When I grow up I want to be playful.
Year 851- September.
Armin smiled in a particularly good mood. He was learning to use his titan and his transformations were getting faster and more controlled. What he did not control were Berthold's memories; the images of what he had seen continued to pass before his eyes. And then there was Annie.
That girl who had crystallized herself to not reveal anything, but to whom he was the only one to visit her, besides Hitch.
None of his companions went to Annie's anymore, perhaps because certain betrayals burned a lot, but he almost seemed to understand her.
They had been given the afternoon off that day and had occasionally gathered to celebrate Hange's birthday. They had started doing it for each of them, starting with Armin's the previous year and continuing it as if it were some kind of tradition. With the exception of the Captain Levi's one. He had flatly refused to celebrate and didn't even want their brats to know what the date was.
The small gazebo housed only them, there was a good smell of flowers and a cake in the center of the table, surrounded by equally fragrant cups of tea. They hardly looked like soldiers at that moment. They seemed like a big happy family that just lived in harmony every day. In that last year they had become a really close-knit team, they knew they could count on each other.
His blue gaze focused on a certain blonde, in particular; their Vice Captain who was standing, with the new Commander, tasting the dessert. Hange waited for Elizabeth to turn to place a saucer on the coffee table so that she could pat her on her ass in a friendly way, making everyone laugh, her in particular.
"Why?" Elizabeth asked laughing and turning to her friend.
"Because you have a great ass that deserves to be spanked." the Commander answered with a smile, adjusting her glasses better on her nose.
Elizabeth turned to Levi, who was trying not to laugh, almost impassive and with his arms crossed over his chest.
It was clear to Elizabeth that her husband thought the same and knew it very well, so she looked at him and mouthed 'don't you dare'.
Yet, despite the simplicity of that scene, Armin's careful eye did not miss another particular detail: that was the third slice of cake that Elizabeth was about to eat.
Recently she had seen her eat a little more than usual; at first he thought it was normal for her, but he noticed how the quantity had increased compared to when they started eating together more often.
And Armin was dying of curiosity. A small thought crept into his mind, immediately feeling happy for them if his assumptions were right. And he really hoped so.
"Captain, sorry if I intrude but, is it my impression or is Elizabeth eating more than usual lately?" Armin asked, almost afraid to ask that question directly to the Captain, but also too curious and happy to be silent.
"Mh?" Levi asked, whose attention was now completely on the young man. That question left him destabilized for a moment and he had to refrain from smiling.
"It's true. I noticed it too." Sasha murmured with her mouth full of food, trying to swallow it all together as she usually did. Everyone stopped doing what they were doing to focus on the question posed by the young Colossal.
"Has something happened to her?" Connor asked, putting down his cup of tea.
"Liz..." Levi called, turning towards her and thus attracting the attention of Elizabeth and Hange who were chatting among themselves, almost estranged from that conversation. "The brat pointed out that you are eating more than usual, clearly hinting at one thing in particular. Do you have to tell me something?"
"Yes." Elizabeth answered, stepping up to him and sitting on his lap in a playful tone. "I cheated on you with Hange."
Levi shook his head slightly, while the rest of their team, hopeful until then, seemed almost disappointed by that ease. Maybe it was none of their business and she still didn't want to reveal it, but for a moment they believed in good news.
But she didn't really have that news. She was only limiting herself to indulging in the cure left her by Hange, also following the poisoning itself which now needed other measures.
"You are not credible." he replied running a hand over her thigh, thus helping her to sit up better.
"Hey, I'd be a great lover." exclaimed the Commander, sitting back down with the rest of the team but sharing the same thought. She wanted to see that epilogue for them too; she had been trying to help her for a whole year now and that poisoning thing had made their efforts in vain, but Elizabeth had started all over again, as if nothing had happened. She didn't know how to deal with that thing but she was proud of them, as people and as a couple.
Elizabeth also burst out laughing at her Captain's serious expression, and she turned to the younger ones looking at them sweetly.
"Guys, I'm undergoing treatment. It is normal that I need more food in order not to feel sick."
"So you're not pregnant?" Sasha asked, after having completely swallowed the amount of food she had ingested until then.
"Sasha..." Jean admonished her, giving her a light nudge, but gaining another equally sweet smile from the direct interest.
"No guys, I'm not. And if I were, you would be informed, don't worry." she exclaimed softly, tightening her grip lightly around Levi's shoulders, noticeable only by him, before turning to Armin in particular. "Especially you."
Levi, in response, increased a little his grip on her thigh, under the table so that no one would notice. That subject charged them with mixed feelings: if on one side that difficulty saddened them, they were also hopeful in Hange's cure but did not want to delude themselves that everything was going to be okay from one day to the other.
And seeing that same apprehension in the boy's blue eyes had filled Elizabeth with affection, for him as for everyone else. She loved those guys from the bottom of their hearts.
"It's just... well, that would be great and..." Armin answered visibly embarrassed, blushing slightly and looking down. "… you don't... well, I know that you are married, there would be nothing wrong with that."
"Calm down Armin. Everything is alright. I know, you don't owe me any explanation." the Vice Captain stopped him, trying to relieve his nervousness. "But it was nice of you to have noticed."
And Armin wished he could experience moments like that more often.
However, what ruined that idyll was the voice of a man who instantly ruined the mood of the person whose name he was calling.
"Elizabeth."
The woman seemed to freeze as they all turned towards the source of that voice, three of them with particular hatred towards him.
"Misha."
"Who is he?" Sasha whisper, getting only a quick response from Hange in a higher pitch.
"Nobody that concerns you."
"Now you are the Commander of the Survey Corps, right?" Misha asked, addressing the Commander herself, but still getting resentment in response. After the latest events, added to those that took place three years earlier, her hatred had increased considerably.
"Yes. Erwin is dead."
"But you are still alive, the randomness of life eh."
Misha's arrogant tone made the Vice Captain even more annoyed because she didn't have the slightest desire to talk to him.
"What are you doing here?"
"Of course you haven't changed at all." Misha exclaimed stopping to study the one who had stabbed him three years ago and put him in the cell and that now was in the arms of Captain Levi, alive and damn exciting. He couldn't deny how beautiful she was, but at the same time he hated that woman irrationally, jealous of all her achievements.
"But you are increasingly disgusting."
"Hasn't your long tongue put you in the cell yet?" he asked provoking her; now that that picture had appeared in front of him he seemed to have convinced himself even more that his thesis was correct.
"No, but apparently made you go there. Have they already sent you away? What a pity."
"You would have liked to have known me still in there huh, you whore."
"Careful how you refer to her." Captain Levi, on the other hand, answered, whose gaze froze the instant the man called his wife's name.
Misha crossed his arms over his chest, grinning satisfied but still terribly annoyed.
"Then it's true that you fuck her Captain."
"Turn down the tone, brat." Levi hissed, narrowing his gaze and managing to frighten his team as well, even though he was not aimed at them. "She's the Vice Captain of the Survey Corps and, as such, you must respect her."
Misha stood up better in his posture, supporting that stiff and serious look that the blonde had. He remembered her as an impertinent girl with a fiery gaze, full of passion and determination, but what he had in front of him was a woman who, evidently, knew where to strike.
"You made important friends huh. First the admission in the team of Levi without merit and now the promotion. Even his Vice."
Elizabeth smiled at him, unsettling him for a few moments. When he had teased her years ago he had received a furious look in exchange, while she had now become almost impossible to scratch. She did not accept his provocations in the slightest.
"Jealous?"
"About what? It is evident that, to achieve all this, you have opened the legs to the Captain, it does not take a genius to understand it. You are unable to do anything else."
Before he could know it she slipped a foot under him, slamming his face against the table and then causing him to fall to the ground, pinning him with one foot to his throat.
Just like three years ago.
Misha turned his gaze to the captain who, on the other hand, remained seated with his arms folded, as if what was happening to him did not touch him in the least.
"This time I won't stop her."
"Bad thing is jealousy." Elizabeth added instead, as satisfied and provocative as he was, now that the situation was reversed. It took her a moment to knock him out and she was half his size. She grew up but she remained small and petite. And that defeat burned in the pride of the redhead.
"Jealous of you? You would like it." he replied short of breath from the foot pushing lightly, still not strangling him to death. "The only thing I can be jealous of is what you used to achieve so much."
"Maybe we haven't known Elizabeth in a very long time but if it weren't for her we'd all be dead already, me first. She is smart, shrewd and the best fighter the Survey Corps has ever seen, with the exception of Captain Levi."
Everyone turned to Eren, who had stood up with his hands resting on the table and the look of someone who was ready to fight. But what sweetened Elizabeth most was the fact that he was defending her.
Feeling observed, Eren seemed to calm down and sat up again. "Excuse the intrusion."
"Thank you Little Titan." she exclaimed softly, reiterating that little nickname she had given him for sweetness and gratitude, thus underlining that those were her guys and that Misha had to be careful about how he behaved. "And..."
Elizabeth kicked his face, causing his nose to bleed and groan in pain, once again pressing his face to the ground. She knew perfectly well why the man was there but she didn't expect him to really have the nerve to show up.
Did he really think they didn't understand?
Elizabeth's gaze turned serious all of a sudden, which indicated how angry she was now. But what intrigued the younger ones was that neither Hange nor Levi were stopping her or helping her. Not that she ever needed help in combat but... it was strange to them.
"I almost killed you once. Don't make me regret not completing the task."
"It's really true. Anyone from the underground is hard to kill." he spat, soiling the floor with his own blood mixed with saliva.
"It was you then." exclaimed Hange, with the confession she was waiting for in order to ignite.
Of all the people she had lost, Moblit who burned more than others, she was the only friend she had left, she was a part of herself and would give her heart for her. Commander or not.
"Stay there." Elizabeth exclaimed, however, in a tone too authoritative to be appealing to their roles. And Hange fully understood this because she stopped just as she was about to stand up.
"I had to put more poison." resumed Misha with difficulty. "You may have a title now but you're just a whore."
She had made a mistake in showing up there; he just wanted to try it in hopes that he could attack her and take revenge for staying in the cell for the past three years, but he seemed to have forgotten how good Elizabeth was. And she had improved too.
"A whore who didn't give you what you wanted."
"What?" Levi asked coldly, almost terrifying. His already usually low voice lowered even further, supporting his now livid gaze.
"Oh, didn't I tell you?" Elizabeth asked, staging the mock explanation. Levi knew everything that had happened well, having also heard with his own ears the appreciation he had made on her when he had taken her in the team, but Misha did not know this, and Levi had a few pebbles from his shoe to take off. A sort of confirmation. "When they held me prisoner he was so convinced I was on your team for that he wanted to sleep with me too."
Connor and Sasha opened their mouths wide in amazement at that statement, while Mikasa raised the corner of her mouth satisfied to see so much anger and jealousy in the Captain's gaze. There was some fun in it all but it was also nice to see him in that state, he seemed more human.
Jean instead alternated his gaze first from Misha to the Captain, slightly shaking his head.
"Now he kill him."
Levi glared at him before rising to his feet and standing beside his wife, still remaining with his arms folded. He didn't know why that bastard was out of jail, or how he knew where they were but he had made a terribly stupid move and now he had all the cards on the table to act. It was no longer a secret.
"You picked the wrong people to stand against, brat. Nobody touches what's mine without paying the consequences."
That admission had completely awakened the fighting spirit of the Captain who longed to beat him but it was not something he had to do. Elizabeth was perfectly capable of defending herself alone. If that man had been given a second chance to live as a free man he had wasted it by deciding to try and kill her.
And that was the last time they saw Misha's face or even heard of him.
Back in their rooms, Elizabeth took a while to do something she did every month.
Levi already knew what it was and didn't even need to ask questions about it.
When she returned to his office she gave him a tender look, finding him asleep at his desk but still with a pen and paper in his hands. She knew that this was not work, but a particular activity to which he devoted himself whenever he had nothing to do. A habit that had never changed.
She gently pulled the pen from his fingers, placing his jacket, which he must have previously left on the back of the chair, on his shoulders. But Levi had always been a very light sleeper and he heard her right away, waking up and just stretching.
She went, so, to position herself behind the chair, starting to massage his shoulders and carefully observing the paper.
"Did you practice your writing?" she murmured near his ear, then leaving him a gentle kiss on the cheek.
"Yes." he answered calmly. That was a secret that only she knew, not even Erwin or Hange had ever been told about it. "Have you already done it?"
Levi was so exhausted that he must have fallen asleep by chance, with a thousand things to think about and now also the meeting with Misha that had unnerved him a lot.
"Yes. I left them some extra money this month." she explained, moving her fingers to release some tension from the Captain's shoulders. "In the last letter they told me about an incident with a couple of customers and two shelves were destroyed, at least they can pay them back."
"Is business not doing well?" Levi asked, taking an interest in the subject. They were good people and they were the only family Elizabeth had ever had and, as a result, he respected them as part of his own family.
"Not much." she answered visibly worried about them. Ever since she joined and she started earning some money, she sent them something every month to help them with their livelihood, just enough to help them get a little better.
"You could make them come up. Historia would help you give them citizenship if you explained her the situation." Levi murmured, letting himself be pampered by her fingers.
"I thought about it. But at the same time it would be a little unfair to all the other people who still live there. Historia is already doing a lot to improve their lives, I can't ask her that too."
Levi was deeply touched by that response. Elizabeth remained one of the most honest people he had ever known.
"Are you sure you're real?" he asked turning and taking her hand, before standing up and taking her by the hips. "Sometimes I think you're just a figment of my imagination."
"You must have a very vivid imagination then." she murmured as their lips approached, feeling the warmth of their breaths.
"I like beautiful things." he concluded bridging that small distance with a kiss.
Elizabeth raised a hand to his collar, pulling it against her and starting to back up to their bedroom, continuing that lip fight in the meantime. Once she reached the bed she reversed the positions and, completely ignoring the jacket that had fallen to the floor, she made him lie down on the bed, just pushing him. Levi let her do that, allowing her to push him and get on top of him quickly.
But she surprised him because when she was in his arms, astride him, she just lay down and rested her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat with her eyes closed.
"Sometimes, when I think about everything that has happened in the last year it seems almost surreal." she admitted letting him gently caress her hair. Levi smiled at her, looking intently at her for a few minutes before answering her.
"Indeed it is. All our certainties about the whole world have collapsed, many of our comrades have died for the cause." he affirmed quietly, letting the golden strands of her hair run through his fingers, slightly intertwining it against his ring.
"I just hope it was worth it." Elizabeth admitted, revealing all of her doubts aloud for the first time. Levi fully understood her feeling: the unknown was something that frightened and they, in reality, had no certainty except in the fact that they were Eldians and had the ability to transform into titans doing a certain operation. Everything else remained a huge question that not even their Little Titan had been able to answer.
"But now I don't want to think about it." she then added, getting up and sitting astride him again, with a bright smile coloring her face. "Now I just want to make you smile."
"What if I don't feel like it?" he asked, provoking her a little, she was the only person who could always make him smile.
"You will do the same." she concluded before lowering her fingers on her husband's hips and starting to move them to tickle him. It was usually something that bothered Levi but she really made him smile, although it was a seemingly childish thing she just wanted to feel alive with him and they succeeded in even the most harmless or naive things.
Levi immediately blocked her wrists, lifting them so that his arms were almost completely extended parallel to her body but also granting her one of the most beautiful smiles he could give her. One of those he gave her when he felt his heart beat perhaps with emotion, like when they got married.
Maybe it was the fact that he didn't smile often that made him even more handsome, she always thought.
Levi overturned the positions, stretching her under him and emulating her gesture, pinning her against the mattress and tickling her hips, making her laugh almost to tears.
And watching her laugh, her cheeks slightly flushed and her eyes shining was enough to lower himself to her again, kissing her languidly.
Slowly he lay down completely, making their bodies stick together, only briefly dressed.
He began to undress her, running down her body with small delicate kisses, focusing on every little detail, some mole and some scars, as she often did when she undressed him and decided to heal his wounds. He often felt her kissing every single scar on him, from his shoulders to his chest, down his abdomen and even down his legs. There was no part that had not, by now, been laid bare to the other, inside and out.
He helped her to get on her knees, turning her to the keyboard of the bed where she rested her hands for more stability, while he held her by her hips and kissed her back, making her shiver.
His erection pushed against her buttock, looking for the proper attention that he still did not want to give himself and give to her. He wanted to kiss her, feel her move and writhe in his hands, kissing her and feeling her skin shiver as he passed by.
Often it was she who requested the command in bed, but this time she was too permissive, a sign that she would not ask for it, leaving him the opportunity to act as he preferred.
His kisses ran down her spine, reaching the base of it and then moving back on top with his tongue, leaving a wet trail. A few more kisses alternated with that new passage, reaching her right shoulder again, where his kisses rose up her neck.
"Levi." she moaned, feeling his lips on the most sensitive point of her neck starting to suck lightly on her skin, surely leaving a mark on.
"You really don't want to wait." he blew into her ear, kissing the latter too and squeezing her from her abdomen before penetrating her, without giving her time to respond.
Quickly he began to push inside her, drowning in every moan that came from her lips and indulging them with the same tone, eager, hungry, voracious, drunk of her and those emotions that aroused every single moment spent together.
With his right hand he ran along her chest, brushing her turgid nipples and making her shiver further until he reached her neck which he used to pull her more against himself; his chest adhered to her back as she writhed in search of more and more contact as his left hand reached hers on the keyboard of the bed, intertwining their fingers and looking at their near rings for a few moments, before getting lost back inside her.
Her skin was hot to the touch, smooth and delicate, in contrast to the speed of his thrusts, while her hair just tickled his neck, but the only thing he could care about was the melodious sound of her voice. She repeated his name like a mantra, more and more disconnected and close to orgasm.
And when she finally came, with a last cry, he let himself go too, emptying himself inside her and squeezing her tight against his chest.
Elizabeth woke up, feeling a particular movement behind her.
Levi was evidently uneasy, shaken by his usual nightmares.
They were not particularly frequent but every now and then they decided to pervade his mind and show him the worst scenarios, due to the fear that resided in his subconscious.
"Hey, Levi." she turned around, whispering not to wake him too abruptly but just shaking him so that he woke up. His grip on her hips was much stronger, almost as if he had been awake, but his eyes were narrow and his breathing too fast. He was sleeping but he was subservient to his fear. After a few moments she managed to wake him up, watching him suddenly open his eyes and immediately looking for her.
His breathing began to steady, but his heartbeat continued to run wildly as she lifted a hand to brush a few tufts of hair from his forehead, then leaned against it with her own.
"Shh, it's okay."
Levi fully extended his arms to hold her close again, leaning her against his chest as if he were afraid of seeing her vanish at any moment.
"I'm sorry."
"I'm here." she replied quietly, listening to his heartbeat begin to calm down and knowing full well that this was his way of not showing her his headaches. She hated it when it happened, she wanted to be able to help him but there was nothing material she could do to get him through. His nightmares haunted him and it was a feeling she completely understood. Often she had it too, but it was enough for her to wake up and be near him to calm down, while for him it was more difficult. He needed to be hold tight, to be caressed softly and to be reassured. "They don't stop, uh."
"No."
"Do you want to talk about it?" Elizabeth asked lifting her face a little to look at him and then lie down on the mattress so that she was the one to welcome him. Levi let himself be embraced, resting his head next to her breast, lifting the blanket better to prevent the night cold to make them sick.
"The usual. Blood, dead, evaporating titans. And in the end you died too." Levi explained, closing his eyes at the feel of Elizabeth's fingers caressing his forehead. Her little fingers moved as if they wanted to take the pain out of his head but, at the same time, aware that they couldn't do it. Yet she, somehow, he managed to improve them.
When he was with her he felt good.
"I told you, you won't get rid of me easily." she murmured, smiling slightly to encourage him, while his grip became more delicate. Less afraid. "You married me, it's an eternal promise."
Levi calmed down, slowly beginning to relax again.
"I don't want to get rid of you."