More reviews, yay!
On another note, I almost missed my update schedule today. I had a really busy week and forgot to do one last re-read of this chapter and prepare it for uploading. But I managed to make it in time~
As always my lovelies, go ahead and enjoy this chapter and don't forget to toss me a little review, to let me know what you think~ ;)
P.S. All Attack on Titan characters belongs to Isayama Hajime. I only own my OCs.
25. More than I deserve
~ 850 ~
'...Why do we have to do this, first thing in the morning?' Levi huffed to himself.
He was resting his chin in his hand as he watched Natalie's Titan building their new training dummy, with Armin carefully observing the process and directing her. How the hell she had so much energy left after the previous night was beyond him, when all he wanted for once was to laze in bed feeling like he could've even gotten some more sleep with her in his arms. Maybe he needed to be more thorough the next time they took to the sheets together, and make sure she wouldn't be such an early bird the following morning – or at least that she couldn't walk anymore the next day.
"Captain!"
Mikasa's slightly raised tone startled him into noticing the girl staring intently at him.
"Are you alright? I've had to call you a few times before you responded."
"...What? Are you actually worried about someone other than Eren, for a change?"
"You just look really tired recently. At least, more than usual..." she replied, trying to not let his words get under her skin. "Is something bothering you?"
"Just stuff..." he huffed, his eyes going back to Natalie who had just extracted herself from the Titan's body to examine her handiwork with Armin.
Following his gaze, the brunette blinked and flushed trying her best to hide in her scarf.
"Oh... I see..." she mumbled.
Her flustered tone drew his attention again, and he immediately eyed her reddened cheeks.
"You damn kids..." he sighed with a measure of humor that she completely missed. "There's no way you can feel tired after a good round of sex. Maybe if you grow the balls to finally confess to that idiot, you'll see for yourself."
"We... w-we're family..." she sputtered, wishing nothing more than to somehow drown in her scarf.
"Tch, spare me; I'm not some starry-eyed goody two shoes, like Historia... maybe she'd believe that crap coming out of your mouth. I'm far too old for your teenager shit – you're not convincing anyone when you're a stuttering, blushing mess like this. So his parents took you in as a kid, big deal; that doesn't magically make him your brother. Well, I suppose it's still better than living your life thinking you have no family. Even if to me it looks like you're just lying to yourself, because you're shit at dealing with your feelings and admitting you love him. What are you so afraid of, anyway? Getting rejected? And if he does reject you... so what? He's not the only man in the world, even if he saved your life."
Though her cheeks were still burning, the brunette all of a sudden realized he was actually trying to give her advice and that earned him her undivided attention. It was strange... and yet somehow it felt nice to know he cared enough to do that.
"Eren... is focused on other things. Telling him this would only burden him even more." she at last replied, staring at her hands clasped in her lap.
"You're just as bad as Nat, huh?" he huffed again. "Didn't think I'd get this crap answer from anyone other than her..."
"...What does that mean?" she blinked, not really knowing if it was an insult or not.
"She also has this stupid habit of ignoring her own needs and wants, for my sake. Because she thinks I'm too busy and that she'll just burden me with it. If Eren is the least bit not an idiot, he'll never think your feelings for him are a burden, even if he doesn't end up returning them. And if he is enough of an idiot to think that, then you're better off finding someone else either way. My point is, with humanity struggling as it is... when any day could be our last... is keeping your feelings from him really something you want to regret when you die? Or could you handle it, if he got the hots for some other girl in the end? Because that's what'll happen, if you never tell him anything. If you never try, you'll never know how it would have played out. Well... maybe I'm not exactly the best example to give you advice; I was just incredibly lucky that Natalie never gave up on me."
"How did you... um... get together with Natalie?" she asked, at last giving in to her curiosity.
"...Huh?" he retorted in his usual deadpan tone. "You don't think I'm good enough to get a woman like her in my bed?"
"No... that's not..." the girl stammered, caught completely off guard. "I... I didn't mean to say... to imply that you're..."
"It was a joke." he huffed. "Calm down before you pass out."
At first he went silent afterwards, only turning his eyes back to the redhead, and Mikasa could swear she saw an evanescent smile cross his lips for the duration of a heartbeat.
"I just told you how... it certainly wasn't my awkward ass doing anything, with how shit I am at dealing with emotions. She was the one who had to work up the courage to tell me how she felt. But she did it one day; directly and without trying to beat around the bush."
"And you...?" she prodded, utterly surprised to have found such an unexpectedly kindred spirit in him.
"I told her I couldn't give her anything, when I didn't know which day would be my last." he replied, startling the girl with his unexpected answer. "Still, she never gave up on me... she was willing to stay by my side even if I never gave her anything in return."
Side-eyeing the realization on her face, he turned his gaze back to her.
"That's right... I rejected her, more than once. I even used her feelings against her several times; though I'm sure Eren's too much of a good guy to ever do that to you. I hurt her; I betrayed her trust; I forced her to make impossible choices; I gave her plenty of guilt burdens to live with. And still she never gave up... she never tried to hide how she felt about me. She didn't force her feelings onto me, but she never kept them a secret either."
At that he huffed again, clasping his hands together with a smile that Mikasa didn't know how exactly to interpret; was it bittersweet, or guilty, or maybe just sad?
"I'll be honest, I don't have a clue how it happened... I just realized one day that I did want to give her everything. All of my strength, all of my skills, all of my bravery... I just realized one day that none of it meant shit if I couldn't use them for her. None of my power or desire to fight for humanity meant anything, if I couldn't protect her with these hands. None of my desires for a happy future or for peace meant anything, if I couldn't at least make her happy. So I gave her everything, and yet I still feel like she gave me so much more to begin with; so much more than I ever deserved."
Again he fell silent, as though he had taken that chance to internally examine himself, and Mikasa couldn't help but feel privileged in some way to have been allowed a glimpse into what made their stoic Captain tick.
"I may have been an adult..." he at last sighed, leaning back onto one hand and absentmindedly running the other through his hair. "But emotionally I was just about as shit as you brats. I suppose in some ways, how she handled the situation made me grow up. Handle it right and maybe you'll get that idiot to grow up as well."
"So then... you're... also happy?"
"Yeah."
His reply came with no hesitation while his eyes again found the redhead, and Mikasa had to blink in surprise at how his expression softened in a way she had never seen before. Would Eren ever be able to make that expression when thinking of her, she wondered. If she told him how she felt, would he really grow up like Levi had told her? Or maybe... she could talk to Natalie as well, and get some advice from her before doing that.
'I'll do that later.' she decided, before turning back to the young Captain and circling back to what had prompted their conversation in the first place. "So then... why are you so tired? Maybe you should rest more."
"Training."
His matter-of-fact retort left her confused, before she recalled having seen him one day chopping Titans just a few dozens of meters from Trost's gate.
"Perhaps you should leave the Titans to Hange-san's new defense mechanism."
"...Have you been stalking me?" he replied, sounding like he was utterly sick of dealing with kids.
"I just happened to notice you last week... I was curious."
Her voice died out in a gasp and she both froze and blushed furiously when he tousled her hair.
"I can tell, you nosy brat..." he sighed. "Well, if you really can't contain yourself I'll tell you. It's an idea Natalie came up with so I can trigger those power surges I mentioned before, whenever I need them."
Again he earned her undivided attention and her suddenly earnest stare caught him off guard.
"I want to train that as well, Captain."
"Idiot... what makes you think I want anyone else to go through that kind of shit? Do you even know what it takes to do something like that?"
In the face of her confused expression, he again heaved a sigh and leaned back on his hands.
"Do you remember when yours was triggered?"
"When Eren saved me fr—"
"Fuck that... I meant the exact moment."
"When... when the third kidnapper was trying to strangle Eren." she replied, having taken a moment to pinpoint it out of that memory. "When he went limp in that scum's hands, I..."
"That's what it takes."
"But...! How would you even...?" she gasped, for once looking sincerely frightened.
"For me it happened most recently below the chapel, when Kenny was about to shoot Natalie. I already saw it playing out in my head, before it had even happened, and that allowed me to get there in time to save her. Triggering something like that at will, means you have to fuck with your own head. You have to trick yourself into believing you're in that moment again, that you're feeling everything you felt back then, that the person you want to save is really in front of you about to die. That's not something a brat like you should have to put herself through."
"I'll do it."
"Did you not listen to a word I said?" he frowned.
"Natalie said she expects us to get ambushed in Shiganshina, correct?" the brunette insisted. "Then... wouldn't two of us be better than one? If we're lucky, the enemy won't know about us and we can be the Survey Corps' secret weapons. Let me train with you... so I won't repeat my mistake from the forest."
"You... are you sure you want to torture yourself like this?"
"If it means I can better protect my friends, without getting in your way again, yes." she replied, reaching up to grasp her scarf out of habit.
~ oOo ~
"Well? Are you ready?" Levi inquired as he and the brunette hung off the wall, above a group of Titans the young Captain had lured there for their training. "Just make sure you don't go before you're certain it'll work, or you'll just get eaten."
"Understood." she nodded, taking a deep breath and trying to focus on recalling all the sensations which had made up the moment she would use as a catalyst.
"Wait... take your fingers off the triggers until you're ready. You don't want to accidentally dive right into their mouths."
With the girl doing as he had instructed her, she again inhaled deeply and fixed her gaze on the writhing Titans below them. To the best of her ability she tried to bring up the image of the flesh peddler – a process aided by the one brown haired Titan in that group, which kept reaching up for her – and Eren writhing in his grasp. She tried to recall how the sound of the rain had filled the deathly silence in the cabin, how the cold air had felt on her skin, how the fear had crushed her chest in an iron grip, how she had quivered like a leaf as she watched the life being slowly squeezed out of Eren.
'Eren...!' she nearly gasped, when for a split second she could swear she had seen him in the grasp of that Titan.
She hadn't even noticed when her lips had parted to allow better air intake for her lungs, her once calm breathing picking up as her knuckles gradually bled white around the hilts. Though she couldn't see herself, Levi could perfectly see the way her eyes had widened and her pupils had dilated, her expression twisting more and more into an irate snarl baring her teeth.
And then she inhaled sharply out of the blue and she knew it was time. Everything suddenly made sense and her mind had already mapped out the entire process of her carving up all of the Titans below her. The tension in her muscles had reached its peak and the entirety of her body told her that she could do it. Hooking her fingers upon the triggers she released the anchors and with a burst of gas lunged herself at the creatures, the current dancing along the surface of the wall echoing her animalistic growl.
Her first victim caught one of the anchors in its forehead and she twisted like a snake between its fingers when it tried to grab her, circling around to slice the nape before the Titan could even turn its head. In the same fluid motion she pulled the anchor back and used another burst of gas to throw herself at the second Titan. Using the blades as projectiles she threw them into its eyes, immediately drawing two fresh ones and hooking into its extended arm to carve it into slices as she made her way towards the creature's body.
'It's no wonder the others think she's a beast.' Levi mused, not without a measure of amusement, watching the blood sprays and chunks of flesh flying everywhere. 'At this rate, Eren might just be too scared to get with her.'
She was about to engage the last surviving Titan when the young Captain noticed the twitch in her focused expression, right before she grabbed her head. Her moment of distraction gave the creature the perfect opening to grab her out of the air, and Levi immediately released the anchors diving towards them. To Mikasa's great fortune he was faster in reaching them than the Titan was in its attempt to stuff her into its mouth, and within moments he was again anchored into the wall holding the girl in his grasp as the Titan fell dead to the ground.
"Hey... are you alright?"
"Y-yeah... I'm sorry..." Mikasa whispered, heaving for breath. "Just... a bit of a headache..."
Again she clenched her jaw at the pain spike what with adrenaline still coursing through her system. The once gentle afternoon light was suddenly blinding and it hurt her eyes, and before she knew it she had hidden her face in Levi's shoulder catching him off guard.
'I told you this wasn't something you should be doing, idiot...' he mused, tightening his hold on her while using the gear to scale back up the wall.
Once he had reached the top he set the girl down and took off his cloak, placing it on her shoulders and pulling the hood over her head.
"Can you still walk?"
"I'll be fine in a few minutes..." she replied, grateful for the chance to use the hood to cover her eyes.
Sighing in annoyance at her stubbornness he reached for her arms to pull the girl to her feet, before wrapping an arm about her thighs and slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
"Wh-what are you—?!" she gasped, feeling the world spinning around her when he so suddenly shifted her weight center.
"I don't have time to waste sitting around, so shut up and pass out or something." the Captain retorted, starting on his way back to the barracks.
Upon reaching his destination, to his relief he found Eren outside the stables bickering with Jean over nothing as they usually did.
"Hey!" he called out, barely giving them any time to process what was going on before he unceremoniously dumped the brunette into Eren's arms. "She's not feeling well. Help her to her room."
"M-Mikasa?!" he gasped upon seeing her face when the hood fell off her head. "Wh-what's... Captain... what happened?"
But Levi was already walking away, leaving the two boys to stare after him in utter confusion, while Mikasa tried her best to ignore the headache and hide her mortified blush by pulling the hood back up.
"The hell was that all about?" Jean at last commented. "What happened, Mikasa?"
"N-nothing!" she sputtered, a whole new wave of embarrassment taking over when she realized Eren was still cradling her in his arms. "Just a headache..."
"How bad is this headache, if the Captain had to carry you back here?"
"He didn't have to! He just did it on his own; I could've walked back..." she pouted.
"Anyway, I'll get you to your room like the Captain said." Eren concluded.
"It's alright... I can walk. Just put me down..."
"What are you saying?" he retorted, tilting his head to peer under the hood as he walked back towards the female dorms. "If the Captain had to help you get here, it's obvious you're not feeling well."
To Mikasa's great relief they didn't run into anyone else the rest of the way, and she only spoke up again once Eren had set her down in front of her door.
"Eren... could you please ask Natalie to visit me, if she's not busy? I had something I wanted to ask her."
"Shouldn't you rest first?"
"No... also, I need to return the Captain's cloak and I can give it to her."
"...Alright. If you're sure you're feeling well."
"Thank you."
With the boy taking his leave, she at last entered the room and pulled the curtains closed for shade before removing the cloak and folding it onto her desk. The headache was starting to dull somewhat, but she still felt sluggish and had to ultimately lie down. She didn't know how much time passed, but she only realized she'd fallen asleep when the knock at the door startled her awake.
"Come in." she called out, looking over to see the redhead entering the room.
"What... it's like a cave in here." Natalie stated with a measure of humor, closing the door and approaching the bed to sit next to the girl. "How are you? Eren said you weren't feeling well."
"It's just a nasty headache..." she replied, more sincerely than she'd addressed both Levi and Eren. "But I think I'll be alright later."
"Just... out of the blue like this?"
"I was actually training with the Captain earlier... with what you taught him..."
Blinking in confusion for a moment, the redhead finally realized what Mikasa meant and her expression turned to actual concern.
"...Why would you do that to yourself? Mikasa, you're fifteen... you shouldn't have to go through something like that."
"The Captain seems to think so too." she huffed, finding it amusing how similar those two were in some regards. "But... I don't want to repeat the mistake I made the last time we fought together. I don't want him to get injured again, or worse, because I got in his way. I want to protect Eren and everyone else without endangering anyone."
Her voice died in a soft, surprised gasp when she felt the woman's fingers brushing the hair out of her face, and her gaze went from the ceiling back to Natalie who was smiling at her in a way that so strikingly reminded her of her mother.
'What... why am I remembering this now?' she mused as her mind replayed a childhood memory of when she'd fallen ill and her mother had spent so much time sitting by her side, stroking her hair much in the same way Natalie had done just then.
"I wish you wouldn't have to do this to yourself." the redhead sighed. "But I respect the fact that you want to improve. If Levi agreed to let you do it, after all, then I'll trust his judgment."
"Can I ask you something?" she said out of the blue, speaking again once Natalie nodded. "How... I mean, I don't mean for this to sound offensive. How did you and the Captain... get together?"
Would she tell her anything different than what Levi had imparted that morning? She had to admit she was curious how the whole situation looked from Natalie's perspective, as opposed to his.
"Well if that isn't a question and a half..." the redhead chuckled, before taking a deep breath and a moment to ponder. "The answer, I'm afraid, isn't really simple. Because Levi is hardly a simple man; though I'm sure even you noticed that by now."
"...Would you tell me, still?"
Again Natalie fell silent, a plethora of emotions crossing her face as she instantaneously recalled an overwhelming amount of memories from her years in the Survey Corps.
"Levi..." she began, her mind blanking for a moment on how to even put into words the kind of relationship they had shared over the years. "He saved me; so many times... in so many ways. And I don't just mean that he saved me from getting eaten, or injured. He... saved me from a fate worse than death. He taught me that I could be free, no matter what anyone else said, so long as I was willing to pay the price for it. He gave me purpose... he taught me that it's not always a bad thing to put my faith in others, not just in myself. He made me strong, he was there for me every time I needed a hand, he got me back to my feet when I'd given up and tried to shut out the whole world. He was always so impossibly kind and he always protected me, even from myself."
Blinking in surprise at how utterly contradicting Natalie's words were, compared to what Levi had told her, the brunette had to wonder if maybe that was why they got along so well. If perhaps, the fact that they were at such opposite ends of the spectrum in their thinking, was the key to their relationship.
"The Captain... he—"
"Told you a different story?" Natalie smiled, having by now suspected that was the reason Mikasa had come asking. "He does struggle with these kinds of things; not through any fault of his own, though. The life he had before joining the Survey Corps was far from easy. And that kind of environment leaves a mark on you for the rest of your life. But even so, the fact that he grew up into such a kind man, who cares about those around him so much, who values life so much... to me that's nothing short of a miracle. I know far too many people who've had much better starts in life than he did, and who are utter trash compared to him."
"Then... you're happy... with him?"
"More than I ever imagined I could be, with any man." she replied on such a soft tone as Mikasa had never before heard from her. "I still think I'm nowhere near what he deserves, and yet he decided to put his trust in me. He lost so much, so many people he cared for dearly... but he still had the strength and the courage to forge another bond. He not only built me up into the person I am today, he also gave me everything; more than I ever deserved."
"So I gave her everything, and yet I still feel like she gave me so much more to begin with; so much more than I ever deserved." Levi's words replayed in Mikasa's head immediately after Natalie's response, leaving her to stare at the woman in silence.
It was such a strange thing how they had started from utterly different mindsets only to reach the same conclusion – even to word it almost identically. Was that what it meant, when people said some couples were made for each other? Was that what it meant to truly love someone; to be able to come together at the core of a relationship, no matter how different your mindsets started out?
'Would I... ever be able to have that... with Eren... with anyone?' she pondered. "How did you... confess to him? The Captain said you never kept your feelings a secret..."
"In a very embarrassing way..." Natalie again chuckled, although the look on her face told Mikasa she recalled that memory fondly. "I just... blurted everything out in his face. In hindsight I'm surprised I didn't just scare him away, the way I almost yelled it at him. I never actually told him that I loved him, though. I knew he cared for me because he was too kind to feel otherwise, and that he wanted to keep me alive even when I was far too reckless for my own good. I just... wanted to give something back to him. And the promises I made to him that day are what kept me going so far."
"...Promises?" Mikasa blinked in confusion.
"Yes. I promised I'd always be there for him whenever he needed me; that I would always listen whenever he needed to talk; that I would never die and make him go through that kind of pain again. But he... he was again so impossibly kind. He understood everything I wanted to say, even when I couldn't bring myself to say it. And he accepted me; he accepted everything I felt for him... even when he couldn't give me anything in return he didn't reject me, he didn't berate me for what I felt, he didn't mock me. He said that if I really had the resolve to live for him, like I'd promised, that he would accept that and hold me to my word. I'm not really sure if something like that would work on Eren, though..."
At first Mikasa didn't even process her last words, until her mind at last registered them and her eyes went wide.
"I... that's not... I mean..." she stammered, her cheeks flushing again.
"Don't worry about hiding it; it's quite obvious to mostly everyone who knows you two. That doesn't mean I'm judging you for it... we don't choose who we fall in love with. In a way that's what makes it so beautiful and so terrifying."
At last sitting up in bed, the brunette heaved a sigh; she needed to get that off her chest and Natalie seemed like the right person to talk to.
"I wouldn't even know how to go about it. I'm just afraid I'll burden him even more if I tell him; he already has so much pressure on his shoulders."
"Have you ever considered... that keeping this from him might do more harm, than good?"
At her question Mikasa jerked in surprise and looked over with an expression that only served to remind Natalie how young and inexperienced the girl was.
"I don't know Eren as well as you do and I won't pretend like I know him. But as far as I've seen... Eren is more a creature of emotion, rather than logic. The reason why he can bear this weight isn't just because someone explained to him why he should do it, or the importance of it. It's because he's doing it for you... for Armin... for his friends... for humanity. It's because you're all there to support him, because he cares for you so deeply that he can bear this and not crumble. With Levi I instantly regretted blurting out my feelings, because I knew he wasn't driven by his emotions. Because I thought he would find that foolish or childish. But he really surprised me with how maturely he reacted by accepting it, even if he knew he couldn't return them. Eren isn't like Levi, however... I'm sure your feelings for him might have even crossed his mind, maybe more than once. I believe that he wouldn't feel like it's a burden at all; I think that would only serve to remind him of why he's doing it all in the first place. And in his darkest moments it might help him to hold onto his humanity, if he knows that someone can love him and want him just the way he is. That's why Levi was able to eventually return my feelings; because he knew I loved him the way he was... that no matter how screwed up he believed he was, I still wanted him."
When she lowered her eyes, Natalie reached out to take hold of her hand drawing her gaze back. She couldn't tell why but that felt... right. Her intuition told her that perhaps this would help to change that horrible future she had seen. Perhaps that was what Eren had been missing the last time.
"Eren isn't like Levi..." the redhead repeated. "He's... not perceptive enough to notice subtle things like this, if you don't tell him. You have to be the brave one; you have to be the one who starts being sincere, between you two. I know it's terrifying, I know it would be far easier to fight a hundred Titans than to tell him... but he needs to know. If you're serious in what you feel for him, he needs to know that you don't see him as a brother. That you see him for the man he is, for the man he wants to be, that you see all his good and all his bad sides; that you're ready to be by his side even if he doesn't feel the same; that you'll stand by him even if he never returns your feelings or even if he hurts you. He needs to know that you love him and you want him... all of him."
Sooo today's replies for my lovely reviewers :D
1. MordredVisor - Oh, darling how could I not notice your feedback? Feedback is what feeds my inspiration ;) But, as I did last time I'll combine the replies into one for each chapter. Again, thank you so very much for taking the time to review and I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts as the story progresses! :D
(ch. 24) - I'm so happy that you enjoyed the chapter and don't worry at all, I am definitely never abandoning this story. I've already got the skeleton of it written down till the very end, so I will certainly finish it. Also, thank you so very much for the kind words you really made my day.
(ch. 25) - Aaaahhh I'm all giddy that you enjoyed this one! I'm always SO nervous writing smexy scenes, because I never know if it's too much or too little, because this kind of thing is so subjective in how each person enjoys reading it. We all have such personal and particular things that we enjoy when reading this kind of scene, and though I always remind myself I'll never be able to please everyone, it's always such a relief to hear back from people and to see them enjoying it.
So these are my replies for today. Cheers, lovelies~ ( ˘ ³˘)❤