DISCLAIMER: I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin. If I did... it'd be a much, much, much happier story.


Trampled Flowers

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Perhaps they were never meant for each other.

Levi was always the silent one. Calm, collected and apathetic. The merciless titan hunter, second to none in skill and self-control. He was winter who had long forgotten the glow of summer.

Petra was spring in human form. Warm and vibrant and hopeful. A flower that refused to wilt in a cruel world hope had disappeared in.

She was a saint and he was a sinner- bathed not in the blood of the titans but the people he'd failed to protect. He was humanity's strongest and she, his loyal companion.
She fought like her captain, mimicking his hold on the blades and the accuracy he attacked with - proving to him and the rest of the military that she didn't need their protection. She was the undying hope, the peacemaker, the face everyone in the team would search for first to make sure she was unhurt.
He was Levi-Heichou, the invulnerable titan slayer. Concern for his well-being never crossed the minds of those beneath him. He was human, but that was easily forgotten when you were humanity's strongest. And yet Petra would be at his side after every mission to ask if he was okay because even though he was humanity's strongest he did need someone to make sure he was alright.

He mourns for his fallen team the only way he knows how. With emotions bridled and tears unshed because he is too proud and too hardened to let them go. It is different with Petra.

"I love you."

She told him once. His mouth is bitter at the memory, and his chest aches and he imagines turning back the clock. Just enough so that he could tell her that he was more than just her captain.

That her love was not unrequited.

Because Levi had seen Spring. And Spring was beautiful and breath-taking with her light auburn hair and brilliantly hazel eyes. Her presence had thawed the frozen emptiness that years of loss had left him with for a heart because just by being around her he had begun to hope that maybe there was a better ending to this caged existence that he would live to see.

But they were never meant for each other. For Spring disappeared before Summer could follow. She was cut short, a flower trampled by the female titan.

Hate is a pale, soft word for what Levi truly harbors for the female titan. It is boiling, seething, murderous. His fingers tremble with the urge to rip those cold eyes from her skull, to sink his blades into that red neck, crush her the way she crushed his dreams until she too stared sightless eyes toward an unforgiving sky. He yearns to destroy her for destroying the only beautiful thing left in the world.

Repay her in a hundredfold the pain she caused him.

In the sleepless nights he wonders what Petra's last words were, the last thoughts that raced across her mind before the world turned white and she fell.

He wonders if he was in any of them.

But he tells himself to stop because misery didn't kill titans or keep him alive nor bring humanity a step closer to victory. He nurses the pain in his leg in silence because it is a reminder that he survived against the foe his team died fighting. Who is he to complain?

And so he lets her go. He stays strong, faking absence of emotion because if he gives in humanity no longer has its strongest to lead them.

"Will you be alright Heichou?"

His answer to her had always been yes. Yes because she was there.

Now, he whispers 'No'.

How could it be?

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Inside it was winter all over again and spring was never going to come.

-FIN-


AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Welcome aboard the LevixPetra Ship that sails on the tears of its fans. Seriously Isayama, you continue to falcon-punch the SnK fandom with feels. The Rivetra pairing works because there's contrast, and therefore, they complement each other. Its also tragic and depressing and full of unrequited things but we all love that stuff don't we?

All of this was Alatariele's beautiful work and I was just throwing in random thingymabobs. A.C here lives and breathes off reviews so please R and R!

*:.. o(≧▽≦)o ..:*

-NoeticSky

in collab. with Alatariele C.

(Scratch that, it's the other way round!)