Broken - by Lifehouse.
WARNING: This chapter may cause triggers as it contains suggestion of self-harm. If you are easily triggered, DON'T READ. Your discretion is advised.

Disclaimer: I don't own a thing.

Broken
summary:
Even Humanity's Strongest has it's breaking point. How he's lasted this long, he does not know... maybe it was because even after he was shattering, she was reaching and hoisting him up. Even now... even now.
Rated T for language, violence and possible self harm triggers.

Glass was spread everywhere, stabbing deep into the wood and cloth and paper that scattered in the room. Silence thrummed in the office, a constant and breathing entity. He had watched as beads and drips of crimson rolled down his palms, staining his wrists and rolled up cuffs with something akin to disinterested fascination. If that were even a way to describe how he watched his life drip bit by bit on the floor beneath him.

He sat, quiet. Not uttering a word at all as he stared at the broken skin of his hands. The return from the capital had been wrecked in tears and taking the shouts of the crowd around them.

People had shouted and cried and wailed and cursed them as the corp returned back to it's castle, tails between their legs.

Here they were... risking everything for humanity while humanity mocked them and spat at them, hissing like wild dogs while they bled and lost men and women worth more than all the gold the merchants could scramble together.

While Erwin convinced the Brass to allow them to continue with their new objective to hunt for titan hybrids, Levi had to stand and take people's screams as his men helped clear up rubble and bodies from the streets of the city. Armin had broken down crying when they removed a large slab of stone off a six year old boy. All the while, Levi stood, stoic and blinking when a woman rushed up to him screaming and asking why this happened while her husband pulled her away and spat in his face.

He just stood there and took it, raising a hand when Kirschstein had let out a shout of indignation. The soldiers looked away after Levi gave the order to keep going, the spit still staining his face.

He had turned away, and with a handkerchief wiped the saliva off his face, pointedly ignoring the way she stared after him, a torn expression on her usually flat stare.

The days had passed and when they returned, Levi secluded himself to his office locking the door and proceeding to let himself finish some reports. He thought he had it under control... but suddenly tears were dripping into the papers he had been busy scribbling on, staining through and splotching the ink. He had stared, wide eyed and incredulous at the clear drops of salt on the paper. His grip on his pen tightened and his teeth clenched down hard.

It was all downhill from there.

Before he could stop himself, the pen had been snapped in half and the documents were flying. The lamp thrown violently out a window, the shattering glass spreading everywhere. But he couldn't stop then. Images of fallen bodies of civilians, friends, comrades and people he had shared and trusted with his life flashed in his mind's eye. The tears soon stopped as he began to turn the rest of his agony into violence, and Levi was suddenly wishing there was a legion of Titans outside his window, because he wanted nothing more than to tear them apart.

Tear so many apart.

Slaughter and feel their steaming blood against his skin.

His desk upturned and chairs strewn precariously around, Levi grabbed one and threw it hard against the wall. It snapped loudly and breathing hard he grabbed some of the porcelain china he had been given by Petra for his birthday, and send it crashing on that same wall.

He continued this until he collapsed, sitting on the only chair he hadn't trashed. It was on it's side but he didn't care for sitting on cushions now, the china had cut up his hands and fingers, making big drops of blood spill over the stone, like morbid art. He opened and closed his hands, watching as the wounds opened and closed painfully, dripping more and more red.

The silence that followed nearly swallowed him whole and not for the first time did Levi wonder what the hell he was doing.

There was a gentle knock at his door and Levi let out a heavy sigh, staring at the clotting wounds in his hands with derision.

"Come in..." He began but stopped remembering he had locked the door. Whoever was knocking, obviously, didn't care because he heard the familiar clicking of metal against metal and a flick. Picking a lock... how saintlike...

The door swung open slowly, and in the dying light of the sunset Levi saw a red scarf before looking away scoffing.

"What do you want." He demanded, tone as dead as he felt inside.

"I heard crashes..." She stated, and a bubble of dark amusement rose sharply inside him. He began with a snort before it evolved into a chuckle and then into a dark cackle, laughing more to himself and unable to stop it's intensity. Everything was breaking around him. Levi didn't know why but he couldn't stop until his laughter had turned into wheezing chuckles. Still she didn't move, just waited for his manic laugh to die down.

"I am so glad..." He said sardonically through another bubble of hysteria. "That your sense of hearing has not been impaired, Ackerman."

"Corporal..." She began and like a branch snapping the rage came back full throttle.

"Don't you dare call me that, Ackerman." Levi snarled viciously, bleeding hands clenching tight and the pain of his wounds cracking open was a welcome feeling. She let out a choked breath and remained silent. Several moments passed in tense silence, Levi wondered if she had gone...

"Levi..." Stiffening at the sound of his name falling from her lips, Levi felt his eyes snap open from their half-lidded stare. Slowly, he turned to face her to see she had moved closer to him, her face was a solemn picture of beauty and something in her eyes...the way she was looking at him...

"What do you want." He ground out, feeling the fury of earlier begin to overwhelm him and suddenly he wanted to strangle her. A sharp intake of breath was sucked into her mouth, staring at his wild gaze with something more than concern.

"I wanted to see you." She said, as if it was obvious. So obvious. Levi was out of his chair, flying at her.

Mikasa let out a short exclamation when his bleeding hand grabbed onto her red scarf, blood staining the cloth where he gripped it before he whirled her around and slammed her hard against the nearest wall. She groaned, head hitting the stone hard but Levi stared hard into her eyes, holding back from squeezing her throat until she stopped writhing for life.

"Why would you want to even get close to me?" He hissed, pressing against her, aggressive and livid. "I thought you hated me, Ackerman," he sneered, spit flying from his mouth and landing on her lower lip as she stared at him, wide eyed and silent.

"I thought you wanted to exact revenge on me for hurting your precious Eren," He snorted, pressing his hand tighter around her scarf, lifting her higher. "You made that very fucking clear that you wanted nothing more than put me in my place. Isn't that right? Well, here I am, Ackerman. Go ahead and hit me. Put me in my place. Do something for yourself for once in your fucking life."

Mikasa's eyes are wide as she stared at him, hardly breathing under his intense gaze. Her lack of response only egged him on, kindling the fire in his chest and pushing tighter against her body. Tighter against her throat where he could feel her speeding pulse.

"Do it!" He roared. He felt something in his throat strain at the force of his cry. She winced, blinking furiously before turning those dark onyx eyes into his breaking blues.

"...Levi..." Mikasa whispered instead and something in him is bending and slowly breaking. He ducks his head, his hold on her scarf going limp before he punched the wall next to her face. Recoiling, Mikasa pulls enough away from his fist but makes no movement to run.

"What do you want from me!?" Levi cried, pleading, begging, clenching his eyes shut as he felt his carefully built walls shatter around him.

Soft hands are grabbing his hands and Levi let his muscles tense, prepared to attack to flee, to do anything. But there is a sound he was not expecting and his eyes are widening in shock... Because she is ripping two thin strips from her scarf. He stares, speechless as she tenderly wraps his bleeding hands, and then lifted her chin to meet his gaze.

"I don't want anything from you..." She murmured softly. Whatever sunlight remained was hitting the side of her face, making her eyes stand out as the light filtered through them. Levi feels his breath catch in his chest.

"I just want to tell you... you are not alone."

Those words deflate him, all his rage and hatred and violence and need to rip something to shreds bleeding out from his hands and into the red material tied around his hands. His knees buckle and he's falling forward and Mikasa swiftly caught him, wrapping her arms tight around his waist as he lets out a strangled sob.

The two fall to their knees, wood and paper crunching under their weight but neither care. She is pressing her face tight against the crook of his shoulder and neck as she squeezes him and Levi allows himself to shatter.

How could he forget?

Humanity's Strongest was no longer a title for him to bear alone... now he had someone who stood next to him, to bear that weight along with him. And as he felt her own tears burn into his skin he realized that she was broken too and he felt his own hands rise to press against her back and curl into her hair and she's weeping with him. Because she was also human and so wretchedly broken as well.

Broken... but still strong.

Still strong.

Fin