?It took me less than three hours to type over three thousand words how did that happen ?
Anyhow, I'm in Attack on Titan hell and I don't even know how this story happened...so yeah. Enjoy part two :D
(Ps, I will proofread properly one day, I promise. My lame excuse is that I'm moving house at the moment . )
Note for my FFN readers: If you read Puzzle Pieces and are thinking that this reads oddly like a second chapter, you'd be right. Alas, for some reason, FFN has Attack on Titan and Shingeki No Kyojin listed under two different fandoms? I don't want to limit my audience so I separated the chapters for this site only. Part one is on my page - but don't worry, because both stories read well enough as standalones. I think. I hope. Anyway, don't forget to leave me your thoughts!
Heavy breathing and skin on skin. Soft moans and touches that were anything but. Kisses and whispers and two bodies moving in time, like a perfectly rehearsed dance.
These were the images that haunted the both of them since that night - if haunted was indeed the right word. To take comfort in another who could share in the same pain and grief they each felt was glorious, and Levi and Mikasa soon made a habit of repeat performances.
By day, nothing seemed off about them by anyone's standards. They trained together, fought together, and all the while addressed one another with the same respectful indifference as normal. No one noticed a damn thing. But the nights - they were theirs, and theirs alone.
They met in secret, when they were feeling bored or lonely, or when their cravings for one another simply grew too intense. They were, the both of them, each addicted to the other, and neither Mikasa nor Levi was willing to even try to break the habit. They were happy to get drunk off one another, and the high they felt eased their pain when nothing else could, and helped them both focus when their minds were swimming with images of death and destruction.
Levi came to know in time that he wanted Mikasa in every way he could have her. He wanted her beneath him, squirming, whispering his name over and over into the darkness. He wanted to touch and kiss every inch of her skin; he wanted to have her physically - and did, frequently - but his desire was a double-edged sword. He couldn't go without, and yet the more he had her, the more it wasn't enough anymore.
Because he also wanted her to give herself over to him in other ways. He wanted to hear her voice, see her smile, make her laugh. He wanted to look into her eyes and know that she was his; and in return, he wanted to be hers. He wanted to be around her often. He wanted her presence and her opinions and hear her thoughts and whims and ideas. He wanted her passion. Not just what she gave to him in bed, but the kind that she used to pursue all her ambitions. He wanted Mikasa, body and soul.
Levi knew there was a word for this kind of thing, but he couldn't place it. All he knew was that the two of them were like pieces from different jigsaw puzzles, that shouldn't fit together but somehow did. They were different yet alike. She was his perfect match.
While the word for his feelings eluded Levi for a good many months, he found other perks of their arrangement which stretched into his working life. Erwin had noted a marked improvement in Levi's skill on the battlefield - not that he needed improvement. Levi had told him to shut his mouth because he was imagining things; which wasn't true in the slightest, but how could he tell Erwin that, when he fought, all he could think about was getting Mikasa safely within the walls again? That his visions of living in a world without Titans were now stronger and more meaningful than ever, because now in them, there was somebody by his side? How could he tell anybody that?
Things settled comfortably for the first time in years, and Levi was more content than ever, healthily balanced between looking to a brighter future, and pleasantly floating through his present. He pretended with all his might that nothing could go wrong, even though things in his life tended to do just that. So when everything went wrong, to say that he was woefully underprepared would be an understatement.
It was raining, because of course it damn well was. Visibility was near zero, so when Levi squinted against the gloomy backdrop, he could see very little. Not so great with man-eating monsters chasing you.
He took down the first and second ones easily enough, but the third proved to be a little more deft than its kin. A few close calls later and it, too, lay on the ground, never to bite into another human again.
That was when he saw it; the signal in the sky to retreat. Levi lead his squad towards it, circling around the edge of the woods in the rough direction of Wall Maria's easternmost gate. Along the tree line he met Erwin and most of the rest of the surviving forces. Some were bleeding, and some were crying. Levi wondered why they had to do either of those things so noisily.
"There's nothing more we can do in this weather," Erwin shouted over the rain. "We're heading back."
"Bu-but wait, Sir!" Of course Jaeger had something to say about it. "We're missing some people! Where's Mikasa's team?"
It was true: Mikasa was nowhere to be found. Levi turned his horse, surveying what little he could see. Trees, there were plenty of those. Horses, grass, the sky. Soldiers tending wounds. But no Mikasa.
"Eren." Erwin's voice was soft. "I saw her squad leader get pulled right from midair. I'm afraid that whole team is probably lost."
"Probably isn't good enough!" Eren shouted. "We have to go back in and find her! Them! We can't give up!"
Arlert and a few of the others chimed in their verbal two cents, but Erwin shook his head mournfully. "I can't authorise a rescue mission under the circumstances, especially when I don't know that there's anyone to rescue. It's too dangerous, even for you with your abilities, Jaeger. I'm sorry."
Levi had mostly gotten off this mission without a scratch so far - and yet, there was a pain in his chest as though he'd been stabbed right through it. There were many good people in that team - they were one of the most elite, hence Mikasa had been assigned to it - and as one of the commanding officers, Levi knew objectively that he should mourn them all equally. But in that moment, he wasn't objective like a good little soldier. He was very, very biased. He had to go into those woods and find Mikasa. He needed to like he needed to breathe air.
"Stop whining, brat." Eren shut up and spun to face Levi.
"But sir-"
"I said to put a lid on it." Then he turned to Erwin. "It probably is too dangerous for them, but I've been at this a while. I can be in, check for survivors, and out within minutes."
Erwin clearly expected nothing less from Levi, who was very much a no-man-gets-left-behind kind of leader. Levi knew that Erwin was too, but also that sometimes hard decisions had to be made. "You know the risks bette than anyone," he stated. "I'll let you go - but Levi, if you aren't back within a half hour, I'll have to leave without you."
Erwin Smith the man would never leave a place like this without someone he considered such a dear friend; but Commander Erwin Smith the soldier would, and Levi knew that he was the latter right now.
"Then I'd better get going." Levi stood on the saddle and launched himself into the trees, leaving his horse and many encouraging cries behind him.
As he manoeuvred through the trees, his blood grew colder and colder with each dead body - or the remains of - that he came across. A bloody arm here, a severed leg there, a dead man laying face-down on the ground. Levi checked anyone with the most remote chance of being alive and had thus far come up empty.
A part of him mourned silently for each victim, but the other part of him was screaming. Each second seemed to etch away at the hope he had that Mikasa was alive, somehow, somewhere, and that he could find her.
Time was growing short, and as Levi was down to his last shred of hope, he spotted the Wings of Freedom lying in a pile of dead leaves.
He landed gracefully on his two feet, and stepped over to the fallen soldier, taking them in his arms. Even in the dimness and the wet, he recognised Mikasa right away. She was bleeding from the head and chest, and had a branch lodged in her abdomen. She didn't move when Levi scooped her up and lay her down a little more carefully, and as he pressed two fingers into her wrist in search of a pulse, he was terrified.
Thump-thump...thump-thump...thump-thump...
It was slow and weak, but it was there. Her heartbeat. A sound he'd fallen asleep to countless times now; but in this moment, it was more than a comfort. It was a miracle.
As he carefully (and with a degree of difficulty) carried Mikasa back to where the rest of the regiment was waiting, Levi let out a small, bitter laugh. So that's what the word is...
...
The advantage of not being personable as a general rule is that, when you are more so, no one questions you. Except, of course, you closest friends who, in their own ways, try to pry out of you the reason why you're acting so abnormal.
Even when Hanji ambushed him after a shower, Levi insisted that nothing was more wrong than usual and told her to go away, only he was less polite than that.
He tried to act like nothing was out of the ordinary, even though his world was crashing down around him. Again. Mikasa had been hospitalised the second they were inside the walls, and Levi had no word on how she was doing. The fact that Jaeger hadn't gone apeshit, and that Arlert wasn't a sobbing mess, we're both good signs. But he wouldn't be satisfied until he could see her up and about as normal.
He could have asked, of course, but he wasn't her direct commanding officer, and therefore by all accounts has no reason to need to know her medical state. So for days he had nothing to do but sit quietly and berate himself for his foolish actions.
What he did for Mikasa was reckless. True, he would have done it for anyone, but in that moment, he wasn't thinking of just anyone. He wasn't careful or wise. He let his heart have its way and it's only through luck that things didn't go even more wrong. Maybe, he thought to himself, this is why that rule exists. The Legion would be thrown into chaos if everyone acted the way he had that day.
He heard through the grapevine that Mikasa was due to be released from hospital, and wondered how he would get her alone. Surely, after such a scare, her bratty friends wouldn't leave her side.
He wondered if he should try and be sneaky, and then thought, to hell with it and found her in the dining hall during lunch that day.
She was surrounded by a bunch of her peers, who were pestering her with all kinds of questions about what had happened in the forest. She took them graciously, of course, and politely requested a little space. But people were nothing if not stubborn and nosy, and so a few of them persisted - until they saw Levi walk over to the table.
A few of them saluted, but Levi ignored them all, his stone gaze locked onto Mikasa. "Ackerman," he said evenly. "A word, please?"
"Sir," Eren chimed in. "She just got out of the hospital, can't this wait?"
But Mikasa silenced him. "It's fine, Eren. I'll catch up with you later, alright?"
He reluctantly agreed and Mikasa followed Levi out of the room.
He led her through a series of hallways, not entirely sure where he was going. He just went against the flow of people, on the road to where he had the best chance of not being interrupted.
They wound up in a part of the building that wasn't used anymore, simply because the numbers hadn't called for it. But it was clean and private, so it was good enough for Levi.
He closed the door behind them and didn't give Mikasa a moment to speak before pulling her to him and kissing her. She responded in kind, of course, letting his hand wander over her body as he inspected non-visually her various wounds.
There was need and desire present in his kiss, but a different kind than normal. The need to know that everything was alright now; the desire to hold onto her and never let go. His touch was gentle because he didn't want to cause her any pain.
"I understand," she was barely able to whisper in between kisses, "That...I have...you to...thank...for...rescuing me?"
His wandering hands froze where they were. "Is that really what you want to talk about right now?"
Mikasa shrugged. "Why not?"
He ignored the question, allowing two fingers to trace the dressing on her forehead where she'd been bleeding before. "Take your shirt off," he ordered.
She didn't. "You have never said that to me in a way that was less sexy. Hey-" she caught his hand. "What's the matter with you today?"
Levi knew very well what the matter was, and even knew how to say it. But it was a heavy word, and he didn't want to scare her off. He couldn't lose her. Not now. Not ever.
"Nothing," he answered coolly. "I just want to make sure they did their jobs right. We lost enough of our forces in that last fight. We can't afford to lose more right now. I mean, you could get an infection or something." It sounded lame, to him and to Mikasa, who gave him a look.
"Were you...were you concerned about me?"
He hushed her. "Say it louder, I don't think the Titans heard you."
Rather than argue, Mikasa took his hand - the one still on her waist - and kissed it. Her touch was as gentle and intoxicating as ever. "I have to tell you something." He got the feeling that she wasn't whispering because he'd shushed her.
"Alright," he said slowly.
"The nurse told me that I was unconscious when you found me. But before that, I sort of remember what happened. The details are blurry, but-"
"Don't." Levi cut her off. He couldn't rightly say if it was because he didn't want her to think of it, or because he didn't want to think of it.
"Be quiet, this is important." She took a deep breath before continuing. "Anyway, I don't remember properly how I got most of my injuries. It's all a mess. What I do remember is what I thought about before passing out. I was in a lot of pain and I honestly thought I was going to-" She noted the look on his face and skipped ahead. "What I do remember is what I thought about in what I believed were my last moments.
"I thought about Eren and Armin, and how much I love them. I thought about how far they've come, and I knew they'd miss me, but that they'd be alright somehow eventually. I thought about my family and I wondered if I'd see them again when my heart stopped beating. And...and I thought that everything would be okay. I mean, there are worse ways to die than for a good cause, right?"
Until this point, Mikasa had been so calm. Then she began to tremble. "Then I thought about you. Maybe it's presumptuous to assume you'd miss me, but even if you did, you're humanity's best soldier. You'd be ok. But I wasn't. Because...because I didn't..." She choked on her own words and swallowed heavily, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. Levi was silent through it all, because he wasn't sure he was really hearing this all correctly.
"I never told you I love you. I know that feelings were never a part of the deal, but I can't help it. I tried not to love you, but it only made me love you more. And I know that this is probably the last thing you wanted to hear because I've gone and made things all complicated now, but I couldn't die then knowing you'd never know how I feel, and I can't live now pretending it isn't true. I love you."
Ah, that word. The one that eluded Levi for so long. The one he'd only just discovered himself. The one that hearing her speak brought a kind of joy he'd never known before.
Mikasa wasn't looking at him while she spoke. She was looking at where she was still holding his one hand with her two, below and between them. Levi's other hand had long since dropped to his side. After a full minute of silence which seemed to drag on forever, Levi slowly, very slowly, brought that hand up to Mikasa's chin, and tilted her head so she was facing him.
A thousand thoughts raced through his mind and he found that he could voice none of them. Surprise, confusion, happiness - they were all present, and for the first time in a long time, he smiled a real, genuine smile.
"Mikasa..." He breathed her name quietly. There was a reason that feelings weren't meant to be involved. There was a reason that Levi rejected the idea of love so hard that when it actually happened to him, his brain couldn't think of the word until it was almost too late. But he couldn't remember what that reason was, and didn't want to.
He leaned in, so his lips were inches from her ear, and whispered the words so very quietly. Three little words, with the weight of the world in them.
One of these days, the war would be over. Levi would solve the issues he knew he had expressing emotion, and he'd be able to tell the whole world. But right now, he could only tell Mikasa, and that was enough for both of them. Because those words, he knew, belonged to her and only her.
I love you.