Summary: They're not dating. Really. Really.
i.
"Is Miss Petra your girlfriend?"
Levi looks away from the half open door where Petra stood just seconds ago waving at the bunch of brats seated at the desks in front of him. He tries to pinpoint which one of the students in his tutorial had the gall to ask about his personal life. Naturally, it was fucking Jaeger.
"Of course not," Levi scoffs.
"Oh," Eren says. He doesn't notice the way Armin keeps nudging him, trying to shut him up. "That's too bad."
"And why the fuck is that?"
"Because Miss Petra is super nice and helpful and smells like lavender and looks like fucking sunshine?" Jean suggests.
"Language, Kirschtein."
He looks back at Levi with a stare of are you kidding me, but Levi ignores it.
"How do you shits know Miss Petra anyway?" The title feels weird coming out of his mouth and he decides that he'll never call her Miss again. She sounds like some school teacher, and that's the last thing he wants to fantasize about — not that he fantasizes about anything, of course.
"She works in the first-year office," Armin informs him. "She lets us use the stapler or hole puncher if we need them. And she even lets us borrow pens if we don't have any. And if you're really screwed, she'll give you some paper for notes." Beside him, Eren and Jean nod eagerly.
"She's the best," Eren adds helpfully. If he were five, he would probably follow that with a declaration that he'd marry his Miss Petra when he grew up.
"Right," Levi says, not knowing what else to say. He runs a finger along the stack of sheets he'd forgotten on her desk just ten minutes ago and that she brought directly to him. "I suppose she kind of is."
ii.
"Oi, nii-chan, since when were you dating Petra Ral?"
Levi's first instinct is to look around and make sure the woman in question isn't around to hear herself be spoken about by someone ridiculous and loud and obnoxious. When he finds no trace of copper, Levi glares at Isabel.
"We're not fucking dating."
Isabel quirks an eyebrow at him. "That's not what Facebook says."
"And what exactly does Facebook say?" He pauses. "Actually, more importantly, how do you know Petra?"
"We had some classes together during first year," his sister explains. "Then we became those friends that go out for coffee together every month or so. How do you know her?"
Levi winces and decides that he'd rather not tell Isabel that he might have stood in front of her just staring like a complete creep or that one day she sort of just interrupted him in the middle of trying to find something to circle in red on Ackerman's essay to make him go get lunch with her.
"She works in the building where my tutorials are," is the simple answer.
"Oh." Isabel looks mildly crestfallen. "Well that's… boring. But Facebook!"
Levi sighs. "What about Facebook?" He sits down beside her and she pulls up Petra's photos.
"See, you guys literally have a photo up from last night," Isabel points out, grinning at Petra's selfie of the two of them with candy canes hanging out of their mouth — or more specifically, Petra posing with a candy cane in her mouth and Levi almost choking because she'd shoved the candy in his mouth so suddenly.
Well fuck, Levi thinks. The picture had seemed much less embarrassing at the time.
"Well I was driving her home," Levi explains weakly. "And she wanted a peppermint mocha and so did I so we went to her place and made some."
"She invited you in for coffee last night?"
"A peppermint mocha."
"Semantics. And she invited you in for coffee last night but you guys aren't dating?" She sighs and opts for flipping through Petra's pictures to prove her point.
There's a picture of the two of them bundled up from the time she dragged him ice skating, there's a picture of him in his glasses (and god fucking dammit she swore she wouldn't post that!), there's a picture from the dingy bar just down the street of his beer beside her glass of sangria, there's a picture of them at their favourite deli with Levi in the middle of biting his sandwich and Petra grinning widely, there's—
"Okay, I can see why you might think we're dating," Levi admits, looking away to hide his blush, "but… we're not."
"You're not?"
"We're not."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm fucking sure."
Isabel sighs. "That's disappointing."
And Levi won't say it out loud, but he kind of agrees.
iii.
"So you and Petra, huh?"
"Me and Petra?"
Her friend, the drummer of the terribly named P-Ral and the Three Gals, nods. "She never told us she was dating anyone," Gunther admits, looking a little put out by the apparent omission. He is, after all, one of Petra's "besties" (her words).
"That's because we're not dating," Levi says slowly. Honestly, he thinks with a huff, what is with everyone?
"Who's not dating who?"
Levi chokes on the beer he'd been sipping when he hears Petra come up beside him. She slaps his back as he coughs, not helping him in the slightest.
"You okay?" she asks. He nods and she turns to Gunther. "But yeah, who's dating? What's the gossip?"
Gunther meets his eyes briefly and a few pages of the Bro Code seem to pass through his mind. "Er, Auruo," Gunther finally says. "And… some… girl…"
Petra sees right through him, so Levi decides to be honest. "Us," he tells her calmly. Inside, however, his heart is pounding and it's like his stomach is about to drop and he thinks he might reek because fuck is he sweating.
"Us?" she echoes.
Levi nods. "All the cool kids call us Rivetra."
"Levi, if you keep mocking me for that one the time I read your name wrong I swear I will—"
He shakes his head, and puts a finger to her lips to stop her. "Shush."
She swats his hand away. "I really don't think that's any way to talk to your girlfriend." He shrugs and she tolls her eyes. "So how long have we been dating for?"
"Nine months."
"Oh, nice. Do we have promise rings yet?"
"Soon. I'm picking them up next Friday."
"Awesome." She's being sarcastic and he knows it and he's just playing along, but he can't help the tug of hope in his heart. "And don't forget that I want to name our kids—"
"Okay, okay, I get it," Gunther interrupts, crossing his arms and pouting. "You're not dating. Fine."
Petra winks at him and links her arm through Levi's. He can feel every curve of her body against his side. She looks ready to tease Gunther some more, but Erd and Auruo come over to them.
"Come on now!" Erd yells, grabbing his drummer and bassist by their arms. "Sorry Levi, but we can't quite play without these two." He drags them over to the makeshift stage at the corner of the bar and Petra smiles at him from over shoulder, mouthing an apology for her abrupt exit.
Levi just nods numbly, still thinking about how nice it felt to have her against him.
iv.
"I'm not even going to ask where you were. Or, for that matter, who you were with."
Levi pauses, feeling oddly guilty and incredibly uncomfortable under Erwin's prying stare. He feels like a teenager sneaking in past his curfew, or like he's been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, but the sad truth is that Levi's hands have really been kept to himself for the past… really long time. For the most part, Petra's the only woman he sees regularly. Sees, being the keyword.
Erwin and Hanji sit on the couch, staring at him as he removes his coat and scarf. They look like they want answers and Levi refuses to be the one to break the silence.
"He was obviously with his lady friend," Hanji says slyly.
"Lady friend?"
She nods. "The one that we met last week. The one who apparently isn't dating him—"
"We're not dating." Levi curses when he realizes he slipped up. Hanji grins triumphantly and Erwin has the decency to look away and hide his own smirk. Levi just sits in the smaller couch across from them and sighs.
"Do you want to date her?" Erwin asks.
"No!" Levi snaps. He just wants to drive around with her listening to music and hangout with her over lunch going halfsies (her choice of word) on reuben on rye while he gets the chili and she gets the soup of the day and listen to her talk about the book she just read or the movie she just watched and text her about the stupid antics of his roommates or students. "No," Levi repeats. "Not at all."
"Not even a little?" Hanji presses.
Levi glares back at her. "Not even a little."
"Even though you're sort of already dating?"
"I said we're not dating."
v.
"Wait are we dating?"
It only actually fully occurs to him when he's alone in his room and staring at the ceiling, his phone still glowing from Petra's message of I'm going to bed now. Go to sleep already!
Obviously, they were not. They never actually went on dates. Sure, they did things together and other people might define their outings as dates, but Levi never asked her and she never asked him so it didn't count that they had meals together sometimes more than once a day, or that he picks her up and drives her home all the time, or that they've gone to movies together and awkwardly touched hands while both aiming for the popcorn.
But she's just his friend.
She's just the girl who he can talk to when he's bored or when something interesting happens and he needs to tell someone about it. She's the one who'll lend him a stapler when the one in the staff room fails, and who'll take him away from his research when he gets too into it and forgets to eat. She forces him to go out, watch movies (usually Disney or Pixar), see plays, go skating, try weird foods, listen to random bands (usually hers), and, of course, he just lets her.
"Well shit," he whispers.
He just lets her.
"Shit," he mutters when he realizes that maybe, just maybe, he kind of sort of has a thing for Petra Ral. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
He's screwed.