A/N: SPOILER WARNING: If you have not read or watched the first half of season 4, do not read this chapter unless you want spoilers.
Still reading? Cool.
Alright folks, we have a bit of a time skip year, jumping from the last episode of season 3 ("Beyond the Walls") to somewhere before season 4 picks up and Eren has left the Scouts on his own little hairbrained mission to Marley (but before he sends any letters detailing his plan). This scene dives into how MIkasa reacts to that abandonment and how Levi eases her grief. Lemon!
Disclaimer: I do not AOT/SNK or any of the characters used in this fic.
CHAPTER 13: NO SPACE FOR PAIN
"Stupid Eren. Stupid, stupid, stupid," Zoë Hange muttered, pacing around her office. Levi lounged in the chair opposite her desk, a cup of tea gripped tightly in his hand. "I can't believe he would just leave! No note, no word for a week, nothing!" she cried, throwing her hands in the hair.
"Calm down, crazy," Levi said. "Fretting about it isn't going to bring him back or magically clue us into what he's up to. Ranting around like a lunatic is just a waste of energy."
"Damn him," Hange said, collapsing into her chair, but it was worry that coated her words more than anger. A fear born from her helplessness to do anything. A fear that, deep down, Levi understood. While he may have been better at hiding it, he felt the same way. Eren could be an annoying little shit but he couldn't say he hadn't grown fond of the brat. "How's Mikasa taking it?"
Levi took a long sip of his tea, his mind drifting toward his absent girlfriend. She'd made herself remarkably scarce over the last week of Eren's absence and Levi was torn between wanting to give her space and keep under his watchful eye at all times to make sure she didn't follow in his stupidity. He settled for a middle ground, keeping tabs on where she was but not letting his presence become too burdensome to her. That wouldn't help matters, either. Mikasa had the tendency to react to stress like a cat: the more you tried to keep it calm, the more it would try to run away.
"About as well as you'd expect."
Hange sighed. "Well, at least she has you to keep her grounded. I'd hate to think what she would have done if you two weren't together, if Eren was still her sole focus." Levi hated to think of that, too, for far more reasons than he could count. "Why couldn't I just have a bunch of normal soldiers under my command?! Instead, I get you three."
"Tch, don't lump me in with them."
"You're right," Hange conceded. "You're worse."
Levi chose to let that one go. "Hange, there's something I've never asked you," he began in a serious tone, pausing just long enough to pique her interest. "You knew about us before the beach, didn't you? Mikasa and me, I mean. Since when?"
"Since Historia's coronation, of course," Hange said airily as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Levi could have shit a brick, but he didn't know why. Of course, Hange would have known well before anyone else, that psycho four-eyed freak. "I saw you two out on the balcony together dancing, and I saw her storm off and then I found you smoking later. Didn't take a brilliant scientific mind like mine to put two and two together."
"Why didn't you say anything, even after you became commander?"
Hange shrugged. "It wasn't my place to scold you on matters of the heart…or bedroom," she said with a wink, spurring a huge eye roll from Levi. "I figured I'd bring it up if it ever became a problem, and it hasn't." He just snorted in response, glad she at least thought so. On that matter, Levi wasn't sure.
Had she made him happier? Of course. Levi couldn't remember a single time in his life that he felt so content as he did every morning waking up to her hair tickling his nose, her slender but firm body pressed tightly against the curves of his own, her achingly beautiful face just inches from his, so peaceful in the last tender dredges of dreams.
But whether she wasn't an overall problem for Levi's role in this fucked up world, he was less sure. Even after several years of being with her, her touch was no less bone-breaking, her kiss no less explosive. He felt no less out of control in her presence, no less inclined to throw caution to the wind if it meant keeping her safe. Even as he settled into a semblance of comfort in being part of a partnership, she always made him feel like he was teetering on the edge of absolute insanity.
One thing had become more and more apparent to him: Mikasa's survival—not humanity's— was Levi's end game. And he would do anything to ensure it.
"You don't have to believe me," Hange said, reading his thoughts as she always managed to, much to Levi's annoyance. "But you're good for her. You make her less impulsive, less reckless, and that's something we really need her to be. And what's more, she's good for you, Levi. The others can't see that as well as I can, but I've known you for a long time. You're a better man because of her."
"A better man, perhaps, but not a better soldier."
"I know this is a tough pill for you to swallow, but there's more to life than being a soldier, Levi."
"Easy for someone to say whose life hasn't been a warzone since they popped out their mother's womb." It was a rude thing to say, Levi knew. It wasn't as if Hange's life had been easy, especially since being forced into filling Erwin's impossibly large shoes—though she had done the best anyone could, even if he'd never admit it to her. None of their lives were easy. But still…growing up in the underground, under the tutelage of Kenny Ackerman, no less, Levi's life had quite literally always been a warzone.
"You're just determined to be unhappy," she said flippantly. "That's your choice, but just remember that not all of us are so lucky to find that one person that completes us in this world." A faint glimmer of sadness flicked across her features, forming her mouth in a sad smile for only an instant. If Levi hadn't been watching her face closely, he might have missed it. "It's time for you to just accept the fact that you can still act like the miserable bastard you want to be without actually being one." Damn, Hange. He hated when she made sense, especially when it concerned him.
"Thanks, four-eyes,' he said quietly, finishing off the last of his tea that had long since grown cold.
"Plus, you two happen to be really cute together!"
"Alright we're done here," he said, pushing away from the table and heading for the door.
"Where are you going?"
He stopped with his hand on the doorknob and, without looking at her, said, "Where do you think?"
Levi found Mikasa exactly where he knew he would: on the roof of the Scout barracks. During that first year of secrecy, stolen kisses, and closed doors, it was where they liked to meet and often where Mikasa still went when she needed space from the world.
Her back was to him, arched in a lovely line as she leaned over the wooden railing. To his surprise, a cloud of smoke curled lazily over her head.
"You wouldn't have stolen those from my nightstand, now would you?"
She turned and gave him a somber look, a cigarette pinched between her lips. "Thought I'd see what is so great about these. If they really help when everything goes to shit." The last word sounded harsh coming from her delicate mouth. She really had been spending too much time around Levi, he mused coming up behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist. Her body was wound tightly, a bomb set to explode at any second, but as he squeezed tighter, letting his breath wash down her back, he felt her body melt into him.
"Eren's going to be fine," he said into her ear, not in the mood to wait for her to surrender what was bothering her when he knew damn well.
"You don't know that."
"Strictly speaking, no. I won't say he's smart enough to know what he's doing, but what I can say with certainty is that the brat's resilient as all hell. He'll be alright."
Mikasa pursed her lips around the cigarette. The old Eren, maybe, but this new, somber Eren who had grown ever more broody and distant over the last couple of years, Mikasa wasn't so sure. It felt like she hardly knew who he was anymore.
She was snapped out of her thoughts by the feeling of cold that washed over her back as Levi released his hold on her. Instead, he took a place beside her, covering the hand that rested on the railing with his. "Besides, he's saved our asses on more than one occasion. It's hardly fair that we only trust him when we ask him to do something for us. Maybe it's time we repay the favor by putting our faith in him to do as he sees fit. You've always had more blind faith in him than any of us. Don't let that change now."
His words did little more than tickle the guilt that was already niggling in her stomach, but she appreciated the effort nonetheless. Just the fact that Levi cared when she was upset was something no one else could claim.
"So, it is working?" he asked suddenly, eyes flicking down to the cigarette dangling between her lips. Remembering it was there for the first time in a few minutes, she took a long drag, held it in her lungs for a few moments, then exhaled. Damn, she looks sexy like that, Levi couldn't help but think of her delicate but stern face, hazed in a cloud of light smoke.
"Not as well as I'd hoped."
He plucked the cigarette out of her lips and placed it between his own, inhaling deeply, feeling the instant relief of the nicotine flood through his body. It made him feel buoyant—and bold.
"You know…as great as smoking is for taking off the edge, I hear there are even better methods," he drawled, not turning to face her, but sliding his eyes to see how she would respond to the initiation right now.
To anyone else, she would have seemed unphased by the remark, but Levi knew her better. Knew just what to look for the tiny crinkles at the edges of her mouth indicating a ghost of a smile playing on her lips. "And what methods might those be?"
Levi dropped the smoldering cigarette stub onto the stone floor and turned to face her. "Distraction," he said, slowly, carefully enunciating each consonant, snaking his hand around to cup the cheek of her ass. "Deviation." He gave a sharp tug to draw her squarely into his chest. "Diversion." His face now hovered mere centimeters away from hers, his hand creeping from the round of her bottom in between her legs. He grinned wolfishly at the hitch in Mikasa's breath when his fingers brushed her core. "Pleasure." His last word was muffled as Mikasa closed her mouth over his.
Encouraged by her eagerness, Levi pushed her against the half-wall, her back bending over the open-air railing as he pressed himself closer and closer still to her.
In one heave of core strength, she pushed herself upright, breaking from the kiss. "Careful, now, Captain. I don't have my gear on. You get too eager and I'll fall." Her words curled seductively around his brain, drenching his thoughts in a thick fog that granted him focus on just one thing: her, her, her.
"I'd catch you," he said, nipping at her earlobe. "I'll never let you fall."
She pulled back just long enough to look him dead in the eyes. "I know." Then she torturously stepped away, taking his hand and tugging him toward the door. Levi, stumbling like a drunk man, followed after her as she led the way to his room—their room, seeing as Mikasa now lived there in all ways except on paper.
They were on each other again before reaching the, blindly bouncing off the walls of the empty always together. Levi could hardly get the door unlocked when they got there with the way her lips mouthed hungrily at his neck.
The lock finally clicked open and they fell into the room tumbling until they fell, splayed out on the floor together. Levi forcefully kicked the door shut and rolled on top of Mikasa, grinding his hips into hers and kissing her until she couldn't breathe.
He adeptly released each of the once-troublesome buckles that bound her uniform together while Mikasa kicked off her boots.
As he slid her pants and underwear down over her thighs, Levi's kisses, too, began traveling downward at an agonizingly slow pace. To her chin, her neck, her collar bone, between her breasts—ignoring them altogether, to her surprise—to her stomach, her hip bone, the crease of her leg. Down, down… down.
The second his tongue touched her mound, Mikasa's entire body became consumed with fire. Searing, destructive fire that burned away everything that weighed so heavily on her. Let it fucking burn, she thought, squirming in his grasp.
It always surprised Mikasa when he did..that. She would have expected him to find it disgusting. Perhaps he did, but if so, he never showed it, which made it all the more sweet.
Either way, damn was he good at it.
His tongue knew exactly where to touch—exactly how slow to roll over her folds, how much pressure to exert, at what pace to move his two fingers in and out— to make Mikasa see stars.
Levi suddenly inhaled, sucking in her most sensitive skin just enough to send Mikasa over the edge. He didn't relent as she climaxed, instead curling his arm around her thigh and crashing waves and waves of pleasure over her until her body simply said "no more". Her bucking hips steadied and her sweat-covered body stilled and smoldered in the wake of his heat.
"Levi," she panted. "That was…"
He silenced her with another kiss. "Not over yet," he said with a wicked grin, then got to his knees and scooped her up effortlessly in his arms. He stood, spun on his heels, and set her down on the bed, so that was sitting upright propped against the headboard.
Levi crawled in after her, tucking his hand beneath her hair so that it cupped the base of her skull to pull her into him.
Their swollen lips found each other again like magnets in a clash of tongues and teeth and ragged breaths. Levi was certain they looked like clumsy teenagers, the way they groped and mawed at each other like it was their last night on earth, but he didn't care.
Somewhere, bound in the spell of her lips and little moans, Levi hadn't noticed that Mikasa had undone the buckles around his pants, and was now reaching into her the waistband of his underwear to release the bulge that struggled against the right fabric. A magnificent shudder ran down his spine as her cold fingers encircled his length. She broke away from his lips and leaned down toward his lap, but Levi quickly caught her chin and jerked it back toward his face. "This isn't about me, brat. Not tonight. I'm not the one who needs a distraction."
"But I want to make you feel good, too," he said, her words laced with desire.
Levi let out a gruff laugh. "Idiot. As if you could make me feel anything else." She kissed her, this one tender and reassuring, rather than ravenous and desperate. "Trust me, you don't have to do anything to make me feel plenty good, Mikasa."
Not giving her time to get in a word of argument, he sealed her lips with his, moving his body to the side so that he could place a hand beneath the small of her back and guide her down the mattress.
With her help, he kicked out of his pants, scarcely needing to part his lips from her skin. He knew she was taking Eren's disappearance hard—harder than she was letting on by far—and Levi wanted nothing more to take all of that hurt away. There were two things Levi knew he was damn good at in this world: killing and kissing (among related things). Dammit if he wasn't going to use the latter to spare the woman he loved from drowning in her sorrow.
And if Eren showed back up, maybe he'd put the former skill to use, too.
Until then, he'd happily spend as much time here as she allowed him, fingers tangled in the midnight strands splayed across his pillow, his body drinking in every precious centimeter of hers. No space for pain.
After teasing her for a while, until she had her legs wrapped around his hips practically begging for him, Levi pushed into her. Her hot walls surrounding him provided that old familiar rush, just as tantalizing as it had been the first time. With one hand braced against the headboard for leverage and the other tangled in hers, Levi moved in and out, slowly but forcefully, pausing for several seconds in between each stroke.
Finally, Mikasa let out a growl of frustration and sank her fingers into the flesh of his ass, pulling him in farther.
"Faster," she moaned, dragging her nails up his back.
He grinned, positively drunk on the pleasure and frustration he inspired in her. "What do you say?"
"Now, dammit!" He barked a laugh and placed a kiss on her cheek.
"As you wish, love. As long as you know it won't last much longer if I do that," he whispered, before beginning his thrusts again, this time at a much faster pace. Mikasa writhed beneath, panting as he got closer and closer to the edge. After just a few moments, Levi felt her walls tighten around him as she exhaled a strangled cry and dug her nails into his shoulder blades so hard she was certain she drew blood.
Between the satisfying pain, her intoxicating noises, and the feeling of her pulsing, Levi let go. His body shuddered as he released inside her, lucid just enough to feel thankful for the herbs she had started taking last year that made this part much less messy.
They remained that way for a few moments, a conjoined mass of entangled limbs, sweat-soaked skin, and ragged breaths.
Once Levi regained feeling in his body, he planted a kiss of her damp brown and rolled off, pulling her in tightly to his chest. He held her as the fluttering of her heart that vibrated through his chest grew fainter and her breathing returned to normal.
Mikasa was always so quiet after sex. Even after all this time, it still unsettled him for some reason, as if her silence was a sign of a revelation—that she was crazy for being with him and didn't really love him. Levi couldn't stamp out the sliver of himself that whispered relentlessly, It's only a matter of time.
"Oi. Tell me what's going on in there." He tapped her forehead once with his index finger.
"Hmm? Oh, I'm sorry. I was just thinking."
"No shit. I want to know about what."
"About the first time you kissed me."
Levi raised an eyebrow and flipped her chin up to look at him with two fingers. "What about it?"
"Oh, just about how it was one of the lowest points of at least my military career and the most moronic time ever to do it…but how it also gave me something more to fight for down there, and probably kept me alive. If for no other reason than to find out why you did it."
Levi was quiet for a long moment. "I knew there was a good chance I was going to die down there, that I wouldn't be able to best Kenny, and there was one thing I couldn't stand the thought of not having done. It was as simple as that. Nothing profound or heroic. Selfishness in all its simple glory."
Mikasa rolled onto his chest to look into his eyes, close enough that even her newly shortened hair still ticked his cheek. "I know I can't make you not hate yourself, Levi, but I just want you to know that I think you are a good man."
"You're the second person to tell me that today."
A single, delicate eyebrow arched upward. "Should I be jealous," she teased, knowing damn well she didn't have anything to be jealous about, no matter who it was.
"It was Hange," Levi said flatly, prompting a small laugh from Mikasa.
"Well in that case…" she kissed him briefly, too brief for his liking. "I don't know how I would get things like that without you being here."
Her words washed over Levi, like a warm, salty wave that held him perfectly suspended in its wake. It was one of those rare moments where Levi almost believed he deserved her.
"Levi." She paused, her hands trembling slightly on his chest. "I don't think I'll be able to get through this without you either. I miss him. I miss him so much and I can't shake the feeling that this is how it ends. That even if I see him again, this is the start of something none of us have the power to stop. Even though we've grown apart some over the last couple years, it feels different now...like a part of me is just missing." Her eyes were shining now, as tears brimmed in them. The sight pained Levi. In all the time they had spent together, he had so rarely seen her cry, so when she did break, it felt like something in Levi was breaking, too.
"Hey now, none of that," Levi said, brushing the tears out of the corner of her eyes with his thumb. "I'm not in the, erm, condition quite yet to repeat all that."
She gave a watery chuckle. "You don't need to do that every time I get sad. And know that I am going to get sad. All I need from you is to stay. Just...promise you'll never leave me like he did."
Levi smiled lovingly at her, one of those rare smiles where he let down all his guards and really let her see him. "I haven't left yet, have I?" He brushed an errant strand of hair from her face. "Mikasa, I know your reason for being has been torn between several people, but understand that my reason for being is and has always been you. Just you. As long as I'm permitted to wake up each morning to this shitty world, I will never leave you."
His words pried apart the fingers that felt like they were clenched around her heart, like a numbing salve spread across fresh wounds. People said a lot of things about Levi Ackerman, but never that he was a liar. She knew his words were true.
She pressed her lips softly against his and whispered into them, "I love you so much, Levi."
He closed the space that still allowed her to speak and locked her in a long, deep kiss, the kind that had his chest aching by the end. When he finally released her lips, he tucked the crown of her head under his cheekbone. "I love you, too, brat. Lord fucking knows I love you."
Mikasa smiled, amusing at how even being tender he could still manage to be crude. Her head rocked up and down with the rise and fall of Levi's steady breath, gently rocking her until her eyes drifted closed. Here, nothing mattered. Not the fact that Eren was missing, or that Mikasa felt incredibly abandoned by her best friend, or the fact that all she could do was wait helplessly.
That ache would still be there tomorrow, though hopefully dulled a bit by waking up in his arms.
Right now, all that mattered was this.