works to swallow around his finger—around a smirk, of course—and the show you put on has his cock stirring. With your soft tits pressed to his chest, his dick trapped between his thigh and your belly, he ruts forward a little.

A whine dies in his throat. It’s not enough, not until you wrap him in a hot fist and start moving. A new bead of creamy white spills over his cockhead. He whispers your name, begging.

Maybe you can tell, or maybe you know more than you let on—because you press into his slit, rub his sensitive cockhead, and his eyes roll into the back of his head. He doesn’t register his finger slipping from your mouth, coated in spit rather than cum.

“Fuck,” he moans. He has to shut his eyes, and just shake. It’s so much more intense than he thought it’d be; all it is, is your fucking hand, but that’s not it at all. It’s fiery hot, and tender and consuming, and he’s bound to burn up any minute. It’s you, that’s all.

Your hand slows so you can tap his hand. “You still wanna taste?”

He doesn’t say anything. Only, he squeezes the wrist attached to the hand that isn’t jerking his cock anymore before bringing his finger to his lips. His tongue darts out, but he does so in a way that doesn’t let you look at him while he does it. It’s too embarrassing.

He hums around the sweet taste that rolls over his tongue when you speed up. There’s your teeth nipping at where his collarbone juts out, the heat licking away at his wet cock, and the way you taste—which he can’t focus on over all this happy noise.

It’s not at all like the hint to the way you smell, or even your taste when you kiss with all tongue. It’s heavier than that, so much sweeter in a way he didn’t expect; not overly so, but it’s slick, complimented by a touch of bitterness too. He finds himself disappointed when there’s no more left to lap at.

A small groan rises in his throat. His hips rock. He could eat you out, drag his tongue between your folds and suckle on your clit, fuck your wet pussy with his tongue. He could taste you all fucking day if he did that. That has to be better than just his fingers, just like sliding his cockhead into your sticky mouth compared to your hand. But, he wants it all.

With a catch of his name, you motion his head back and take his plump lips. You taste like your own sweet musk and old toothpaste and heat.

“My baby,” you whisper, and a wet sound is punched from his chest. “How do you like it?”

You already know how sensitive his cockhead is, how he practically keens if you pay good attention to his balls, but there has to be a way to jerk his cock that runs his blood the hottest; a way he prefers when he does it himself. You want to know.

He mashes his face in your throat, which makes you stop. Unhappily, he huffs through his nose, because humping your belly is, unsurprisingly, not enough.

“Captain…”

You are using that against him. His soul leaves his body for a second. His eyes squeeze shut, because he can’t, and his balls feel so full. “You’re—such a fucking pervert.”

He’s quicker to give in than usual, you notice, but first he guides your fist back around his plump cock, at the bottom. You’re more than pleased. You wait patiently, watching with quiet reverie when his expression pinches and his lips twitch.

“Tighter.” His voice is hoarse. “Hold it tighter. And, flick your wrist.”

You do as he says. Immediately, his jaw drops with a mewling noise.

“Like this?”

“Yeah. S-Sweetness, faster.”

Heat he can actually feel rises to his cheeks; not only from the sensations, but you giving a shit about what he likes and going far beyond. He’s never had someone do that before.

You reach with your other hand to fondle his balls, and his pretty lips part with a moan. He’s too beautiful. You tug his earlobe with your teeth (again, to get him back for earlier), and he jumps.

“S’good?” Your voice is like torn silk. “Gonna come all over my hand, ‘Vi?”

He says your name around a gasp, and works in a few hard thrusts. It’s so wet that he can fuck your fist effortlessly. His cock throbs in your grasp, then pulses so hard that a hiccupped cry is torn from his throat. The answer is yes, yes, I’m so fucking close, but all he comes out with is your name again, pleading.

You smooth over his hard nipple and rub. Mostly, you speak without thinking: “Be good, hm? Come for me.”

He does. With a soundless cry, that tight heat explodes, and crashes over him. His toes curl and his muscles lock and he comes so hard. It’s a white-hot pulse that swallows his whole body in euphoria, from the slack in his jaw to his thick thighs and the shots of warm cum that pelt your torso. Constantly, moans are dragged from his throat.

Through it all, you jerk him as if you mean to empty his balls, but for the vast majority of those precious first seconds, he’s thrusting erratically into your fist with no mind left to how his hips move.

You don’t mind: he’s fucking gorgeous—a sight you wouldn’t dream of missing. With how his back arches, he’s practically curled around you. Even now he smothers his noises, but you can see his temple painted with a sheen of sweat, and his pinched brow, his gaping mouth.

Heat sinks like an anchor in your belly. His cum spills all over your belly, some in your lap; even your chest in places.

“Just like that, Lev’,” you praise, when you’ve recovered the mind to. He’s whimpering with the last pulses. “Fuck, yes.”

He heaves an open-mouthed breath, shivering. Your fist has only just now stopped, leaving his cock twitching through those last shocks. He feels carried by a warm breeze; blissfully weary and spent.

Already, he squirms in your arms. Complaints come to his mind, like, I need a fucking shower, or, Stop drooling, but he’s never stayed in someone’s arms afterwards, either. Ever. When you were done, you dressed, parted ways, and you were done.

On one part, you’re gently putting kisses on his temple, then his cheek: he could sink into your embrace, relax for even five minutes, and feel like a warm ball of fluff.

On another, he’s somehow scared. There’s no reason to be, he knows that, but it’s there. It feels like being smothered by an invisible blanket; it’s sharp, like sandpaper, and he needs to get away as soon as possible.

Feeling torn, his brow knits when you ask if he’s good. But then, you do that trick where you listen without him saying anything: you give him ample space to get up if he wants to, but all he does is roll onto his back. However, not a moment passes before he jerks back up and snatches a handkerchief from the bedside. First, he wipes the streaks of cum off your belly, then his.

You chuckle a little as he does, as if you’d prefer laying around in his mess. It’s common manners, and he tells you so when you kiss the tip of his nose and call what he’s doing cute. If you make him blush any more, there won’t be any blood left for the rest of his body.

That question, once more: “Are you good?”

He nods, and leans in to just briefly kiss you. It turns longer, lazier when your hand lands on his cheek, though. Even now he feels sparks from it, but those are lazy too. He’s tired.

What just happened will have a fat impact on what he wants later, but he’s so sick of the idea pressing down on him. For now, he’s pleased that you’re pleased. It feels good to toss a thin sheet over you once you’ve laid down, but even better is your head on his chest. He gets to hold you. Even better, you worm your way in close.

“No shower?” Your shock sounds dragged down by weights.

He clears his throat. “Yet.”

But that answer doesn’t feel quite right, so he has to dwell on it for a few more moments. He noses your hair. “You’re staying here tonight. You got any objections?”

Some unsung understanding passes between you. It’s hard to tell what it is exactly, except you want to cry. You imagine rain showering a spread of earth still bathed by sunlight.

As far as first times go, you’re still reeling. You wriggle closer still, making your cheek well-acquainted with his chest. If you had any say in the world, this moment would become forever.

“Mm,” your hum is carried on a breeze. “I’d love to.”

—

It becomes glaringly obvious that you’ve entered a new stage in your relationship when—the moment you get a good moment alone—the air turns heavy and electric and you simply can’t bear to be anywhere but all over each other.

Sex-crazy, Levi wants to dismiss it as, but he can’t be spiteful because he’s gone crazy too.

Fully within working hours, he didn’t tell you off for dropping under his desk and crawling between his legs—he couldn’t, because you stole all the air from his lungs. You popped his cock in your mouth and learned quickly how to suck him down like he’s candy. Either you just want him that much, or it’s your way of goading him into taking a break for once. Maybe both.

Either way, he can’t bring himself to throw too much of a fit about it. It’s strange, willingly taking what you have to give, not that he isn’t finding any conceivable way to shield his face (and by extension, his voice) when time alone together turns into more.

He didn’t sleep a wink the night before because that’s been on his mind—that is, taking what you have to give without throwing a fit. In general, not just the sex, but heat stirs below his waist thinking back on those times, too.

It’s still so early his bedroom looks more like dusk than morning, but his attention is more caught by you. That was his whole night. He knows staring is creepy, but you’re better than the clock on the dresser, or gods forbid the cracks in the ceiling that irk him to no end.

He lays backwards in your embrace so he’s using one of your arms both as a pillow and something to hold; his head lies on your shoulder. The longer you sleep, the more the sight of you doing so makes his skin crawl. It’s an irrational fear.

He’s dozing a little, and his internal battle has shifted: whether to have you wake up with his mouth between your thighs, or whether to wake you up beforehand and ask first. He’s half-hard, he really wants to get rid of the dirty cottonball taste that not sleeping has left in his mouth, and he wants to.

There was that first time he did it, and you chanted his name so much it no longer had meaning when he did—you loved it—but that was then and this is now. No matter if you’re giving or taking, it’s not a guaranteed Yes! every time, or ever for that matter. He was half the size of some scum he knew that disagreed with that sentiment in some way, and even though it was none of his business, he made them pay. Levi only has a certain tolerance for irredeemable crimes.

He mashes his face with your arm and blinks hard to get off that train of thought. You’d probably agree to it anyway, even though it’d dampen the surprise, but…

What feels like acid stings his eyes when he closes them.

But, she needs to sleep too.

An expedition is set to start today. The lack of sleep will surely affect his performance, but he never sleeps the night before an expedition—a pattern so consistent he’s apt to call it a ritual.

An orgasm isn’t a bad thing to wake up to before life or death business begins, and it’s utter nonsense to even get the idea in your head while you’re out there. It’s only funny if the offenders are caught and Erwin is forced to court-martial them.

Another time. A big part of him is still driving blind. It can wait—that is, until the night before, if he can muster the gall to open his mouth and ask; if you’re still doing this kind of thing, too. And if you both live through this one.

All these ifs. He doesn’t know what to do.

Sleep doesn’t come.

—

Between the new leaps in your relationship and the gala in Mitras you’ve both been mandated to attend, another week-long expedition passes you by. Its outcome was critical to the Survey Corps’ reception in Mitras. The point of it is to earn funding and positive word of mouth, and people aren’t exactly willing to throw money at a bottomless graveyard.

The losses were minor, and under Erwin’s command the Scouts managed to secure two new supply routes northeast of Shiganshina. No matter the successes though, blood still spotted green cloaks by the time the formation crossed through Trost’s gate, injured in tow.

You and Levi strayed especially close to each other this time. Reason being, Eld and Petra counted two of those laid in the wagons reserved for the injured. You had no personal losses, but you could have, which was enough for him to carry a dark, faraway look on his face until long after the sun sank below the horizon.

You had a good guess what he was thinking about, which is why—after the death certificates were signed and stamped, you both checked in with the squad, and a long, scorching shower—you spent the entire evening tucked against each other. It started when he exited the bathroom, and where you were curled up on his sofa, you opened your arms. Somber, comfortable quiet joined you both.

For how many expeditions you’ve both endured and survived, it becomes harder to let yourselves be so easily convinced that you made it, when it should be easy. Survival is proof of your endurance and your skills, but your good graces, as well. Some are unlucky—some recruits, some even you graduated with—and it never gets easier. At best, the toll on your minds the expedition demands stays the same.

Bundled up in Levi’s lap, he protectively cradled you, and you laid your palm flat over his chest, where his heart beat. Your other hand was draped over the nape of his neck, and he mimicked you, except his thumb and forefinger was steady on either side: a stark reminder that you were both still here, despite everything, and neither could be more glad.

Occasionally, you nosed his cheek, and he rested your foreheads together, exchanging each other’s breaths. You lounged like that sitting room was the entire world: past Wall Rose, and whatever laid beyond Wall Maria. Nothing needed to be said, except maybe, I’ve got you.

That was days ago, but like many expeditions blemished by a close call, it’s still on your mind as you smooth down the pleated ruffles of your ballgown; a sophisticated (expensive) one too, but it lacks the poofiness that would leave you looking like you’re wearing a balloon otherwise. You can walk in it, in other words, as the hem is just long enough to sweep the floor.

Not horrible, you think. All this was out of Mitras’ pocket, not the Scouts’ (or Levi’s, for that matter), so you followed through when he practically ordered you to go all-out.

The neckline is cut fine so you can show off a bit of jewelry, and maybe the way it fits you flatters your body a lot more than you thought it would. Your pensive reflection reminds you of a doll, but you’re well-aware of how much Levi loves lipstick.

He hasn’t seen how you looked in it yet, or even laid eyes on the dress, but you haven’t seen what he bought to wear, either. That’s the little game you came up with, and he agreed to. You almost wish you hadn’t said anything now: you’ve never attended one of these things—not one in Mitras of all places, where funding for the next three expeditions depends on how many faces you manage to impress. You want to look good.

Maybe you do, though. Levi always hears you out when you have doubts, but he makes it a point to hammer in the point that your way of thinking is stupid; not that you’re stupid, he’s sure to clarify.

You close your eyes. I look good. Eyes open. You feel sick, but close enough.

Your nerves are well-founded, though. Levi is your official-unofficial date to the gala, as is Mike to Nanaba, and Hange to Moblit. The news found its way across your desk eventually, but you’d only skimmed the parchment before skulking down the hall to Levi’s office and playing dumb so he’d have to tell you. You thought it’d be hilarious, and it was.

It was too much fun to watch the utter bewilderment on his face morph into bashfulness, but when he figured out the trick you played on him, he got back at you by making you dust all his shelves. But, not before making you shriek when he hauled you over his shoulder and took you to bed. The memory leaves you giddy, even with the future sitting in a cloudy bubble of uncertainty.

You should go find him.

You tug the bathroom door open, then freeze. With your hand slapped over your mouth, you smother a laugh just in time.

Who knows when Levi decided to let himself into your quarters, or—your gaze is drawn to the planter by your desk, where a fresh assortment of your favorite flowers have been tucked in—replaced the wilted flowers in your planter, but he lounges on your loveseat now with his head tucked against his chest, asleep.

You don’t want to wake him. He’s missed so much sleep lately, but there’s also the once-in-a-blue moon opportunity to see him sleeping for once. A strange thing about him is he’s always the last to fall asleep and the first to wake up between you.

It’s excruciating not to laugh. He often likes to complain that he could take a nap in the time it takes you to get ready for anything other than everyday military duty.

You pin your tongue between your teeth to fight a grin. His arms and legs are crossed lazily, and he breathes long, slow, and deep. Unfortunately, you don’t have a perfect view of the three-piece suit he must be wearing from where you stand; there’s a pair of black slacks he must’ve ironed three times to get them that good-looking, with matching shoes so clean they practically shine.

His hair. It’s slicked back all the way over his forehead; very similar-looking to the pomade Erwin uses. A good deal of where his hair is buzzed short shows as a result.

You wonder if he was ordered to do that or not. Knowing Levi, definitely. He’s always very particular about his hair. Your cheeks grow red under your palm after holding your breath so long. Stubborn giggles creep up your throat.

Unable to resist, you tiptoe closer as if the floor was nothing but a sliver of glass. You’re close enough to get a hint of how good he smells—like lavender mingling with something deep and smoky—while you experimentally brush your fingers through his hair. It’s shiny, somehow, and feels a little like wax. Then, you take another look at his face. One side of his mouth is curled in a tiny smirk.

You gape. “How long have you been awake?”

Finally, his eyes flutter open. In a flash he steals your wandering hand. You go to reach with your spare, but he snatches that one too, so you’re stuck shooting him a pout where you stoop down.

“Long enough to see how perverted you really are,” he replies, voice rough. He blinks the sleep from his eyes as you roll your own and wiggle your fingers in efforts to hold his hands. He’s always had thick lashes, but if you didn’t know any better, you’d assume he put on eyeliner.

“Says the one… restraining me,” you grumble.

“Tch.” He matches your pout. “Because your grubby fingers were in my hair. Don’t touch it. It has shit in it.”

“Erwin’s pomade has shit in it?”

Abruptly, he leans forward and practically scoops you to your feet. He has a smartass remark on his tongue, something about you being a little brat, but he finally gets an eye-full of your appearance and is left utterly blank. You look like a princess on the day she’s to get married, while he’s as dumb as the fool rolling out the red carpet.

He’s stunned. You take the opportunity to yank yourself free and throw your arms around his shoulders. If he can’t even process the fact that you’re petting down his cravat—which is tied up in a flowing bow, you notice—you definitely did something right.

It’s impossible not to smile. “I look okay?”

He finds himself and puts his arms around your waist. It’s sweet, but he looks at you like you’ve just grown two extra eyes. “Are you stupid?”

“Such a flirt,” you scoff, but he doesn’t hear anything you say. He’s much too busy staring at your lips moving.

The rich color you used leaves them shiny and plump, but if he kisses you, not only will his face be painted, but you might just convince him to make you both late. He prefers to think he’s much too responsible to neglect political duties without an angel of seduction goading him into it.

He swallows. You watch his adam’s apple bob as he does so, hands wandering beneath his suit-jacket, where he’s strong and warm. Warmth pools below your waist.

“We got somewhere to be,” he tells you, as if it physically pains him to say it, and stops your hand tangled in his belt loops.

With a voice as smooth as dark silk, “Captain…”

His chest rises. “Careful, pretty girl. Let’s go.”

—

“Stop drooling. My hair’s shitty,” Levi mumbles, for the third or fourth time since he made a show of helping you step off the carriage; more of Erwin’s orders, or so he claimed. “Fucking hate these things.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. It looks good.” You squeeze his arm a little where it’s linked with yours.

His sigh is stressed. “…Sure.”

You recognize a few faces from the Garrison—those you remember graduating with, that is—as you file into the entrance hall. Ornate decorations decorate it, some polished and in so many colors it leaves your head spinning a little. Your earlier anxiety returns and churns in your stomach.

Maybe he senses it, because he shoots you a look. It’s a lot more earnest, somehow, without his bangs in the way. “You’re gonna be fine. Do the talking, if you want.”

Meaningfully, you smile. That’s Levi-speak for, Feel free to join me if all this excitement makes you anxious. You laughed when you learned he’s not really supposed to speak at these things.“Thanks.”

The hairstyle really does suit him: it accentuates the short, buzzed parts and exposes his ears. Without his bangs in the way (though, you like his hair in any form), his features seem much sharper, and somehow more handsome.

One downside: a few strands tend to find their way back onto his forehead, which he flicks away now and then, but they’re stubborn. Eventually, he stops trying to tame his hair.

For some reason, it’s a comfort to you; as if his issues with his appearance validate your worries somehow. Even if he didn’t say anything, that alone would’ve made you feel a little better.

After introductions, a million conversations, a few cocktails, and two hours pass you by. Things are going well.

Hange, the most dolled-up you’ve ever seen them, does the best job at selling the potential that more funding presents for the Survey Corps. They speak frantically in animated motions that Commander Erwin in no way imitates, and yet he draws the same sort of attention.

You’re not doing too badly yourself, but you’d rather attest the approving looks and nods to Levi, who needs only speak in one-word responses for nobles to be impressed by him. If you confess that you don’t know who Captain Levi is, you’ll get laughed at.

“Fake it till you make it,” Mike says, popping another bonbon in his mouth, much to Hange’s chagrin. Moblit cut them off after they ‘only’ had ‘about’ a dozen.

He shoots them a peeved look at the fine round table you’re all seated at now, save for Erwin. Levi said that’s because Erwin loves the sound of his own voice, and no one really corrected him; you included.

The tablecloth feels silky-soft, and looks white as fresh snow. You fear you’ll somehow dirty it by resting your arms upon it.

Hange makes a sound like a field mouse. “What? That’s horrible advice. I just compare my people skills to Levi’s, and I feel better every time.”

You snort despite yourself, and give him a look, but he’s busy glaring daggers at Hange across the table. The way his arms are crossed low over his chest reminds you of a petulant child—an adorable one, anyway.

“Am I wrong?”

His glare only deepens, and while Hange celebrates their victory with a bellied laugh, you slink your hand beneath the table and tap his thigh with your little finger. As enticing as it’s been to mess with him tonight, you haven’t dared, and neither has he.

What you want is his little finger too, which he reluctantly gives you so no one seated gets even a hint of an idea of what you two are doing. As much as Levi is repulsed by the idea of gossip—especially revolving around you both—you can at least link your pinkies together and feel that much better for it.

Buttering up a ton of nobles by practically gloating about the Survey Corps’ achievements has gotten under your skin more than you’d like to admit. You’ve slayed monsters that dwarf most buildings in Trost since before Levi joined up, but gods help you if you’re selling to a crowd.

As many times as you’ve run out of things to say, Levi has spoken up and changed the subject, or added onto your points. It was easy to doubt his claim that he’s under explicit orders to talk as little as possible during ‘political duties’, until a prim lady asked him what the Titans were like, and he told her: “Shitty, I guess. Ugly, too.”

He gives you what you want, but the shiny lights and chatter is reserved for the back of his mind for the moment. He’s back to thinking about you two again, weighing his options. It’s gotten to the point where he’s forcing himself to imagine shit that would never happen in efforts to beat back what he wants.

For instance: He tries to imagine the face you make when you step in horse shit, but it’s more amusing than anything. He imagines you tracking it all through his quarters, then; maybe jumping on his neat, pressed sheets. Disgust licks up and down his spine for obvious reasons, but two of those things you would never do.

Anytime you make a fool of yourself in general, the look on your face makes him feel fond, in a way. It flashes him back to the rare occasion he’s made your head throw back, cackling at his attempts at toilet humor. You’re very pretty when you laugh.

Whatever you’re laughing about, you laugh harder when Hange waves their arms about wildly. Levi’s busy pretending to be listening, but then his attention gets caught by you dabbing more shiny lipstick on your perfect lips.

Hange says, “Didja get it, Levi?”

He blinks. “Get what?”

They heave a great sigh. “I don’t know, didja get dropped on your head when you were a baby? I told a funny joke!”

“Hange,” you chide,” don’t project your childhood onto him. Levi just doesn’t have a sense of humor.”

Levi bites his lip, and hides his expression behind his fist. When your eyes meet, you grin, showing teeth, and he wants to kiss you; in the same way he wants cool, spring mornings and steaming black tea late at night. He wants your lipstick smeared all over places your lips have never touched him.

Hange laughs so hard they nearly tumble out of their chair. Clearly, they’re drunk. “Not wrong at all! Touché!”

When it’s back to work—that is, making rounds with investors and playing up looks—Levi left your side when Erwin beckoned him. As his best soldier, and in the eyes of aristocrats one of Erwin’s greatest achievements, it was a given.

Now he’s giving his voice (but mostly his mind) a rest. He sips fine tea out of ornate china, and although it’s very good, his eyes are heavy and his mind is jammed.

He’s thinking again, about you. It’s not just him, though, because your eyes have found him from across crowded rooms all night; he’s bristled up like a feral cat when pompous men become a little too friendly with you; with a shred of guilt, he’s traced the curves of your evening dress. You caught him once, and flashed him a wink before taking a good few seconds admiring him up and down back.

Maybe his defenses are down because he’s sleep deprived, so it feels impossible to go with an option not involving you. No, that’s stupid. It’s been this way for a while. Rather, he doesn’t have the energy to fight himself on his feelings like usual.

Shrinking them, let alone smothering them isn’t working. The more he denies them, the stronger they grow. It’s been that way for a long time now. So distracting.

That’s a good excuse, actually: I won’t be able to focus on cutting down Titans while I’m so distracted.

The Titans, you, the impossible issue of retaking Shiganshina, one day exterminating the Titans, possibly having a repeat of Shiganshina in Trost (they still know nothing about the abnormals that attacked that day… Wall Rose could fall next) and you. There are other priorities, ones he chose to forgo another life for, and he will continue to do so until he loses this one.

In terms of logic, you’re a distraction. If there ever came a day where the cost of your safety became his life, he shouldn’t pay it, but as for what he would do, he still doesn’t know. At times, his body simply acts and takes over for him. At times, he isn’t just strong, but unstoppable.

The thing you both share never distracted him to the point of any real issue, though. It’s more distracting when he’s away from you. He worries, or he’s afraid (Ugh.), that if you promised each other everything, the fear would whittle him down to caged prey.

But. He closes his eyes briefly, the lack of sleep making them sting. Your experience still trumps his own, and you’ve saved his ass a good number of times too. He’s trained you himself; to the point of bruises, angry ODM welts, scrapes, and even tears. Maybe you should train together more.

Or like you implied, maybe he should grow some balls and accept the chances for what they are. It’s good advice.

He rises from his seat. For now, he has more social problems to attend to. Most of the problems he has with these cocktail parties is how personal they get; like the genuine mirth on doughy faces when a joke is made about Levi’s appearance, his past in the Underground, or the way he talks.

He’s beyond being offended by some—he doesn’t care how he looks very much—and once every millennium or so, they’re clever. Most aren’t. It’s a good way to butter up someone who’s round enough to be made of the stuff to tell them their joke is funny, but he’s not an actor.

“Captain Levi,” a potbellied man greets, and holds his hand out for him to shake. “It’s a privilege to meet you.” He talks far too earnestly, like Levi was the first in the delivery room when the man’s wife gave birth.

Still, he returns it without consideration; a strong, firm shake. “Sure.”

This noble—the proprietor of a company based in one of Sina’s industrial districts, he recalls—is worth impressing. He introduces himself as Maron, and he goes on and on. It’s a good thing, too. People like Maron get flattered just by hearing themselves talk.

“I was wondering if the Survey Corps would be willing to spend a small dividend for a product my company is planning to produce—the same one that manufactures your omni-directional mobility gear.”

He talks of ODM like Levi doesn’t know what it is. “You would have to take that up with the Commander,” he replies, unphased.

Maron’s caterpillar-mustache bristles when he smiles. “I wanted to come to you first. Reason being, they’re for physical performance, making them quite useful in battle. Fighting is what you do, isn’t it, Captain?”

Is he messing with him? It sounds like steroids. He’s familiar with blacktar-type drugs like that, back from his days Underground. There are all sorts of ways Levi can let him know his idea is worthless; while careful not to stray from Erwin’s good graces.

He pretends to think about it, but can’t stop himself from saying, “like dick-enlargement pills?”

“Hm.” Maron’s round eyes go slant, and mischievous. “That’s certainly an idea. Would the Scouts be willing–”

Levi stares at him like shit is leaking from the noble’s mouth—there might as well be. “Are you kidding? That was a joke. Our dicks are big enough, thanks.”

Maron’s eyes somehow grow wider than saucers. “By the Walls! Do you speak to your mother with that mouth?”

He stares. He has to pin his tongue between his teeth so hard he risks biting it off, and turn his back when he walks away. Maron’s disgruntled mutterings are totally lost on him. He’s much too busy counting up to ten, then down again.

Pig’s lucky, he thinks behind a face of utter murder. If he ran into Levi ten or so years ago and said that, he’d be missed by whoever gave a rat’s ass about a guy. Despite the limited space behind the Walls, people go missing all the time. Plenty of rivers around.

Granted, these people don’t know a thing about Levi’s life; just like Levi doesn’t know a thing about politics. He’s upset over nothing new. He’s used to being talked down to by nobility; difference is, he’s not allowed to defend himself.

It’s not like he’s killed anyone at one of these things before, but he’s broken glasses, and almost a face, once. But only because baby-faced idiots are impossible for him to get along with.

The way things used to be, he’d get insulted freely. They talked table manners and corrected his grammar every time he opened his mouth. For all they knew, Levi was some dog Erwin trained into being a soldier using sorcery.

Erwin always felt sorry in some capacity and made up for it (after he became Commander, by pilfering tea shipments or something just as illegal), but it didn’t get under his skin any less. Shadis never liked him; not that Levi made himself very likable in the first place.

You wouldn’t know about that, because you’ve never been to one of these things, but back when any average Scout was unhappy about criminals (or a criminal) joining their ranks, you’d get so pissed there might as well have been steam pouring out of your ears.

Kicking someone in the ass has never been your specialty, but you were a Squad Leader just like Mike, Erwin and the rest. You knew how to give a verbal whipping and a month of stable duty to someone mouthing off.

Even when he was an asshole to you (like he was to everybody), you didn’t throw stones. He thinks the only time you gave him shit for anything in the beginning was before Levi saw a Titan in the flesh for the first time. You called him a fool for acting cocky at the idea of fighting them. If he listened then like he would today, maybe his friends would still be alive.

Afterwards, you were still somehow there. He threatened to break your arm it if you didn’t quit talking to him so much, and you only believed him for three days. Then he picked out things about you that he didn’t mind, maybe even liked, and suddenly you were something like friends.

You didn’t know Levi back then like you do now, but you’ve always been kind, always a good head on your shoulders.

Having you on his mind tames his temper quite a bit, as usual. Throwing a look around the hall from one of the far corners where he’s retreated, he frowns when he realizes he hasn’t seen your face in quite a while. You’re not in the great hall, under all the shiny chandeliers, or anywhere a guest ought to be. It wouldn’t be like you to flake out on your duties.

It isn’t hard for anyone with ears to find Hange, so Levi finds Hange, face ruby-red from just how drunk they are. They’re pretty impossible to talk to, but Moblit is attached to them; via some magnetic field, probably.

He claims you weren’t feeling well, and sheepishly let them know you had to step outside.

“How long ago?”

“Uh–” Moblit puts on an exasperated face in wake of Hange, who’s shaking the hell out of a servant’s skinny shoulders, yelling something about shots. “About a half-hour. Sorry I can’t be more helpful—Hange, please!”

It’s fine, because Levi already has a pretty good idea in his mind of what’s wrong.

To be continued.

When the frigid night air hits him, Levi tugs his suit jacket tighter around himself and descends the marble steps. Without thinking he does so two at a time, but the tension leaves his shoulders when he sees that you haven’t gone far at all.

Around the paved path, bunches of carriages form an arc. Every one of them looks the same, as if one after another they’ve been cloned, but there’s only one dark silhouette donning a flowing dress: you.

He’s confident, because even if he got the carriage wrong (which isn’t likely; Levi has a good memory), he’d always know you, even while draped in shadows.

You look like a helpless little thing that’s been locked out of the house for too long. Once your head shoots up in his direction, there’s surprise, crumpled relief, and then a mask of neutrality falls over face; count that as double when he gets past the quip that you look extremely shitty and he goes to ask what’s wrong. He knows all the tells of your anxiety—tearing at your sleeves, scraping the cuticles around your fingertips raw—but he won’t assume anything of you when you look so out of sorts like this.

It only prickles him when you tell him nothing is wrong. Further, how it was thoughtful for him to come and find you, but it’s about time you let all those lights and all that food and all those people swallow you back in again. 

But, you’re fighting air, which is why he feels something inside shrivel up, and plants a hand on your shoulder to stop your yammering. When he frowns, gets a good look at you under the streetlight, you don’t look well. He feels under his palm where your shoulders lift with your breaths; like the outside world has been vacuum-sealed.

“Stop,” he says, both hands on your shoulders now. Though the order is careful, he means it as just that: an order. “Breathe.”

Your gaze swivels between him, then this way and that. “The party—”

“Doesn’t exist right now,” he finishes for you. It’s just you two here, right now, for however long it takes until this notion that the world is ending evaporates. Maybe he can’t comfort even a little kid, but he can coax your attention towards him well-enough and try. Eventually, finally, your arms slip around him, and your frame becomes a little less like razor wire and more like a heavy blanket.

Suddenly, he no longer hates what he wants, what he does, what he is. Suddenly he’s not a predator. He’s a watchdog, or a pillow. He can be something safe and strong for you.

It’s “Relax, alright?” and, “Good job. Keep going,” and when you give a heavy sniff, he cradles the back of your head. Your hair is delicately done-up, not too unlike his own, but he can’t bring himself to worry much. This is the least he can do.

You’re lovingly crushed under the weight of how much you have to thank him for right now; but first, you swallow like a stone is in your throat, and pull away a fraction. He looks as concerned as you’ve ever seen him, and that measuring frown pulling his lips down twists your stomach again. You feel so anxious that it hurts.

“Thank you… But, we should still go back,” you resolve with a sigh, and try to stand up a little straighter. “Wasted enough time.”

The side of his mouth twitches. “Wasted? You’re kidding. You needed air, so you got air.”

He notes the fine sheen of sweat on your brow with an air of caution. “Did this whole thing really get to you that much?” Maybe it’s his fault, for leaving you alone. “Something happen?”

Vehemently, you shake your head, and it’s honest, which is why you can’t be honest about breaking down over nothing. Or maybe it’s a string of every little thing that mixed to create a ripe concoction stinking with panic.

“No, really,” you try. “I’m just a little tired… It’s not worth all this fuss. I know you’re worried,” you give his arm a reassuring rub, “but I probably just haven’t been sleeping well.”

His gaze sharpens, because if that’s truly the case then that’s his fault too. “Not sleeping well? Why?”

You shake your head dismissively, and immediately regret it when the world does a few extra wobbles. “Stress, maybe. I don’t know, but I don’t want anything bad to happen to our funding because of me, so—”

“You’re a lot more important than pig cash.”

In the dark, his stern glare looks almost supernatural. Without thinking much of it, you give a little shake of your head. Frankly, arguing is making you feel worse.

He makes sure it doesn’t show on his face, but it feels like hot coals in his chest, hearing you fully admit that you’re nothing but slop for those pigs. It makes him sick.

Of course securing funding is important—it’s the second lifeblood of the regiment, besides lives—but why should he give a damn about that now, when the night is a step from being done with and something is wrong with you? That is, you can’t breathe and the air becomes calcified to his lungs too? Maybe this problem isn’t all that catastrophic in the grand scheme of things—maybe you’re just the air Levi breathes—but it’s still his fucking air.

You really do look ill. Your skin isn’t running terribly warm when he touches the side of your face, but he feels a cold sweat sitting on your temple that tells him you’re anxious and drained and overwhelmed. 

He doesn’t want to leave you alone—“It’s just for an hour.”—and you’ve done enough; he bets they didn’t earn half of what they would have without you—“Please, that’s not true. You don’t need to lie to make me feel better.”

A careful sigh slides between his teeth. It’s not new, you talking like this, but self-depreciation isn’t helping your case (nor did it ever) because for one, he’s stubborn and set in his feelings, and two, you’re his air. He maintains careful patience, though, because it’s worse than usual.

You stare at him, pleading. “This isn’t a big deal, ‘Vi. Just tired. I’ll nap in the carriage and you’ll be there when I wake up, right?”

Those words chew him up and spit him right back out. He has to steal a breath, because something is cutting at his insides. 

“Shut up. Don’t–” he wrenches back, “–ever fucking say that.”

Your brows shoot up to your forehead, stunned. Then you understand, and guilt floods your stomach.

“Don’t.”

“No,” you breathe. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

You are tired, to be fair—from all those faces, from three or four days worth of supper lining silken tables, from some kind of unbearable pressure crushing you that is invisible and attacks from nowhere.

You have to be better; anxiety feels like a cheap excuse, even though it isn’t. It isn’t at all. You wish calling for help didn’t feel like speaking mute. You can’t put on a sugar-coated mask and convey to the world that you look okay, act okay, sound okay—and be okay. It’s not possible to be fine all the time; but how fucking weak that makes you feel.

It’s mildly tempting to say you didn’t ask him to come, but you feel cornered. You shouldn’t have lashed out when he was trying to help, and the very fact that you didn’t ask is likely why he went looking for you. It’s not his fault you’re like this. 

His tongue feels too swollen in his mouth to say anything. He doubts snapping at you for something you didn’t even mean helped very much. It’s not your fault he’s like this.

“Tell me it’s nothing one more time.”

You don’t; it doesn’t even cross your mind. While you deliberate, your hands stray to your sleeves again, and gingerly, he pries them apart. He doesn’t say anything either, but he won’t look at you: just off to the side, rather.

A little sigh. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

“I get it.” He does.

“I am,” you insist, “and I need you.”

He nods like a mannequin would, squeezes your wrists, and his touch goes away. “Okay, tell me what…” What you need, except you already said that. “…what to do.”

Your smile is fragile like a feather. The most you need to ask for in words is a moment by yourselves; in the carriage, that is, where the seats are comfy and it’s quite dark—save for the slender streetlights and what little of their gold trickles through the windows.

You sit side by side as Levi allows you to drag his hand over and fidget with his bony fingers. It lets air enter your lungs easier, not fixating on yourself but Levi, who you like much more than yourself. 

The coarse skin on his palm runs a little cool, but you sense the strength in it under just a few fingers. There’s the creases and edges etched into it, the myriad of tiny, wobbly lines, his own fingerprints; they’re unlike yours, or anybody else’s. These countless little rings remind you in more clarity that Levi is unlike any other person, and you’re unlike anyone else, too. Billions of patterns which are clear, even pleasant to the eye, others tiny and unknowable unless you took your time searching. He has a jagged, almost invisible scar on the fringe of his palm, below his thumb. You trace it and recall that when you asked, he couldn’t remember where he got it from. 

Now, your head rests on his shoulder like there’s a pillow there. You have to slouch a little so his head rests on your head. No surprise that his eyes are heavy.

“No,” he’s saying, “I only heard of her through Nile, since he’s married to her. Two kids and a house or something.” He’s not sure why you’re asking. “Erwin really gave you a straight answer about all that?”

You snort. “He never gave you one, did he?”

“I never asked.”

Now you laugh, and he’s inclined to smile a tad from a fond feeling.

You were curious about Marie, a woman who Commander Erwin was apparently set on marrying before he graduated from the Cadet Corps. Though, the couple guys in the Garrison you spoke to who claimed they graduated with him insisted it was the other way around. But of course, that’s something only Erwin and Marie know, and if the Commander never chatted with Levi of all people about it, then it’s a closed case. 

It was the first you heard about it, and it made you wonder; not why he chose the Titans over the supposed ‘woman of his dreams’, but why she didn’t fight him tooth and nail on it. 

You imagine—in some faraway, alternate universe—living day by day for three years in the Cadet Corps with Levi. Even though you’d still be fighting for that fresh, unknowable haven—freedom—and even though it must come first, you would do just that. No matter if you or he ended up making the ultimate sacrifice; that excruciating moment that would tear through you as time freezes and the air becomes sludge, only to be buried in the cold aftermath of love’s death. Even further, even if you were forced to live the rest of your days half-alive until you eventually met a similar fate—there would be nothing you wouldn’t do.

“Maybe he just didn’t like her that much,” he quips, forcing you to muffle an amused little huff into his fine suit jacket, where you gladly drown in his cologne. 

But he honestly doesn’t know. He knows that—once every three blue moons or so—Hange grows low and serious and insists that joy is a diamond cradled in the mud at the bottom of a swamp cradled deep deep deep in the bedrock of this world. 

“Seriously, shorty,” they’d sigh. “You have no idea what you’re gonna miss if you keep on this will-we, won’t-we stuff.”

In lieu of leaving you high and dry and without a likely answer, he decides to settle on, “Erwin’s got his own ambitions. Who fucking knows how many laws he broke getting me here in the first place?”

You squeeze his hand, and he bullies his fingers between your own to squeeze back. “You think it’s a little selfish?”

“Maybe.”

“Aren’t we?”

His lips press into a line. Yes, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Despite all the reasons we shouldn’t be. 

Selfish, like the times (many times) where you lay sprawled on Levi’s little sofa in his office. The thing’s pretty small, so your knees tend to dangle over the armrest. On those days, you always do your paperwork your own way. All the while, he’s hunched over his desk, doing nothing at all spectacular—signing his name, reading, maybe—but your eyes dart over to him, watching him do nothing while the giggles start bubbling up in your throat.

The smile reaches the apple of your cheeks, showing teeth, and when he shoots you the exact opposite look and asks, “The hell are you laughing at?” and subtly glances down at himself in case something’s out of order—you can’t offer him any real answer. You just get the feeling of flowers and flapping butterfly wings and a good night’s sleep when you look at him. 

And through the little giggles you try (and fail) to hide under your hand, you tell him, “I don’t know. You’re just–” and you have to pin your lips between your teeth. Cute isn’t the right word. “I like you.”

And he stares at you, the way he would a stubborn stain. “…Alright then.” 

Levi’s knocked from his mind when your hand lands in his slicked hair again. He has to do the unthinkable and grab your wrist, then do something less unthinkable: slide his grip down so he can link your fingers together.

He forgot all about your current topic of little talk, which he and you—but mostly him—still pretend is hypothetical: what would change, what it meant if you took the leap. There’s been a surprising amount of long pauses so far.

Normally, he avoids this topic like the plague, and you don’t push him. It’s not so scary to muse on, though, not like it used to be. As for you, your shakes have gone away, like the anxiety has spit you back out so you can clamber to your feet.

“…I wouldn’t have to lie to everyone. And you,” he eventually answers, well and truly grasping at straws now. “About wearing your stupid sweaters.”

You bump his cheek with your nose: you have too much lipstick on to risk stains. He’s adorable. Since the biggest sweaters of yours puddle around his waist and swallow his hands, Hange loves to point it out while Erwin pretends not to avidly listen.

“Honestly?” You turn your head, and your voice is clear. “I already knew you loved them. You really think I mind?”

He rolls his eyes at the word you use. Of course you don’t mind, and of course you know how he feels. He’s the same. You’re both a week of sleepless nights past agonizing over selfish feelings, actions, and maybe even promises. 

“How could I forget?” he retorts. “You know everything.”

You nudge him and shake your head. “I don’t think anyone knows anything.”

He recognized a long time ago that you’re much smarter than he is, which is why he can’t contribute anything that meaningful and instead changes the subject. He needs to talk to Erwin, but he’ll be back, so: “Don’t move. I’ll send a search party if you disappear again.”

Your brow wrinkles as he shuffles away from you. “What about?”

“Your job is to kill Titans, not schmooze to assholes,” he replies, after a little deliberation. “The night’s almost over, anyway.”

A pause. You open your mouth, close it. “…Okay. I trust you.”

“…I know.”

Cold air slaps him in the face, but the sound the carriage door makes when he shuts it feels final, in a good way; something like closure, the gavel going down after the judge deems you innocent. It feels like you came to an understanding somehow.

And he helped you. He knows how important performing well at this thing meant to you; but proving yourself is always important to you.

Old habits die hard as well. He knows all about that.

Navigating the crowd inside is a challenge, but the Commander has hair like cornsilk and he’s as tall as a tree. Levi gets a sinking feeling when he spots him schmoozing to a few straight-edge looking corpsmen with green horse patches on their leather. Good thing Erwin has his priorities straight, because the MPs clear away almost as soon as Levi’s name is out of his mouth. It seems he still has a reputation with them.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Levi crosses his arms when he gets the suspicion Erwin is carefully concealing a smile. “It’s not—whatever filth you’re thinking of. I said she’s not feeling well…These things make me sick to my stomach too,” he grumbles.

Erwin hums wisely around his cocktail glass, but that funny look in his eye has gone away now. Levi informs him you got overwhelmed, and Erwin agrees that’s understandable, considering the circumstance. Levi believes he means it without question.

“Things went well enough, right?” he goes on, a little dumbly.

“They did. The results of our last expedition contributed to that. You work well together, both on the battlefield and off of it.”

As much success as they reaped then, he’s referring to the two injured in Levi’s squad. You two played quite the role in ensuring Petra and Eld lived back then.

As Erwin speaks, he turns his back and heads in the direction of at least three table’s worth of drinks. Levi obediently follows behind, thinking to himself that Erwin should lay off the booze, but he doubts any one of them will be appreciating their livers in another fifteen years. It’s understandable, even, what with the heightened responsibility Erwin carries. Levi doesn’t envy his job at all. 

He says nothing.

“Those casualties weren’t your fault. You’ve always been masterful at quick and efficient decision-making.” He sets the empty umbrella-shaped glass down on a table of crystal.

Unimpressed, “The sun will rise before you get to the point you’re trying to make.”

Erwin’s lips crinkle at the edges when he smiles, reminiscent of a genie, or a guy who thinks he knows everything; for all Levi knows, that might be the case. He can never quite tell what Erwin’s thinking until he goes on and says it.

“What I mean to say is, you ought to make a choice before you lose the chance.”

Cryptic as ever. Then, Levi’s eyes widen a fraction with understanding: he comes to Erwin and requests you both return to HQ early, and Erwin decides it’s time to divulge romance advice for the first time ever.

“Normally… I wouldn’t lecture you on personal matters. It isn’t my place,” he goes on, uncharacteristically sheepish. “But I wanted to speak from personal experience. It’s none of my concern, one way or another.”

Levi blinks up at him. “I intend to.”

“You’re welcome,” he teases.

“Ugh. Shut up.”

With that, Levi turns his back and leaves this friendly exchange. He marches away like Erwin just gave him an order, but he didn’t, and ironically enough he already planned on it. He already decided.

Back in the carriage, actually.

—

The sight looks promising: you, no longer hunched up inside the carriage, but leaning against one of the paneled doors, smoking a fat cigar. You have to raise it to your lips around the giant, puffy sleeves, and suddenly he’s no longer just relieved, but amused.

“You must be feeling better.”

“Mm.” You sigh. He presses the back of his hand to your cheek just in case, and it’s deliciously warm. “I threw up.”

Levi takes a perilous look around your immediate vicinity. He repeats after you, incredulous, before you insist that you feel better now; not that you caught a bug, but this time anxiety triggered your stomach, as it has on more than one occasion in the past.

He believes you, mostly because he’s seen firsthand. Then again, he wants to know where, exactly. “–not in that tiny box we have to get back to Trost in, right?”

You shake your head. Your mouth feels like tumbleweeds and acid. “Those ‘pigs’ will have something to clean in the morning… Did you know they keep a whole box of cigars just—in the carriages?”

He knows very well: a pig’s favorite pastime, after all, is indulging in good mud. But he only indulges in tobacco every once (once) in a very long while, because otherwise you’d go around stinking like smoke with teeth like baked corn. That shit never comes out.

Thing is, everyone and their mother in the Underground smoked. Kenny in particular always had a pipe in his hand when it wasn’t a knife or a tankard, but if Levi wanted to be adventurous, Kenny would dangle it above his head before locking him out for the night—to be certain Levi learned his lesson. Very kind in retrospect, considering the man Kenny is, or was.

The smoke is a comforting, disgusting smell, but either way Levi still does it. As for you, you indulge only when you’re past carrying all the stress your shoulders can handle.

You swallow. Quietly, “We’re not going back?”

No. Erwin already thinks you’re sick besides, which is why Levi cranes his neck to get a look at where the stagecoach should be, and isn’t. Odds are, they’re off rolling tobacco or chowing down on whatever slop that doesn’t measure up to what the guests get. Either way, you can’t leave. Maybe that can work out.

The chilly air cuts when he breathes too deeply. He’s thankful when you offer him the smoldering cigar, trapped between all five fingers. 

Around a huff of amusement, he takes it between two of his own. All these years, and you still handle your tobacco like a toddler.

“What?” You sound like you know what he’s thinking.

He spares you by saying nothing and inhales deeply, pleased with the rich taste that curls over his tongue; pig’s mud indeed.

A smirk threatens one side of your mouth. “Only you can make smoking that stuff attractive.”

He blows the smoke out one side and clears his throat, flustered. No way you’ve always thought that and just never told him—you’re fucking with him. His eyes go somewhere else. “Tch. Watched and learned is all.”

You decide to tease him if he’s going to assume you’re doing that already. “Am not. It’s only sexy on you, princess.”

He opens his mouth, stammers horribly, and shuts it with a buzz in his head; probably the tobacco. “Th-That’s–” He plants himself against the carriage. He needs to recover. “Shut up. Now. Shut your sh-shitty mouth.” You don’t. His lips wrinkle. “Stop laughing already… That’s enough.”

He flicks your forehead and your laughing dissolves into giggles. How thankful he is that it’s dark: he can feel the heat flock to his cheeks. 

“Your joke isn’t funny,” he complains. “Unless you intended to creep me out.”

“Who said I was joking?”

“I did.”

He’s done with this conversation. It’s too late to go back, and while Erwin excused you both, the stagecoach is absent to do just that. It’s not the end of the world, though. Carriage rides, no matter the destination, tend to drag on so long it’s worth more of your time to find patterns in the upholstery than look around outside. Neither of you are inclined to add nearly an hour to the trip by sitting inside. 

Let’s look at the stars, you suggest. He caves, surprisingly without much fight at all, considering it’s colder than the underside of an ice cube tonight. 

But first, he’s bullying a mint between your lips and thoroughly, furiously lathering every bit of your hands with a cloth soaked in something clean and cold he draws from the depths of his lapels. Just in case, he claims; who knows what germs stew around in the stomach all day?

“What is that?” You almost gag. “Gin?”

“Absinthe. Stop fucking—” he spreads your palm, “—jerking everywhere.”

I’ll jerk something—

You laugh, mostly at yourself. “Where’d you get absinthe?” That’s some strong alcohol, the sort heavy enough to even roll Levi over like a train. 

The side of his mouth twitches as he tells you he has friends in high places, as if that means anything. He probably threatened someone rich. You let it go and shake your hands out, appreciating the clean taste of the mint. 

That’s until he swipes the absinthe-rag across your lips—“Ugh! ‘Vi–”—and dabs around your mouth like you have crumbs stuck there. He considers asking you to suck on it like a lozenge, an old trick for stomach problems he learned from no one other than a boozehound like Kenny, but it might just put you out. It usually worked for Levi, though. 

“Why?” you ask incredulously around a shot of nausea. Your nostrils feel like you’ve snorted floor cleaner. “Lemme guess. It put you to sleep?”

“No.”

You don’t get an explanation at first. He’s too busy tossing the rag in a bin, drying his hands, then fiddling with his waxy hair with a sour look on his face. You take initiative, and he melts a little.

“It got me drunk, and I threw up,” he finally relents, expression thoroughly pinched with disgust. “But you’ve had enough of that for one night, right?”

You tut. “Yeah. Not very romantic.”

Saying that, you slip your arms around his waist and tuck yourself against him. His skin is soft and fairly salty here since you’ve been under lights all night. You note also, with a touch of longing, how his whole body clams up before strong arms stray over your shoulders. Technically you’re in public here, where not a single person doesn’t know you and him by your faces; it’s not the anonymity you’re privileged to in Trost, or even Stohess. 

Nerves turn your stomach. You bury your face a little deeper to escape it, and his chest lifts with a deep breath. Under an oily night like this, it’s unlikely you’ll be noticed, but you hope you didn’t make him uncomfortable anyway. 

“You’re warm,” you whisper, voice muffled as if by a pillow.

His eyes sting when he allows them to slip shut. Maybe he’s tired or amused or fond, but there’s a raw feeling in his chest that glows to hear you say that. You’re warm, too.

He pets your hair. “C’mon.”

With all the factories tucked in the industrial district south of Mitras, the air is more clogged somehow. It doesn’t taste as clean as the countryside air in Wall Rose, let alone outside it in what is now Titan territory. 

The height of the castle, however, makes up for it plenty. If the stars could somehow be reached, touched, taken—those mere pinpricks in the fabric of the nighttime blanket—then the castle stretches far enough into the sky to convince you of that illusion. Tons and tons of drops of pure light.

You both lounge on a long, shady stretch of cobblestone, protected at all sides from a finely-cut stone barrier. The chill nips at your bones much more up here.

Once you settle in, Levi goes very still and very quiet, almost as if he was at a funeral, but he’s just craning his neck to marvel. It’s a solemn sort of wonder, one you understand. 

“I’m gonna sound crazy,” he mumbled once, but he didn’t need convincing to admit it. He always has one last weak defense in his arsenal; always before exposing a raw and very tender nerve. “But just listen. Doesn’t it look like you could….”

The quiet was severe that late at night, even at the Trost barracks. You understood. “Like maybe… You could reach out and touch one?”

And he stopped looking for one moment to shoot you a sidelong, thoughtful look; you and the blanket over your shoulders, because Levi always runs hot and he didn’t like to cuddle back then.

“Am I wrong?”

He looked away and didn’t say anything for a long time. So long you didn’t think he’d reply. “Not at all.”

You weren’t sure if you quite pinned down what he was thinking, whether you read his mind exactly right, or whether you said something he never considered—it’s still hard to tell now, sometimes. Levi has a million facets to him, some quieter than others, no matter how far your history stretches. Some a stranger can discern with just a passing glance, some only you know; no matter what, you always get to learn something new about him this way.

In comparison, your heart is permanently tethered to your sleeve, and you talk freely about this or that. He’s a very good listener, always sharp-eyed and attentive. That’s how it is now, though this evening’s chaos bouncing about your mind doesn’t allow you to go on and on as much as usual.

The night is stunning. You think back: a dark, mildewy blanket of a sky, endless and echoing into nothing—that’s what the Underground ceiling is like, or that’s how he always described it when he opened up about it. You can’t imagine growing up in darkness: trapped, small, never-ending. 

But a kind word, an I’m sorry goes a bit over his head, always has. You learned to accept his grief for what it is, just like he learned to console you when you so much as forget to tip a waitress. You learned an apology is what you give your subordinate when your handwriting is a bit too messy to make out, or you show up a few minutes late to a meeting. True sorrow is as rare as true love: just as you can’t mend a crater in the earth with a bandaid, you can’t convey true love with words like, “You’re warm.”

You know what you share, and you think he knows that too. Part of this means listening rather than just hearing him, and if you can’t understand his trouble, you always understand how he feels. The amount of times he’s spared you the same reverent attention makes your head spin a little.

For all these little facets of what you share, a smile is drawn to your lips when you breathe in his cologne. It’s hard to pinpoint a time you’ve ever felt closer to him (nevermind the scarce amount of physical space between you now), though you’ve almost always been—in some invisible, demonstrable way—together. You walk on air.

Cross-legged, Levi does nothing to stop you as you toy with his long fingers some more, tracing patterns all over his hand. Beneath moonlight like this, his skin looks more like porcelain, making the baby hairs and pasty scars here and there a little more shiny. 

“You have small wrists.”

Your sides touch, and you vaguely register that he’s fidgeting the slightest bit. 

“Keen observation,” he drawls, thick with sarcasm. “Did you happen to notice my eyes are gray?”

You’re scandalized. “Huh? They’re blue!” You ignore his surly glare. “Like… Like how starlight looks. Or the sky when the sun’s about to come up. And in the dark? Right now? It’s how water looks when the moon’s reflecting off it. Don’t you get it?”

A flare of embarrassment ripples your chest—you’re rambling, and it’s obvious you’ve ruminated on his eye color, of all things—but he doesn’t mock you. His eyes are a touch wider, and the exact color you just described. The pull of some emotion raw and blatant looks outright uncanny without his bangs in the way.

You ask if he ever gave such a thing much thought, and really, no. Parts of himself he can’t change—the shape of his face, the slope of a small nose, his short, stocky build—he never gave much mind to. There’s no part of him capable of spewing poetry like you just did.

Suddenly, he feels convicted. 

“You’re beautiful,” he whispers, furrowing his brow. “In general. Not just tonight,” and to add onto that, “Not just your looks, either.”

The look on your face reminds him of a very soft, pretty flower. He resists the urge to look away and leans forward, kisses you smooth and slow. You kiss back with earnest. It’s a shock to his senses when your chilly hand lands on his flaming cheek.

Your eyes are quite dazzled. Your lips part, then they close. “Have you given it any more thought?”

He knows that thin pull in your voice isn’t because of anything he’s done wrong, but he wants his arm around your waist anyway. It’s without a moment of hesitation that you shuffle up close. He stretches one leg out to make room, and suddenly his mouth is dry.

He realizes he didn’t answer you and nods a little stupidly. All day today (technically, since two nights ago when he last slept properly) he’s been ‘giving it thought’.

“I shouldn’t have asked, sorry. I don’t want to rush a decision like that, but you make it hard when you–” you nose his cheek, kiss the flaming skin there, “–call me that.”

You, as in all that you are. He doesn’t just stop at a pretty face, but it’s the little quirk in your laugh and the way you walk; your subpar cleaning skills and your knack for putting on a brave face no matter if it’s the fall of Wall Maria four years ago, or if a yowling cat trapped in a damn thicket. It’s just a word, but it means so much; you can’t quite tell if you’re overreacting or not.

His answer: A hand buries in your hair and he shakes his head. “It just isn’t easy for me. I don’t even…”

He stalls, because the first explanation he jumps to, he realizes, is a lie. “I know how I feel. I know how you feel, and it’s selfish. But I wouldn’t have regrets,” he head hangs, “I’d—I’d rather suffer than regret anything with you.”

You give a small, sure nod. “Me too.”

Your heart is on a rampage in your chest, but you’re very still, like a statue. You fear any slight move could dim this moment, or make him quiet. If only you could stay like this forever, or at least until the sun comes up. Together.

He’s reminded of how you reassured him shortly before Mayfest. Unsurprisingly, he still carries those words with him: “We’ve been through everything together, this is no different.”

He clears his throat, but his voice remains rusty. His duty demands he reiterate this: “W-We have a job to do. But even so, things have always been the same between us.”

“Yeah… Hange will always be making kissy noises when we’re in the same room together.” 

That too. His heart twists up, and an ocean of warmth washes over his chest. He feels protective suddenly; with both arms he cradles you closer, and nudges your temple tucked beneath his chin. He has to strain his neck a little to do it, but he doesn’t care at all.

“You’d t-train one-on-one with me s-several days a week,” he blurts out. He keeps fucking stammering. “On ODM, too. That’s, my condition.”

You’re happy to—thrilled, in fact, to bust your ass a hundred times and slash at cardboard Titans every day out of the week, if he preferred. His lips part like he plans to go on, but doesn’t. And don’t get killed, you think he’d say; Don’t get killed for me. Neither of you can uphold a promise like that.

There’s no air in his lungs. His voice is like thin, crystalline glass. “So, if, if you’d live with me, then…”

He stalls; he knows the answer. When you kiss him, you knock your noses together. It feels like fire and tastes like spirits. There’s no need to use so many words.

Where he’s slowly grown remarkably tense, his shoulders fall, welcoming your arms around them. The cold bristles your cheek where his hand leaves you in favor of the nape of your neck. Stay here, it says, and you mimic him. Stay with me. 

Levi stews in the confusion of this solid, warm feeling cramping his chest; it begs tears when there’s nothing to grieve. Death of the past, maybe. Too many sentiments roll around in his head to speak any aloud. You’d probably be better off counting the stars. The frustration is like a red-hot coil, deep in his chest. He feels the longing like a pinprick in the middle of his ribcage. 

He tilts his head and pushes more passion into the kiss. You must understand that this is him, trusting you, and giving himself away; and he will take care of you in return. He’d be horribly remiss to do any wrong by you.

More; the way your thin breath stutters and your fingers dance at the prickly hairs, short of where his undercut lays. Your lashes kiss his cheeks and your pulse thumps beneath his thumb. If you wanted to kiss any deeper, he’d have to part his lips for you.

He imagines—in some faraway, alternate universe—in which things never led to this moment, like naming a color no one’s ever seen. It simply wouldn’t make sense. He wants you to keep in your mind, to never think of yourself as any less than Levi at the best moments you have framed of him in your mind.

He thinks himself lucky, despite the rest; one precious jewel this world finally, for once, took upon itself to hurl at him despite all its wretchedness. But, that would be giving the world too much credit.

He wants you.

Your velvety tongue rolls across his lips, allowing you to breathe each other in, warm, hot and heavy, and a ghostly moan rises from his chest. For all his patience, he doesn’t want to stop; that’s until his palm lands on your cheek, and finds cold, sticky tears there. 

He pulls away as if he’s been burned, but you’re smiling with abandon; you tell him, “No, I’m just so happy,” and he is too. If only he had any say in this world’s inane rules, tears wouldn’t walk hand-in-hand with joy. Why should people cry when they’re happy?

“Oh,” he replies.

He wets his lips, tastes absinthe and mint and you; your lipstick is smeared, which means his are stained red. It doesn’t feel like he can move when you look at him this way. The shine in your eyes puts the stars to shame. 

Then, your thumb traces his high cheekbone. He twitches and realizes he’s trembling all over, like a cornered mouse. 

“You see?” You smear a silent tear from his cheek. “You’re doing it too.”

He has thick lashes; no matter how he blinks, tears stick to them. His nose is stuffy. If you were to ask if he’s happy, so happy, then he would melt. You kiss his smile—again, again, then once more. Tremors lay in his thumbs as he wipes away the tears pasted to your cheeks.

“For the record,” you tell him a very long while later, when the flashy lights and sounds from inside have dumbed down, when suits and flowy gowns have poured out onto the sidewalks, “you’re beautiful too.”

No, Erwin won’t mind that he ended up fibbing by spending the death of the evening anywhere but riding back to HQ. You ask him how he can be so sure of that, but he shakes his head. If by the slimmest of margins Erwin does mind, the excuse is your missing stagecoach.

Levi locks his arm with yours as you walk—one part not to lose you to the crowd, mostly because he can—and you’re scarcely able to avoid the Commander, but there’s no such thing as avoiding Hange. They’re steering Moblit in all directions (as they please) despite being exponentially more wasted than him, and nearly pass you both by. Levi is propping the carriage door open with his elbow and lends you his other hand while you pick up your dress so as not to trip over the steps.

You’ve just gotten situated when a screech—“Captain Shorty! Looking dashing as always!”—that could only be Hange sounds from very close by. Moblit may tear his arm off in efforts to drag them in the opposite direction.

If they get a good look at him, his hair askew, his collar utterly rumpled despite all your attempts to straighten it, a scene will be made. There also may or may not be red splotches from your lipstick on his neck, so all he can do is flee into the carriage. Already you dash for the hatch and slam it shut.

“It’s not over,” he croaks, and on cue the door lurches under Hange’s two hands. They stare in through the round window, big brown eyes wide with curiosity. 

He darts back just in time. You have to slap your hand over your mouth so as to not laugh your head off.

Finally, peace and quiet once Moblit gets a handle on them like the good assistant he is. Not soon enough, the carriage lurches forward, and you both start breathing again. 

You’re still laughing as you attempt to comb his greased hair back to its original shape, and the only reason he stays still and takes it is because it’s the only thing that can unwind his frayed nerves. It’s helpless until he can wash it out, but it’s a valiant effort on your part.

But (and for once), he’s not so stressed just because of Hange’s antics. You share another cigar, but only his hands are steady enough to light the match.

It’s a dirty habit, even dirtier to light it up inside someplace small and confined like this, but the evening and its happy lunacy warrant a little indulgence. He can wash, iron, and dry your outfits later, all you like. He can brush his teeth a hundred times and you can wash his hair until he’s brand new. You can do anything.

You take a small toke of the fat cigar. “We need a shower when we get home,” you say without thinking, and at his raised brow, you blanch. “Oh.” You think fast. “This reminds me of something that happened between me and my first boyfriend.”

Like a dolt, he blinks at you. He opens his mouth, then closes it. You’ve never mentioned this person before. “What did you say?”

You knock his shoulder, eyes wide and expectant; it reminds him of a little kid. You play innocent, insist that he knows him, like it’s the most basic of information. He nearly goes cross-eyed wracking his memories for any mention or face of some man you’ve dated in the past. 

You always strongly disliked the heart-eyes one of your past subordinates always shot you, besides this faceless steelworker or that stablehand. His brows furrow and a frown tugs his lips down. Jealousy sweeps over him in longer and larger waves.

Finally, he shoots you a petulant, vaguely helpless look. “Who are you talking about?”

Your lips break into a snarky grin. You sigh as if you’re about to explain something to a child, and climb astride in his lap (careful not to tangle your dress in the process). Close and comfortable.

He doesn’t move. “What–”

“It’s you, dummy. You’re my first.”

Before you can congratulate yourself on your wit, Levi sneers and captures your lips. His hand seizes the back of your head so you can’t try anything. 

It isn’t the first time you’ve accidentally referred to Trost HQ as ‘home’, but he’s also feeling petty from that joke; enough to pinch your bottom lip between his teeth, enough to do nothing when your dress slips from your neckline and exposes your shoulder to the rapidly warming air.

Your round thighs squeeze his hips, stoking warmth below his belt, but still manages to act petulant between the wet smacks of your lips: “You’re such a pain in the ass–” kiss, “–idiot.”

“Dummy.”

“Idiot.”

You pass him the smoldering cigar as a peace offering. His tongue darts across his shiny lips as he takes it. Spicy tobacco smoke plays around your nose until you duck your head and taste his soft cologne, his salty sweat. He nods his head back to make room, and regrets it as soon as he sucks a strangled gasp through his teeth when you circle your tongue around his adam’s apple. Your lips are smoldering. 

The tobacco has his head spinning brightly, and your teeth make his cock stir. Briefly, he abandons the cigar to just feel. 

A sweet shudder tickles your spine. You love to feel him cling to you despite how hard he fights to smother the slightest hint that you’re getting to him. You’ll never get over how reactive Levi is, perfectly pliant under your mouth, your hands.

You can’t help yourself. As you suckle a stretch of skin (that his cravat has no hopes of covering) between your teeth, you roll your hips where you’re perfectly slotted together, and gasp when you feel the ridge of his half-hard cock through your slip.

He screws his eyes shut. “You better stop that.”

You only vaguely ease off. “Why?”

“‘Cause I don’t wanna deal with a hard-on for two fucking hours.”

You whisper in his ear, “What if you don’t have to?” 

He almost drops the cigar, which is only barely still clinging to life. His free hand squeezes your shoulder—more for his stability than yours, honestly. “Ah, I see how it is. You’ve gone crazy.”

It seems you try to rub your thighs together, but you only manage to squeeze his hips instead. Your mouth has quit though, your hands gone still just in case he really means that. 

You watch his dark eyes grow glazed when you wet your lips, and insist: “Tell me you’ve never thought about it. Like this, here…”

But he has, and he’s no liar. He sighs instead—in defeat, lust, relief, or all three—and drags your hips over his lap with both hands. The way the friction has your breath audibly catching in your throat stokes the fire low in his belly. 

He wishes he could see more, with your dress and all the other barriers out of the way.

“Okay,” he breathes. “Have it your way.”

You catch him in a bruising liplock, sharing hot breath, tongue, touch; as if it’s been ages since you’ve brushed paths, as if close has never been close enough until this very moment.

Levi takes care to flick what’s left of the scorched cigar-butt into an ashtray so he can make a desperate grab for more of you. You sling both your arms around his neck and cling.

Your lipstick, ruby-red, makes the drag of your lips like honey. It mingles with the sticky taste of tobacco, but he needs more, so he takes your bottom lip and licks into your hot mouth when he first gets the chance. He loves it when you moan for him.

Your hand snakes up, massaging where his hair is prickly and short. Higher, where all of it is at your disposal, as slicked as it is—the sensation has pleasant shivers shaking up his spine. His lungs beg for air.

A moment to breathe. His blue-grey eyes have gone glazed and a tad lidded, and strawberry-colored smears decorate his swelled ones, and all around his mouth. You kiss his cheek, and revel in the saccharine satisfaction of the stain that’s left behind. There’s something about leaving a mark on him that licks flames at your insides. Irresistible.

You’re going to be forced to clean up later, but a part of you wants others to see the lipstick stains on the apples of both his cheeks; following down his sharp jaw, his high cheekbones, even his forehead. 

He doesn’t stop you either. In fact your heart leaps because, as breathy and small as it is, he very well could be laughing (his voice always cracks when he laughs for how rare it happens), so you start to laugh too. Then you’re laughing and kissing and grabbing at each other like two drunk idiots. 

Your lips fall below his chin, driving a shiver up his spine. Goosebumps rise to his skin, then his skin between your teeth, and he lightly gasps. He makes a blind grab for your thigh, but comes up with a handful of silk instead. 

Levi remembers himself finally— “Fucking dress,”—and scoops the hems up in both hands. He catches sight of fine, fleece stockings colored like snow; then garters. Fine, black lace following up beneath your slip, surely clipped to your panties.

A breath is punched from his chest. Your heels clatter to the floor with the haste that he hitches you up further, closer. His belly does somersaults and his mind fucking melts.

“The fuck—didn’t you tell me?” His hands roam all over, gliding up and down and under the thin lace. You laugh at the incredible petulance in his voice; shiver nonetheless when he thumbs under the stocking’s frills and has them snap back against your thigh.

“Our outfits were surprises, weren’t they?”

He scoffs, thoroughly through with your tricks. His palms slip inside your panties instead, taking two handfuls of your ass, and the gasp he gets in return has his chest fluttering. It’s your hips he takes hold of next, rolling his hips up shamelessly.

You curse in surprise, burning like a fever has come over you. So much fabric bars you from feeling him, and that has to change. 

“Are you—”

“Don’t stop,” you gasp. You’re not going to be the one calling the shots this time, and thrill like a firework shoots through your belly.

He holds you close, and doesn’t stop. When you begin meeting him in the middle, rutting hard against the hard ridge of his cock, he curses under his breath and throbs. 

You like the look on his face—pinched, bloomed pink—so you bite that feather-sensitive spot under his ear and his whole body shudders with a barely-concealed cry. He starts panting. 

“I want what you want,” you whisper.

Levi wastes no time. He puts you where he wants you: your backside on the cushions, sat up with your dress a heap in your lap, knees bent. 

Before he slides down to the fuzzy carpet, he kisses your chin. “Not a sound, right?”

Your teeth clack from shutting your mouth so abruptly, nodding like a bobblehead though that’s certainly not a promise you can keep. Between your thighs, your clit is throbbing.

Kneeling, he decides you’re not close enough and abruptly yanks you closer by the fat of your thighs. 

Your soul leaves your body, the ease with which he handles you. He could easily drag you into any position he wants—like now, he spreads your legs wide—and you would go limp and pliant and let him take you any way he’d like. 

Now he hitches both your legs up over his shoulders, exposing your soaked panties to the cool air, and his mouth. You cross your ankles over his upper back, where his shoulderblades lie, and hear your heart like a stampede in your ears.

You want what he wants—and he wants to taste you. Somewhere there’s a twinge of surprise inside you, but there shouldn’t be; that first time he shuddered when he first licked you, and seized your thighs to take more and more and more. 

Like now: he licks a long line over your panties from your hole to your clit, and though you gasp from the bottom of your lungs, though you urge his head right there, he’s determined to tease you.

He made out with your messy cunt until you whimpered if he so much as kissed your shaking thigh, that first time. You shook like a leaf all over in fact for the latter half of that night, and in the morning there was a crick in his jaw.

Now he thumbs your panties to one side, spreading your lips with his other between two fingers. His tongue—deliciously hot, heavy, and wet—laps between your sloppy folds, no barriers left, and you were crazy to ever imagine staying dead silent to be possible.

Occasionally, blindsiding you, his lips will close around your clit and suckle, and the gasp that leaves you makes your head spin. Your gasping is obnoxiously loud, but so are the squelching noises his lips make smacking on your swollen clit. 

It doesn’t even register that your hands are greasy from the gel slicking his hair. Half of your attention is paid to staying quiet and the other on mashing his face in your pussy.

And he gets off on you jerking him around like this; yanking him any way that pleases you, getting used by you. 

He never knows what to do or how without bruising his mind thinking, and this way it’s so much easier to let go and let you take him. There’s no reason to doubt that you want him, either. Need.

Spread open for him, he breathes hot and open-mouthed over your glistening lips. You’re soaked because of him. He did this, and a feeling randomly seizes him. 

He yanks your panties further aside, practically ravenous, only for fabric to tear abruptly, like yanking off a bandaid. If he didn’t pull them aside they’d drop from your hips on their own, surely. 

Through a thick haze you hardly hear, just feel him stop. You look up, and by the rueful look on his face, Levi must’ve forgotten his own strength. 

“Sorry.” He actually sounds genuine. 

You could laugh. “Come back here,” you whimper, giving his collar a small yank, and before you even finish he’s back between your slippery thighs.

He breathes carefully through his nose and adjusts you for an easier angle. Only now, distantly, does he notice himself idly rubbing his thighs together when that thick, heavy sweetness rolls over his tongue once more, and the realization vanishes. 

A squeak just barely dies in your throat, your grip painful again, and he wants to fuck his hand so bad he aches. He paints your clit with his tongue, drags his heavy tongue through your soaked folds and actually whimpers, it’s so hot, so damn tight.

Your thighs pin him where he is, and it’s a wickedly appealing desire to have your thighs to smother him; cushion his head so those sheer stockings mess his hair while he makes you come on his face again and again. 

Your voice—breathy and high and choked—has broken the surface; he can tell you’re close. It’s wetter, soaking his face from the slope of his nose down his chin, and he sweeps his tongue to lap it all up, but your hips keep fucking his face and there’s more every time he licks into you. 

Over and over is a grossly appealing idea right about now, all fucking night. 

He sucks your clit, and you jerk, fighting for air. You gasp his name, and flames lick at his lower half. So close. He needs it.

Faster, he strokes your clit with his tongue, for the first time uses his fingers to circle your entrance, and you’re in grave danger of keening out loud at the ceiling. 

For him too, a moan is almost wrenched from his throat. Shit, because the carriage is rocking—he’s licking you out in a fucking carriage—and there’s no way you’ll stay quiet this way. 

He squeezes your thighs so he can pull away and climb up between your legs, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as does. Cushions hug your back, your thighs awkwardly pivoting back to accommodate his waist.

“Sorry—”

His palm falls over your mouth and he holds his finger up, glistening with your cum, to his lips in a way that says: Quiet.

You breathe noisily, gasping really, and tilt your hips towards him, silently begging. 

Your thighs are hefted up high next—folding you almost completely in half—so your ankles end up dangling helplessly over his shoulders. Your thighs strain immediately, a dull pain, but it’s thrilling to be exposed this way; from the waist down you’re spread open, allowing the air to kiss your glistening cunt. You vaguely register that you’re trembling. 

He leans forward and props your chin up on two fingers. “Can you handle this? Or too much?”

You open your eyes. His lips are plump and shiny, and a daring sheen in his bright blue-greys tells you Levi likes having you at his mercy like this. Still, he asks, and for some reason that leaves your head reeling.

It’s a touch too painful for your thighs, being bent like this, and without so much as batting an eye he props your knees up high around his midriff instead. You cross your calves behind his back while he spreads his knees apart further so your backside doesn’t slip forward.

“Better?” He whispers this. 

You sigh in relief. “Thank you.”

An abrupt bump in the road forces him to brace himself against the wooden rail above your head. Before you can yelp, he has you taken care of. His palm slaps back over your mouth, and your nostrils flare.

“That’s another problem.” He thumbs at your bottom lip and forces your lips into a pucker. “This mouth of yours. So,” he searches your eyes, “you gonna shut up this time? Or do I need to do it for you?”

Your pussy flutters hard, and the sound you make in kind has him huffing in amusement. Clearly not.

Experimentally, he bullies three fingers past your lips while his free hand falls between your thighs to play with your clit. 

You just about gag in surprise when his fingers press your tongue down flat, and swallow around them to compensate for the whines that vibrate around his fingers. Your cheeks hollow out, and as much as he likes to watch—you make his heart thump in his ears and his cock strain between his thighs—it’s no good.

You notice him yank his cravat free from his collar because he’s forced to pull away from your clit to do so. The ones pruned from your mouth he wipes off on his pant leg.

You swallow furiously, nod your head and breathe hard as it’s knotted tight around your head. Obediently you bite down, experimentally working your tongue around it. It’s silkier than most of his others, but you taste what light scent he wore this evening, plus thick traces of spice from the cigar. It’s good, you decide. 

You’re to pinch him if something’s wrong, and it takes every last speck of your patience not to force his hand and beg him not to treat you like thin glass that could shatter.

The carriage keeps on rocking, but he’s got you. It sharply occurs to him that you may be very short on time now, so his hand falls down to smear more cum coating thighs and pussy up, all over your clit. 

The way he rubs you in these quick little motions reminds you of the way he handles the ODM triggers. Grinding your teeth, you force yourself to stay near-silent. Your hips jerk sloppily, out of rhythm, shameless.

He sighs and sinks two fingers into your cunt. In the next breath he picks up a quick, steady rhythm, and finger-fucks you deep. 

You’re already drawing up shivery and tight, whining for him, groping his shoulders. The squelching sounds have you physically hot all over; your fabrics stick to you like an ugly sauna. 

Between the gag, he thinks you’re trying to say his name, and kicks his hips forward at nothing but air. A third finger slips through your folds before bullying in beside the others and your chest lifts, head nodding back. 

He swallows a groan, not that he’s interested in getting caught, but no matter how he tries you just can’t obey his order. That’s how good it is for you, that’s how much you crave him, and that’s what’s getting him off. You’re far from silent, but quiet enough.

“That’s better,” he sighs, curls his fingers in a c’mere motion, fucks them deep, and is forced to cradle the back of your head so you don’t end up hurting yourself, you reel back so hard.

While you’re trying to say, Levi Levi Levi, he pecks one of your stuffed cheeks, then kisses, suckles your bottom lip. They’re split by spit-soaked fabric, but he’s too fond of your muffled, broken attempts at his name to resist.

You’re turning your knuckles white for how desperately you’re clinging to him. His thumb slips through your sloppy folds to give your clit some needed attention, and your cry, this time, is audible.

He’s attacking your throat with kisses. Never does he ramble so much, you’ve found, than when you’re fucking.

“Dirty girl.” His voice is severe. “Wish you could see yourself, getting fucked on my fingers,” he’s panting, “gagged and soaking wet for me. I want it, give it to me.”

So tight—your pillowy cunt split around his three fingers, your thighs locked around his waist. The first wave makes your vision flash between tumbling breaths over a high, red-hot peak. It shakes its way through you and then a little more.

Levi groans under his breath, fat cock pinned to his thigh, and protectively shades your face in his throat while your slippery cunt gushes all over his fingers. All for security, safety, privacy—and, this is for his eyes and ears only.

It’s quick and it’s dirty; drool paints both sides of your pretty mouth while he works your pussy through those last little flutters. 

His fingers slow until your hips have picked up a tiny tremor, shying away the slightest bit this position allows. The world floats like a heatwave behind your eyelids, then fingers are working in a flurry behind your head, and you’re free.

Soaked spit webs his cravat and your tongue, connecting them. With a sore tongue you wet your lips and just breathe. Your thighs seem to vibrate, but he’s letting your legs down, sarcastically asking if you’re alive. 

A smile breaks your cheeks. Your hand moves without much thought at all, in lieu of words you simply don’t possess right now; stroking his cheek, then to his destroyed hair, which you rub affectionately. 

Your eyes are still closed, but they open as he briskly goes about fixing up your appearance (however you’ll have to go without panties; he throbs at the thought) in order to straighten him out too.

“Fuck,” you giggle like a dream. His pupils are round with lust, cheeks stained red by a blush (and darker lip-shaped imprints speckling his face). Dark strands of hair can’t decide whether to stay pinned back or fall over his forehead, where they belong. You decide on the latter, and through a glowing fog ask how he can talk like that.

Embarrassed, scorched by pride, he smugly pretends to not know what you mean. You like to think even Levi blurts things out in the heat of the moment sometimes. 

Beside you, he flicks the curtain back, finds the glass fogged as if by a hot shower, and whips it closed again. You’re likely both stinking like sex, and all he has are mints. 

Your rumpled hems find the carpeted floor. Attempts to smooth them down are in vain, but you’re both in various states of rumpledness.

You’re dabbing a clean cloth over the lipstick stains on his chin. “Are we close?”

A snort, making you pout. Clever choice of words. “We’re here.”

He flicks his cravat in a wastebasket, and just when you’re about to apologize—silk costs a fortune these days—he points out that your underwear is wrecked, and neither of you paid for these outfits.

He wouldn’t be able to see himself ever wearing that cravat again, anyway, out of his others. Wearing refined silk or jewels, expensive furs and this fabric or that—it leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Always has.

The wheels stutter when they come to a stop over gravel, the carriage itself shuttering with it. 

He keeps crossing and uncrossing his legs, and you’re asking, “Mine or yours?” while the echoes of slamming doors shutter outside. Levi suspects Hange and Moblit, but mostly Hange.

“Mine,” he replies, then works his jaw in that strange way he does when he’s stressed. “Or both.”

Without needing to speak, you both already agreed to retreat inside after the rest of your comrades have passed, but now question marks wobble in your mind. The air grows somewhat awkward.

“Both?” Your mouth dries up. “You mean ours?”

He shoots you a little glance. “You’re still getting our clothes mixed up when you stay over, right?”

You laugh at this while Levi pretends to be casual, but his eyes are just as bright as they were on that balcony and of course, obviously, “I’d love to.”

—

The door only slams shut when you shove him against it as soon as you’re even remotely inside. Your kiss is a mess of heat, tongue, and salty perfume, reawakening his earlier lust with a fiery vengeance.

All this, but he still manages to fumble for the lock before his wrists are seized and slid up above his head. You hold tight.

Instinctively he gasps around a sloppy kiss, stomach dropping into somewhere bottomless, and bows back against you. He’s trapped, pinned, and he can’t decide if he likes it—not until your thigh pushes between his legs. 

His cock surges, and the fear feeling evaporates. Your breath is trembling—or maybe it’s his own—where you suck his skin between your teeth. 

All of this happens in a whirlwind, but he manages to hook his leg around your waist so he has you closer, tighter, harder. He gasps when the rolls of your thigh grow desperate, and throws his head back so he doesn’t make an embarrassing noise.

Then you, whispering filth in his ear. He tastes metal, because squirming isn’t enough, and the pain mashes with the pleasure so exquisitely that he doesn’t register that he’s right on the edge. 

His hips are rolling, humping your thigh like a filthy fucking animal, and you’re whining in his ear, “Ah, never took you for such a whore, Captain,” which flashes his mind in blinding light.

“Fuck—” he slurs, “—wait, fuckwait—” but he’s already shaking through his climax. He throws his head back, gives up, so he has no choice but to let you rub him through it.

This realization prolongs the throbbing in his cock and has him whining towards the end of the hot waves. For a long, endless moment you’re both (but mostly him) catching your breath. But then—once he has his mind back—he tugs his wrists free and gives your shoulders a weak shove.

You stumble a little, startled. “Oh, I thought you–” 

You’re doing my laundry tomorrow,” he huffs, shedding his vest, undoing his buttons in a flurry then yanking his shirt over his head. 

But when a beat passes without your reply, he watches you with his shirt bundled in his arms, good-natured, because he did like it. 

“Well?” he says weakly. He’s struck by an odd sense of insecurity.

Your mind catches up from moments ago—from calling Levi a slut and him shaking in your hold, the heat you felt spill under his slacks—to this very moment in a flurry. Your cheeks heat like an oven.

“Yes,” you manage, taking the bundle from his arms once you’re close enough. “I just wanted to make sure that was okay. Clearly I was right.”

Better, actually. His adam’s apple bobs when he swallows; this between a neck riddled with hickies. “You’re being embarrassing.”

“Do you want to stop?”

He wants to ask what there is to stop exactly, but there’s a mischievous glint in your eye and he can feel he isn’t quite satisfied yet. Stamina like his can be a nuisance sometimes. 

His endurance, too, is normally relentless, but not this time. Partially he blames you, but unsurprisingly, he’s a stranger to his own tastes. That much is clear. 

You’re not mocking him either—behind your eyes or otherwise—which makes whatever you’re implying much more tempting. 

Finally: “…I’m listening.”

“Undress, then.” You’re actually smirking. “On the bed.”

He pretends getting ordered around like this doesn’t make his knees weak, and follows your direction.

It’s pointless to act prude and fold everything, not with the state of his slacks and underwear (disgust and relief war inside him to be rid of them finally), so he shucks everything in the same pile by the foot of the bed, along with his socks and shoes.

You’re left in just a thin, silky blue slip when you push him on his back and crawl between his legs. Casually, you stroke his thighs until he parts them slightly, but he can read your nerves, and he feels clogged with them too.

“What’re you planning?” he murmurs, now half-hard and certainly not squirming at all. His inner thighs are glistening, mostly around the creases of his pelvis.

Honestly, you’re not completely sure. He gives it quite a bit of thought before shaking his head when you offer to try restraining his wrists above his head, and you get a shaky feeling imagining going any further than what you’ve tried so far. You imagine that’d be too much for him, too.

This is how you both agree, simply, to do as you please. His cock twitches a little against his thigh as your heavy tongue traces trails over his mess, speckling pecks, then long, open-mouthed draws of your tongue.

“Ah.” The hard muscles on his belly tense. He can’t quite bring himself to lay back than to watch you through thick lashes as you dutifully lap up his cum—now scraping your tongue through the wiry hairs below his navel. 

Where your mouth goes, his skin cools, causing goosebumps to prick up.

It’s completely unlike how he licked you in the carriage—rushed and feverish—this time you’re clearly making it a point to work him up slowly. You kiss his big thighs almost innocently, nudging bruises into the pale skin with your teeth. 

That’s the part that’s getting to him the most. He can’t recall ever being treated like this before. His elbow falls over his eyes, somehow embarrassed, thighs twitching. 

Without his realizing, he’s inching them shut. He only realizes when you tell him gently, “None of that,” and gently pry them apart again. “Legs open, princess.”

His chest lifts. He doesn’t know what to do with himself besides exaggerate your request—using his absurd flexibility to his advantage to spread them much wider than you probably wanted—then feel his hips twitch up and into the soaked heat that closes around his tender cockhead. Just before, you called how he spread himself perfect.

A mumbled version of your name is smothered by his elbow, pleading. He’s still sensitive, wracked by overwhelming jolts so soon after just coming—but somehow, it feels good. He can’t help twitching away from your mouth, the feeling borders on pain, but you hold him still and it feels like liquid heat.

You lick into his slit, gently pumping the base. The only reason you pull off is to say his name. You want him to watch.

His lower half melts. Somewhere, he’s knuckling the sheets. If he allows you to look at him, he’ll just embarrass himself. He’s too exposed like this.

“I can’t.” He shudders. “It’s. You’re goin’ too slow.”

You lay your palms spread across his thick thighs. Muscles draw a little tense. “You want me to go faster?”

Somehow, you doubt he’s upset about any more than being touched like this. His fat cock, almost fully hard again, idles up high in the crease of his pelvis. It’s even leaking from the flushed head already.

You’re hot between your legs, but you don’t want this to be about you anymore. He deserves to be loved on too. You gently beckon him with his name.

“No,” he whispers, though it sounds more like a question. He peeks over his arm at you, hesitant. “I don’t know.”

“That’s fine,” you lean over and kiss his forehead, “You don’t have to talk, or even look. I just want you to feel good.”

You wrap him in a tender fist, and his eyes fall into slits. “I already do.”

He can hear the smile in your voice. “You know what I mean, ‘Vi.” Your spare hand roams his strong chest, swiping over his nipple. He grunts. “I want you to do two things: tell me to stop, if you need to…”

His hips rock into your hand, face pinched. “I don’t.”

“If.” Your lips quirk. “And tell me when you get close, okay?”

He still doesn’t know what you’re planning—though, he suspects you intend to try something new—but he nods. That specific command makes him heat up. He wants to please you.

Another kiss, and then you’re back between his legs, still pumping him. Faster, then slower. He’s beside himself with impatience, waiting for what you’ll do. Then one stray finger, he feels, slips down to rub his taint, and his thighs nearly jerk shut again. His heart is in his ears.

You’re already there prying them apart. Then, still rubbing, sweet heat swallows in in his cockhead—already sucking. A soft moan dies in his throat, and blindly he’s groping for your shoulder, then the nape of your neck; not to push or pull, but for something to cling to. The sheets aren’t enough.

His mind is buzzing. You suck him in so tight, soft like velvet, sticky and buttery and warm. It’s not his first time getting similar treatment, but it’s different when it’s with you; when you treat his body like something to worship, and reel in his pleasure instead of roughly taking it. 

It’s you eagerly lapping salty cum welled over his slit, your heavy tongue tracing that sensitive vein on the underside, your touch down below, alternating between gently massaging his balls and sweeping over his taint.

He still can’t bring himself to watch what you’re doing to him. Instead he feels you squeeze his ass in both hands while hollowing your cheeks around all you’ve taken so far, and he snaps his hips forward with a wet moan. This has his swollen girth pushing past your lips and over your tongue, bottoming out finally. 

You only gag a little before going down on him harder, bobbing your head even, which has him throbbing under your tongue. His hand buries in your hair, panting hard. Another falls over your bulging cheek. He can feel himself just on the other side, a fiery realization that punches a gasp from his lungs.

Maybe his grip turns a little tight in your hair, maybe it happens just for the hell of it, but a long moan kisses the sticky heat swallowing his cock, and his head falls back. His hips rock and he tosses his head to the side. 

Gasping, “I’m close.”

The sound that follows your mouth slipping off his cock makes his toes curl. At first he’s confused, then his climax fades and whittles away, and he’s filled with desperate disappointment.

“What—” He was staring at the backs of his eyelids so long the scarce lantern light on the bedside blinds him for a moment. Then he spots the self-satisfied smile you kiss his thighs with. “What’re you doing?”

“Making you feel good,” you rasp, going on smacking kisses that do nothing but frustrate him. “How about you just be patient, hm?”

A curse. Miserably, he squirms around, attempting to both earn back your mouth and distract from his red, swollen cock, but you can’t be swayed.

“That’s not—fair,” he tries, still watching you. No reply. Between a soft sigh, his hand falls over his chest, and he hisses his pleasure.

You most certainly don’t seem to mind, for you sigh too, breezily, and soothe a smarting bruise you left upon a scar with your tongue—that is, a deep indent years of ODM have impressed on his body. These stretch around both his thighs in double rings.

Where he needs you most—his cock, hard and glowing with spit, besides what cum has spilled over since your mouth left him—remains ignored. 

His hips stutter. Both his nipples are sensitive to the very air from his pinching the next time he speaks, bright and peaked. “Fucking do something already.”

“Watch your tone, Levi.” Immediately, dark thrills shoot through his stomach. “I’ll leave you like this.”

He freezes. Chancing a glance down at your expression, he can tell you’re at least halfway serious, so he shuts up.

Three fingers abruptly fall over his taint, rubbing slow, hard, then buttery heat swallows in his balls. Your tongue massages them.

His hips nudge up, craving more, only for your other arm to pin him down by his waist and stay there. It draws a rough groan from his lips. He feels unbearably high all the sudden, up in clouds, drowning in sweltering waves. 

He’s out of control, and he actually likes it. He’s in your hands.

Over the rush in his ears he can vaguely register his voice cracking between all the sounds he’s making. You’re not even touching him; you’re bowed between his legs, tonguing at his taint, kneading the firm flesh of his ass with two spread palms. 

So, he plays around his weeping cockhead instead, smearing cum. His muscles ripple, lips parting with a shuddering moan. No part of his body wants him too, but he warns that he’s close again. 

Your tongue was so dangerously close to dragging over a tight, much more sensitive spot too, which is why he whines so loud when you pull off. His lost climax feels so much more this time; his balls are heavy, cockhead as red as his lips, and he shivers, feeling you mindlessly rub his thighs and kiss his eyelids. 

But you also brush his sweaty bangs off his forehead, and that’s much better at least. 

Your voice is silk. “You’re so pretty like this, ’Vi. I wanted…” You laugh a little. “…I just always wanted you like this.”

He really likes that—knowing what he’s doing is right. Complaints are outside his mind. His eyes open now, but he looks away instinctively. “Well… you got it.”

And he really is pretty; with his pretty cock straining between thick, muscular thighs, these bruised in places. Above, where dark hair dusts up his navel, soft muscles twitch under your touch. His nipples are hard, as red as the lips he hooks his teeth into; these still a shade darker than the rich blush stretching over his face, down his bruised neck, sharp collar, heaving chest.

You find yourself admiring him more than his patience allows—if he has any left at all. The fact he warmed your heart by accepting a compliment without shying away confirms that. The trust he holds to let you worship and unravel him in this way puts a flutter in your chest.

Carefully, you wipe what tiny tears have pricked at the sides of his eyes. “Give me one more, I’ll let you come.”

Finally. “Then hurry,” he whispers without air. As for what he wants, what there is to ask for or what to say—he’s helpless. A wobbly feeling.

When your lips meet he grabs for you, rougher than he meant. His arms over your shoulders, gliding all over the silk that hugs your waist, lightly scratching down your back. He’s humming strained as you lick into his hot mouth, almost a whimper.

Your hand falls around his thick shaft, steady at first; slow enough to let him fuck your fist. Then, you abruptly speed up as if you mean to get him off right there, in a sloppy flurry. He’s teetering on the edge in moments.

A moan is wrenched from his chest, vibrating between your open mouths. “Ah, coming I’m gonna—” he gasps—

—But of course you stop, stealing the release he’s in dire need of and all his breath in your wake. He’s on the very cusp of begging. That’s why the relief when your hand wanders lower has him shivering. He craves something to do with his hands, but there’s nothing, so they clench into pointless fists behind your back instead. All that’s left is to cling and writhe.

You watch his jaw clench, and ask breathlessly, “Have you ever been touched here?”

He nods, aching too bad to lie or even consider lying. His pride died the exact moment you both stumbled through the door. 

It’s up to you, whatever you wish to try, if anything. You don’t have to, and he reiterates this at least three times in the time it takes for you to kiss and lick back down his rippled body. 

Also for the third time, you shake your head. Your heart is pounding; you’ve never tried, but you want to.

He squirms around to accommodate you, so his knees end up bent apart, his feet flat on the bed. This pleases you enough to hum where you’re licking; a place that already has him twitching and resisting the irresistible urge to whine.

Sensitive, reactive—as always. You’re glad to know you’re doing this right. He tastes good, like clean sweat and spice, all complimented by a heavy musk that belongs to only Levi. Wet smacking sounds.

“Yeah,” he whispers, and a hair lands lightly in your hair. Much of his earlier nerves sound like they floated away. “Keep going. Don’t stop.”

His hole is pink and hairless. You sigh, unable to resist rubbing your thighs together. After spreading properly you glide your tongue over that very spot; once at first, to hear Levi’s low, punched cry; then you gain confidence and drag your tongue in even strokes up and down. Your surprise to feel it twitching under your tongue is burning hot. 

He’s been so shamelessly loud since the third time you deprived him. Maybe this is even the loudest you’ve heard him, period. The most desperate. You shiver.

Your tongue circles his hole like you’re drunk, or that’s how much he’s squirming, and almost constantly, little sounds are punctuated with his breaths. All with abandon. It’s a challenge to force him still. 

A tiny thrill shoots through your belly. You often forget that in any situation he can easily overpower you. This makes the fact he’s gasping and mashing your face flush with his tight entrance bordering on a mental aphrodisiac. 

Shuddering, you let yourself go completely slack except for your lapping tongue; above you, he’s grinding his hips down on your heavy tongue, riding your face. 

Your lips are swollen and tender, and spit dribbles down to your chin. It’s a challenge to breathe, but that problem is whisked from your mind when you realize just how loose and pliant he’s become. 

After just a brief reprieve for air, you suction an obnoxiously loud kiss right between his cheeks, and a cry shatters the air before a hand abruptly tugs you away.

“Lev’—?”

Panting, he shakes his head helplessly, trembling all over. “…Too close. I, you didn’t—” he stops for air, “—I’m too close.”

You blanch. No wonder: thanks to your tongue, his hole is lewdly pink and glistening. Silvery cum has drooled all down his girth, and compared to his entrance the head blushes a swollen shade of red. It strains helplessly above his full, heavy balls.

“No, honey.” You wipe your mouth, and, not understanding his panic, reach for one of his hands. Immediately, his hold turns deathly tight. “I said one more, didn’t I?” A fretful pause. “‘m sorry, I should’ve been more clear.”

You’re doing nothing but holding his hand, yet he’s outright panting. 

“You didn’t say I can,” he offers meekly.

Any moment it looks like he’ll shy away under his elbow again. You search his wide blue eyes, and sense his state of mind has definitely softened, or grown somehow weaker. 

He seems almost fragile, so you’re determined to treat him as such. To some extent he’s right, too, so you reach forward and gently tug his arm while your hand makes a brief home in the absolute disaster that is his hair. With soft words you reassure him.

A stuttered sigh, and he shakes and shakes. A prick of clarity makes him realize he ruined the moment. For some reason, the guilt finds him like a punch in the gut. “Sorry.”

It’s almost endearing, but you shake your head—“Levi, angel,”—and bring your hand down to play around his slit. 

First he gasps, then immediately tosses his head from side to side. It’s too good. He blushes a deep, dark shade of crimson. 

“I’m not mad. You know how wet you’ve made me?—just by watching you?”

You keep talking, all in that sweet, buttery voice of yours. He barely hears, what you’re doing is so fiery and confusing. His tongue feels too big for his mouth. “N-No.”

You’re jerking his slippery cock properly now, bowing over and licking his hard nipple into your mouth. He clings to you and fucks your fist, his head thrown back. Ghostly sighs rise into half-weeping, half-moaning, falling from his parted lips. 

“Keep making those pretty sounds,” you sigh by his ear, and, “You need it so bad, don’t you, angel?”

His nails dig into your arm, the one you throttle his cock with. Thick thighs hug your waist and he tosses his head feverishly, hips rutting. “Gonna—gonna come…! Don’t stop don’t—”

Suddenly he goes very still, his back draws into the tightest arch (nearly throwing your balance), followed by what can only be described as a soft wail from his open mouth. Even the wet sounds are smothered by him. 

He shakes through the first wave with a hard shout into your sweaty neck, but even then he’d be heard if someone happened to pass the hallway beyond his office. Loud enough to be unmistakable, which is why you all but collapse on top of him and let him thrash and jerk and bow up underneath you. 

The whole time he’s shooting ropes of cum between your bodies you’re cooing by his ear, working his pulsing cock. You’re close enough to feel his jaw slacken against your cheek and enjoy the sweetest moans that leave his parted lips. 

“That’s right—” muffled, he’s moaning your name, “—that’s so fucking good, Lee.”

So messy. Heavy spurts of cum dribble down his cock until he’s weakly rocking into your tight fist. You’re watching avidly, not slowing at all.

“F-Fuck…”

With the receding waves he writhes in your arms, pretty sounds from his shiny lips dissolving to hiccuped sighs. There’s a heavy sheen of sweat on his temple you lick away, the unbridled bliss etched on his drawn brow falling gently slack, then tight again when you thumb his slit.

Breathlessly, “Can you give me one more, ‘Vi?” and he’s nodding, spreading his thighs, then shuddering when you guide his palm down around his twitching cock. It’s hardly gone down at all.

It takes nearly a minute, if even, while you’re hugging one of his thighs and licking around his hole. You even dare to reach between your thighs and use the thick wetness to breach the tight ring of muscles with two fingers.

His second climax is a testament to just how much you worked him up, especially since you were too worried about hurting him to finger-fuck him too hard, nor any deeper than your second knuckles.

He’s working his cock and desperately grinding down on your face when he shudders again and his muscles lock up tight. Your name, again.

A soundless cry with the first, pounding pulse of his second (technically his third) climax. It’s a white-hot heat—almost as strong as the last—that crests, then seizes his whole body in amazing tremors.

Where his thigh muscles are twitching hard through the last tremors, you slow your thrusts. They shake. You’re still partly drunk on the way his walls clamped down when he came. 

Breathing hard, you manage to sit up and work them out from inside him while he reels.

Amidst the warm weightlessness he must feel everywhere, his softening cock pulses gently where it lays across his pelvis. His shaky gasps for air while he catches his breath is the loudest sound in your bedroom. The air positively reeks; of heavy sex, sweat, and—you huff gently to yourself—debauchery.

He’s melted, he’s convinced. Grasping for even a modicum of a thought, all he comes up with is the warm buzz wrapped all around him like a blanket on the inside; he can’t remember a time he’s ever been this tired. Pleasantly drained. His fingers twitch. Drowsy.

Then, he hears his name quietly murmured from the side. You’re carefully soft in all you do, including touching him; your hand on his waist is enough to break his skin in goosebumps.

He surfaces from a thick warm place to you gently tracing his brow with your thumb. Then your voice and the words attached finally register: “—did so good, Levi. So good.”

A sleepy sound he’s never heard himself make rumbles in his throat somewhere. He needs a long breath before his eyes finally crack open.

Then he spots it: the cool thing gliding over his middle is evidently a rag you retrieved between his utter blackout and now. 

“Are you okay? That was a lot.”

“I.” His muscles sing when he shifts. If it’s possible for his dick to be sore, it’s sore, and there’s sweat pasted to his skin, especially his back. He feels used, in the best of ways.

Shutting his eyes again is an appealing idea, but you look very spent, and very very beautiful.

Finally he blinks at you and mumbles, “Kiss,” like he can do much more than quirk his lips a little while you lean down and give him what he needs.

“Bath?”

“Can’t move. Your fault,” he mutters, but as he says this he meagerly tries anyway. He ends up braced on his elbows, stomach dropping from just how sweaty, messy, and especially hickey-ridden he is. “Ugh. Gross.”

You’re still wiping streaks of cum off his pelvis. “So this is gross, but I’m not?”

He feels weightless and glowing. Like a golden light. “It doesn’t taste good,” he settles on.

You pause and gawk at him. “You tried it?”

There is nothing even the least bit intelligent he can say to defend himself, so he lays down again. The sheets are too damp for him not to make a face under his veiny forearm he’s slipped over his eyes.

You ask if he’s alright. A nod. More than anything his eyes are weighted by stones. The last time he slept properly was two nights ago and you fucked his brains out just now—he’s so thrilled to finally sleep.

A thread of feeling makes him a little sorry he can’t do anything for you, but you shush him before he can even be done talking.

“Let me clean up, and change the bedspread at least.” You trace his jaw. “Clean clothes?”

Tonight his world flipped right side up, everything that locked into place, rolled over, changed. But, he’s at least going to shower off. He doesn’t want to fall asleep before you, either. Doing nothing isn’t how he’s wired.

A pause before you nod. When you kiss him next, your lips don’t glide together as much as lock lazily. You both need rest.

So, while you put on fresh bedspread and clean up, he sighs when rushing hot water hits him, then washes down his body like a waterfall.

He doesn’t need but five minutes, but he regrets not inviting you in here with him. All by themselves his fingers hold a tremor still, like his mind has neglected to quite catch up from the onslaught you gave him; maybe he’s still back on that roof even.

He cried, he was so happy, and you did too. His throat tightens now like he wants to cry, but for polar opposite reasons too profound to describe. 

It’s an awful yearning. It would be easy for him to believe, even, that you’ve somehow disappeared into thin air and don’t plan on coming back. This horrible emptiness is cold mud.

Afterwards, he steps back into the dim room while the mirror is still steamed up, and smothers the hell he feels; you only need a few minutes to shower. The candles you lit are like little stars—he smells soft lavender and fresh vanilla. You kiss him with a smile.

He’s shucked on fresh underwear, but he feels a little lost when he throws a look at the neatly made bed. Laying down means sleep, which means falling asleep before you, but before all else he’ll lay there alone. 

The feeling still hasn’t left him, so that idea for some horrible reason, is more than enough to leave him standing, despite how he wavers.

Instead, he stupidly idles by the bathroom door for a long while, clenching and unclenching his trembling hands, waiting.

It blindsides him. He’s low and depressed, clingy, and not in the way he’s used to, not in a way that’s good anymore. Heaven’s gates only open when the water finally cuts off.

Breathing hard, he’s looking aimlessly at a bookshelf, the window, the floor in fast rotations. His legs are jelly.

Then you open the door and you must be surprised to find him just standing there. Your eyes grow a touch wide directly to concern.

“Levi, what’s wrong?”

He doesn’t know where to put his hands, or his eyes. “Nothing. I just—” But it’d be stupid for him to miss you. “—I don’t know.”

You step very close and rub his shoulders, to which he immediately melts. At once he goes very slack in your embrace, tugging at your sweatshirt, then anywhere he can reach, really. A gust of relief falls over his chest to be squeezed so tight.

You ask, but in no way did you do anything wrong. Your shoulder turns into a pillow for his head while you suggest he’s much more sensitive (Stupid, he’s apt to correct you, but doesn’t) after so much. Like a raw nerve.

“You could’ve told me,” you try, a little hurt.

A sigh. What he wants to say gets garbled somewhere, so ends up overlapping two sentences at once: “Don’t need to worry about me,” crosses with, “Didn’t want to worry you.” It’s better he just stop talking, he decides.

A precious kiss to his forehead. “Let me take care of you.”

“We can’t drop everything every time something’s wrong,” he grumbles, but also puts up no fight to be pushed down into bed, under the covers, then tucked so close to your side he can feel your slow breaths drift across his cheek.

You nod, because you know that. “But you don’t need to hide.”

“Neither do you,” he retorts. His eyes shut as soon as he settled into the mattress, but he cracks them now to make sure you agree. Softly, you hum.

This is so much better than before. He doesn’t have to think when you’re cocooned in thick blankets, not while you stroke his back in lazy circles. To the bottoms of his feet he’s very warm all over, even inside. 

In kind, you sigh blissfully and rest your hand on his nape. His arm is a firm, protective fixture around your waist, and lower, your legs are even tangled. It tickles to move.

Persistently, he’s just barely trembling. Nothing is wrong, but it’s not quite right.

He tries again. “Are you…good?” Alright or Okay are dull words.

“I’m good,” you snort a little. Many, many leagues above good, in fact. “But your legs are hairy.”

“Get lost then,” he sighs. A shadow of a ghost of a retort he actually means. 

This makes you laugh, which encourages him to admit it. He hides in the crook of your neck.

“It’s too good,” he whispers, and nuzzles a little. This is a secret he’s telling you. He repeats himself. “It’s too good.”

At his cheek he can feel you smiling lopsidedly. “What, the sex…?”

“No,” he scoffs. “Or, yes. All of it.”

As soon as the words leave him, affection grips your heart and you want, terribly, to tell him you love him. You’re stunned into silence.

You’re not one to hide your feelings: if he did something wrong you’d be the first to admit it hurt, and you were the one to chase him as much as he tried to pull away when what you share was still blooming.

Years later, the first time he ever broke down to tears before you was over a month ago, right around the time you first tried intimacy; much less, your relationship only took its first breath hours ago. 

You’ve loved him for a long time.

“Oh,” you say, a little tearfully.

He goes like a board and stiffens. Feverishly he searches for a reason that may upset you, but finds none. 

It’s been ‘too good’ for a long time. Yet, he still struggles to mold a racing heart and sweaty palms into something definable. He’s never admitted this out loud until now.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he gathers, unmoving. He’s frayed glass.

He prepares for you to pull away and stumble through some kind of denial, but you only do so to kiss him so hard he’s pushed back a little by the force of it.

“Not at all.” You’re still kissing him all over his plump cheeks and the cupid’s bow above his lips. 

The way you look at him hurts, it’s too good. He never wants you to stop looking at him like that.

“You’re good,” you say.

His eyes fall shut, dazed and warm and sleepy. He whispers back, “Yeah,” even though he means, “You too,” and muses to himself that if you both had more time to settle, he could learn to believe that. 

For once in his life he could relax and be normal. If you had more time, you yourself could live your life unapologetically. Your emotions tear through you like you fight without armor or even skin—you feel heartache like a raw nerve feels a strike—and if there was time, you could leave your ball and chain behind.

But every hour is a privilege, every passing day trickling down an hourglass. Time is precious, let alone times of peace that allow for such faraway dreams.

He again thinks, and he again can’t imagine a world or chain events that didn’t lead to this very moment: the two of you.

Soft blankets scrape his chin. Upon a weightless sigh, he pulls you closer into his strong arms.

Time is precious. All of this. He thinks, I’m a fucking fool, because, like he confessed on the rooftop, he would rather suffer than regret this life with you; barreling towards the blinding end of a fight that he, nor you, may very well never see. 

In any other circumstance, it is foolish. But his feelings can’t be changed.

No regrets, indeed.