Disclaimer: I do not own SnK, neither the manga nor the anime. Any parts you recognize belong to their creator. All original content is my own.
There is some very mild citrusy content in this chapter.
Chapter 14: Knowing You
A few years prior, the year 844…
He pauses when he reaches the roof.
Levi is fairly certain all of the air leaves his lungs as soon as he makes it up there. He has a hard time deciding if he is still in the throes of his nightmare or some new, warped dream. She is there at the edge of the long, flat rooftop, with her back towards him. Instead of the bright, verdant landscape his dreaming mind had just escaped, there is a deep blue swath of sky spread out before her. Stars dapple the sheet of navy, little pinpricks of light that softly glow around her slender frame. He watches, breathless, as the breeze blows her golden hair across her back. Swaying like a soft blanket of gold, her hair ripples and reflects the moonlight.
The sight is so very ethereal that he feels an ache creep up his chest.
He hates this feeling—at least he thinks he does— yet every day he finds himself craving it more and more.
For a moment, Levi cannot move, cannot breathe. He can only stand there, struck, and watch her tilt her head backwards, let his eyes follow her hair as it falls lower down her back. He tries —tries and fails— to push the images from his dream away. Tries to shake from his mind the image of her wrapped in blue and looking so beautiful and lovely and pure standing by that open window. Tries not to imagine a Titan appearing behind her, crashing through the window, the walls, and grabbing her with filthy, gargantuan fingers. Tries not to see the life flicker out of her eyes as her waist —her tiny, delicate waist— is crushed like a twig inside a meaty, colossal palm.
"I don't know you at all." Her voice from his nightmare slithers through his consciousness like a ghost.
He wonders, briefly, why his chest is heaving. Why can't he catch his breath? Why do his hands feel so heavy? His feet made of lead? Tingles erupt all over his body and his vision sparkles dangerously; it's an odd sort of chromatic display that leaves him strangely off-kilter and nauseas. Glittering flecks swim around his eyeline. He feels like he has just stood up too quickly, blood rushing abnormally fast to parts of his body that had long been numb — his hands, his feet, his very fingertips. Is he...panicking? Is this what true panic feels like? This vise grip with the strength of steel that is wrapped around his throat? His heart?
"I thought all criminals slept like babies at night?"
Her voice, so soft and light, causes the chains around his body to slacken, the metal trap around his throat to open up. All at once his eyes are no longer swimming and he is slowly coming back into his body. The fuzz clears and scatters. It takes everything in him not to gasp out and possibly gag. How very un-criminal of him that would be. His hand is halfway up to the base of his throat before he realizes what he is doing. He hastily retracts it and all but slams it back down to his side. It trembles there against his pant leg, so minutely, and he hopes she doesn't see it.
"I don't know you at all."
He finds it in him to smirk, to present some semblance of his usual aloof character, but it is half-hearted and he can feel himself sweating lightly from the strain of the past few moments.
"Not this one," he echoes their previous conversation all those weeks ago in the canteen — in the very building on top of which they are now standing.
Maia has been staring at him for some time now. She'd noticed when he arrived on the roof. Her skin prickling as if electric and her breath catching in her throat was enough to notify her of his presence. When she'd turned, swiveled soundlessly so that one leg rested on the ground while the other stayed bent upright, her heart thudded loudly, almost painfully, in her chest at the sight of his expression. His eyes were locked onto her but something told her that he wasn't seeing her. Levi had been far away in those moments, and the fierce panic that swept across his handsome face was enough to tell her that he'd had a nightmare. She'd seen that expression on her own face enough times to be able to recognize it immediately, even in the dim light of the night. Only the moon hung overhead with the stars twinkling here and there, but she saw him clearly. She always saw him so clearly, it seemed.
And gods, was he beautiful.
"The sunrise is still a ways off," she tells him gently, quietly, "but this view is still nice."
Levi watches her slender fingers gesture to the empty spot next to her. It's an open invitation but he knows she won't hold it against him if he refuses.
The sunrise seems pretty close to me, Levi thinks to himself. Doesn't dare voice that thought out loud because of how utterly un-criminal it is, just like his earlier need to maybe vomit and splash water onto his face and possibly pass the fuck out.
"Hm," he makes a non-committal noise from the back of his throat, "it's dark."
No, it isn't. She is bright enough for the two of them up there on that roof, and the stars that twinkle behind her are worthy companions. The moonlight spills down her shoulders and shines along her exposed collarbone. But he can't let her know how affected he is by, well, everything that she is. So he falls back on his old ways and tries to thin his mouth into an impossibly straight line. If he wasn't so worked up still from his nightmare, he thinks he might even have the energy to give a lackluster glare.
Maia hums, the sound hooking something low in Levi, and looks upwards.
"Sometimes dark is a nice view."
A stream of air, low and hot, hisses from between his lips. He feels that same creeping fear starting to bubble up within him and he is momentarily washed with another feeling too: annoyance. Annoyance that who he was, who he was before her, is so inaccessible to him now. The Levi that had crawled out of the blackest pits of the earth with only two others beside him to call family...where had he gone? The hardened criminal. The man who couldn't give two shits about anyone else in this ragtag excuse of a regiment. What happened to him?
He'd been here for months, above ground, in this new hellscape full of Titans and politics and its different brand of greedy wrath. He'd been here for so long and had managed to shut everyone else out except one. How did it happen? How did she creep so deeply into his being? His thoughts? How did she do it?
He wants to grab at his chest, to press his fingers firmly there against his sternum if only to confirm that his body is still his own. At this moment he feels that so much belongs to...belongs to...
"Why won't you leave?"
The words escape his mouth before he can stop them. They tumble out and fall between them, weighty and hard. She stares at him, gives him a tilt of her head that draws his eyes to her hair and has the image of a sun flashing across his mind. Her brows furrow, and he realizes he is holding his breath as he watches her. He releases all the air from his lungs and just barely holds back a shudder. Maia stares at him still, and the look she is giving him makes him want to squirm.
What happened to the hardened criminal, indeed.
"Oh," she is suddenly uncomfortable, embarrassed almost, "I didn't know...I'm sorry. I'll...I'll go."
When she goes to stand, Levi holds his hand out and she instantly stills. He takes unsure steps forward, only two at first. Then a third. He thinks about it again and moves to step backwards but holds his ground, teetering awkwardly for only a moment. His movements are strangely jilted and not at all like the smooth, liquid grace he usually wields.
"No, not here," his voice is low, uncertain and a little bit harsh, "I mean…"
He moves a hand to his head as if to indicate she is there, there!, in his mind, but before she can say anything or move even an inch, his hand moves again. Frustration builds within him, but for whom? He can't say. He doesn't know why, thinks it might have a mind of its own, but his hand is heading lower. Levi wonders if he really is still stuck in his nightmare because he suddenly has no control over his body, or so it seems.
Maybe his body really doesn't belong to him after all. Maybe, somehow, in the days and weeks and months that have passed, his body has begun to belong to someone else. Has begun to belong to…
"I don't know you at all."
But she does. Here. In real life, in this life, she does. And he hates it but doesn't hate it all at the same time. He and Furlan and Isabel are going to leave, for gods' sake! Abandon this doomed squad of self-proclaimed giant slayers who lose more than they win. Leave them all and start over— fresh, clean, new.
But the sun. The sun, the sun, the sun! It's bright in his mind even though the moon is the only light outside now. The moon and the tiny pinpricks of stars and the navy blanket of midnight sky. But the sun is so clear in his head, in his eyes, imprinted there as if he has stared too long. Maybe he has. He feels blinded and choked and wholly devoured by its warmth. Has always been. Ever since he'd first glimpsed it— glimpsed her.
Maia watches him slowly drop to his knees. He is only a foot away from her. His hand trembles slightly as it comes to rest over his heart and his eyes are impossibly wide. There is sheer panic and confusion behind those grey irises, like he can't control his actions. The way he looks at her nearly causes her heart to break and she thinks it might if not for the fact that it is beating so rapidly. Or maybe it will stop altogether.
"Levi?" She breathes his name out on that gentle voice of hers, and he is glad he is already on his knees or else the way she'd said his own name would have surely brought him down to them all on its own.
"Here," his voice is low, gravelly and thick, and as Maia's eyes trail downwards she sees that his hand is still resting across his chest, across his heart. His fingers, long and deft, clench at the fabric of his simple, taupe tunic. His knuckles are turning paler as they grip hard at the shirt there, fist the material and twist it tightly.
"Why won't you leave here?"
He can't even believe the words he is saying, the things he is doing, but he can't stop. How very unlike him. His dream has upended him, completely turned him around. Momentarily, he forgets Furlan and Isabel. Forgets their plans. He is gazing at her with wide, steely-grey eyes like she hung the very orb behind her. Like she hung that glowing sphere that shares a sea of deep blue with dazzling twinkles of light. Perhaps she has that power, his jumbled mind thinks. When she rests from blazing across the pale blue sky, maybe she draws out the moon. Maybe the moon follows in her wake, desperate to catch her, to catch even a glimpse of her. Every night it follows, sitting alone with only the twinkle of the stars and the endless midnight sky as comrades, just hoping to one day catch up to the warmth and beauty of the sun.
Maybe he is the moon.
He almost misses her move. She is facing him fully now, her palms splayed flat on the ground. He watches her warm amber eyes widen, her mouth drop open only slightly. She looks up from under her brows and the way she watches him makes his knees tremble.
"I…" she goes to speak but finds that she is unable to. Did he just say…? Her heart feels as if it is about to beat straight out of her and fall in between them. She imagines it there, pumping wildly at his knees and thinks it is fitting. Her heart hasn't belonged to her for a while now— for a while has belonged to…
"You," she tries again, her words just a whisper on the air, "don't you know?" She asks it quietly, tentatively, and finds that she is shaking.
Levi swallows thickly. No, he doesn't know. What is he supposed to know? His mind is already filled with flashes of warmth and gold, green grasses swaying in the wind and her laughter floating in the air, the braying of horses, the smell of trees and wood and crackling fire. It's all her there, in his mind. He can't possibly know anything else in that moment except for her, and that scares him and invigorates him all the same.
Running for his entire existence. He'd been running from darkness until he became it. Running from demons until he transformed into one. Running from emptiness until he felt himself hollow out. He and Isabel and Furlan had always been planning and running and planning and running. Surviving, not living. And then they'd come here, to this absolute disaster of a place with people who thought they could chase away the monsters above ground, not knowing they'd recruited one right into their ranks.
And then night turned to day.
And then the moon saw the sun.
And then her, her, her.
She reaches for him, slowly, so as not to startle him. He briefly remembers Furlan telling him so long ago how Maia had treated him like one of her horses, back in the early stages of knowing each other, when he'd wanted to scowl at her until she left him alone. He had been so angry with her, wished he could wipe that perfectly soft look right off her face. But even then, even when he'd been so annoyed and pissed off at everything…
He'd been warm.
Her fingers touch his cheek lightly and he feels himself sigh. So gentle, her touch is; it's the ghosting of the pads of her fingers against his skin. The feather-light feeling still manages to make him shiver, and he thinks that if she continues, he won't be able to control himself at all. How easy it would be to close the gap, to press himself flush against her and give in to this feeling, this need, that is wholly new to him.
How easy it would be to claim her and never let her go.
There is less than a foot between them now as she raises herself up to her knees, mirroring him. His head hovers above hers and his eyes watch as she brings her other hand up to match the one already touching him— touching him! His fingers grip his shirt harder. His breathing narrows, shallow in his chest, and he feels like she is the air he needs but the one stealing his breath at the same moment. Her skin against his, delicate and achingly soft, has the hair on the back of his neck alert. Gooseflesh erupts over his arms, his cheeks, down his back. His spine tingles. The free hand at his side twitches with an ache to feel her.
"How do you not know?" Her voice caresses his lips, breath warm against his face, and it's everything in him not to release a growl that has been brewing from deep within.
He could claim her. He could do it right now.
His eyes search, flicker this way and that. Across her high cheekbones, her button nose, her smooth, pink lips. Over her brows, raised just slightly to give her amber eyes a wide sort of innocence that pulls at something deep inside him. He searches for what he is supposed to know. His mind, muddled with everything that is Maia, can't quite decipher what it is he is supposed to understand.
He shakes his head and she watches the knob in his throat bob up and down. A deep swallow that has her clenching her thighs and widening her eyes.
"I have no room for myself," she feels daring, bold and completely at the mercy of her own heart. One hand leaves his face and the immediate loss of warmth makes him want to weep. He is so emotionally charged with foreign feelings that only she could possibly stir up that he truly feels like he might vomit still and collapse at her feet. In a desperate attempt to catch the retreating warmth, he moves his face closer to hers.
Slowly, so as not to scare him away like one of her startled horses, she moves her hand and lays it over her own chest.
"I have no room for myself here," she repeats, "because it all belongs to you."
Levi's throat finally releases that low growl before his body lunges forward. His hands reach for her face, thumbs coming to press against the apples of her cheeks, fingers diving forward to tangle in the hair near her temples. Her hair is soft as silk, just like he knew it would be. Large against her small face, Levi's hands caress her skin in a slow and searing touch. Tingles shoot straight through Maia's body as she feels him center his weight over her. She wonders when her back had touched the ground, when he'd lowered her down and trapped her underneath him. The roof is cool even through her clothing, but Levi's body is warm as it hovers only centimeters above her. Crystals, sweet and slick, burst between her legs.
"Don't," his hot breath against her skin has her nearly whimpering, "Don't say that to me."
Something hot and tight hooks low in his groin. It makes his entire body ache. He could take her now. He could absolutely claim her, this trembling woman beneath him. He could do it and keep this moment with him forever. Take it out of his memory whenever he needed to remind himself what it felt like to be fully enveloped in warmth. He could bury himself inside her and lose who he is for just this one moment, just this one night.
"I..." he begins to say something but finds himself dragging his lips across her cheek. He barely touches her, thinks that if he presses his mouth to her fully he will never come up for air and he'll suffocate in her warmth. A small part of him wants that. She is intoxicating even like this. He can't even imagine what tasting her would do to him.
"I can't...you...here," he mumbles incoherent things as he leaves a whispering trail of his breath along her skin. His face shifts to the side, his mouth underneath her ear. Levi leaves a featherlight imprint of his lips on the sensitive skin there. He moves, torturously slowly, down the pale column of her neck, tilting her head with his hands. Delicate and long, her neck glows in the moonlight and it's everything in him to restrain himself, to hold himself back from mercilessly marking her smooth skin for all to see. When his lips reach the sensitive expanse of skin that joins her shoulder to her neck, he presses his mouth harder against her, right there against her delicate flesh, and Maia lets out a little mewl.
Mine, he thinks. I need her to be mine.
Maia wriggles underneath him slowly, her body pulsing as she fights off the surprise that Levi has just pressed her to the roof of the canteen, has his body flush against hers and is touching her in so many delicious ways. She wishes he would do more, firmly kiss her, touch her harder, anything. She doesn't know much about any of this, but wishes she could learn it all with him, only with him. Anything he wanted, in this moment, she would give to him. Her mind is a mix of fire and shadows and longing and heat.
Levi feels Maia's slender fingers slide up his front, smooth over his shirt, play along the hem of his collar, and finally settle themselves on his neck. Her thumbs dance over his pulse points, and he dares to look down at her face. The sight of her underneath him, hair fanned out in a golden spill of light and cheeks blushed a brilliant pink, has him pressing his hips into hers. She can feel him there, at the junction of her thighs, lean and strong and hard, and she gives another keening whimper that has Levi touching his nose to her own, bringing his face so close to hers that a new wave of heat sears through her core.
"Maia," her name on his lips has her hooking her legs around his waist, pulling him impossibly close to her. Levi braces his elbows on either side of her head, fingers still anchored in her hair. When she instinctively gyrates her hips, thrusts upwards just slightly, so tantalizing, to create just a little bit more friction, he nearly loses his mind. He doesn't even know if she knows she is moving. But the feel of her core pressing against him again and again has his knees shaking against the paved roof.
"It's yours, Lee," she cranes her neck to whisper into his ear, and his eyes dilate and widen, "all of it."
The sound of her voice giving him a nickname, so sweet, so innocent, has him snapping his hips quickly against hers. Just a name for him alone and no one else. It's the first time he's heard it, and it makes him positively tremble with want for her. Maia makes a breathless little moan and shifts her hips to follow his, desperate to keep that delicious contact. His mouth still hangs over hers, slanted and ready to claim her lips, and she thinks that if he does, there would be no going back and she will let him take her here on this moonlit roof.
"What have you done to me?" He wonders as his right hand leaves her hair and leaves a burning trail down her side. He hooks his palm around her thigh and hikes her leg higher up on his waist. The new angle has her pressing herself against him harder. She wonders if any of her slick desire has left a mark on his dark trousers and she finds that the thought inspires more warmth to bloom at her core.
She touches his cheek, cradles his face so gently that he feels he might cry. "Nothing you haven't done to me," she tells him on a long sigh. Her hips keep moving, his body mimics hers, and they meet in slow, languid thrusts and wish there were less layers between them.
"You make me," he can't find the right word at first because he is having a hard time believing any of this is happening at all, but then he finally pinpoints what he wants to tell her.
"Warm," his mouth sweeps across her throat, "you make me warm."
"Hmm," she hums mindlessly, and he feels her skin vibrate underneath his lips as he paints her neck with his breath. The hand not on his cheek threads itself through his hair. He feels her fingers gently tug against his scalp. It's a dizzying pull that threatens to mess with his already jumbled thoughts. He looks up at her and finds that she is so beautiful like this, underneath him and quivering and flushed and lit by the moon, that he is rendered speechless.
"Lee," she says it again, that nickname, and when he hears it he grinds himself against her harder than before and feels his breath leave him in a ragged gasp when she groans out his full name, "Levi."
"If you keep saying my name, Maia," he manages to breathe out around a throaty groan, "I won't be able to stop."
She feels the truth of that statement pressed between her legs. The hard length there, the strain of Levi's trousers, the liquid desire that soaks her own, it all makes a layer underneath her skin simmer and prickle with hot desire. She thinks about letting him—wants to let him—but feels something tug at her brain. Something she had been pondering to herself before he came up to the roof and stole her attention completely like he always does. She doesn't want to say it, doesn't want to ruin this blissful, incredible moment, but knows in her rapidly beating heart that she has to ask. She needs to know.
"And I wouldn't want you to," she grabs at his cheeks with both hands, tenderly caresses his skin with her thumbs and watches as he turns his head to press his mouth into her right palm. It's not a full kiss, not yet, but his soft lips against her skin sends her mind into a dizzying frenzy all the same.
"But I," she holds his face tighter, just in case he wants to pull away when she's done; she doesn't want to be apart from him yet, not when he's closer to her than she had ever dreamed he'd be, "I need to ask you something."
Levi's right hand slides up and down the back of her thigh absently. He adjusts his left arm to align himself more fully against her. His cool, grey eyes stare down into her warm, amber gaze as he feels the heat raging inside him practically begging him to touch her there, there!, just touch her there!
"Anything," he answers before registering what he's said, what that means. He's just lost in her, so lost in all of her, and is still having a difficult time believing any of this is real. Never in his entire life did he think he would be worthy of something as beautiful as her, someone as perfect and lovely and radiant and—
"Would you still leave with Isabel and Furlan even after I gave myself to you?"
Levi releases Maia's thigh immediately, as if he'd been burned. He moves his elbow to mirror his left next to her temple, boxing in her head. She responds to his movement by locking her legs around his waist by her ankles. He knows she wants an answer, won't let him go until she gets one. His forearms are shaking, breaths coming out in low pants from his chest. He can feel her breasts pressing against him as she breathes too, and he tries not to think about them, tries not to think about his hips against hers or the fact that he was moments away (still kind of is) from just saying fuck it and sheathing himself in her searing warmth and then figuring the rest out from there.
"H-how…?"
He's not an idiot. He knows she's incredibly observant and intelligent, and he won't insult her by lying to her or pretending that she doesn't know what she's talking about. He respects her too much for that. She is probably the only person above ground that he respects, and that feeling crept up on him gradually, so slowly that he hadn't even noticed it.
"Furlan left early during training the other day," Maia cards the fingers of her left hand through Levi's hair, soothing him, "and Isabel said something during lessons earlier this week. She said she hopes I'll be okay with Flagon after the expedition, and, well, I thought that sounded odd."
She uses her index and middle finger to press small circles around Levi's right temple, "Why would she say that," Maia whispers sadly, "unless she planned on not being there?"
Levi swallows hard and feels a lump lodge itself in his throat. He slides his hands to her shoulders and gently heaves her up so they are both sitting. Maia's legs remain locked behind Levi's back, her small hands pressed against his cheeks. He wraps one arm around her waist, splays his large palm against her lower back, and pulls her closer to him. His other hand caresses the side of her face, her neck, back up to her face again, sweeping through her hair and gripping it lightly in a bundle within his strong fingers. He presses his forehead to hers and closes his eyes.
She watches him breathe for a few moments. Both of them catch their breaths, feel their heartbeats mellowing out. With a gentle nudge forward, she presses her forehead back against his own. When his eyes open again and stare into her own, all her hard work at regulating her heartbeat goes to waste. She feels it jump in her chest.
"I don't know if that's the plan anymore," he reveals quietly.
She says nothing, but does not stop her calming ministrations against his cheeks, his temples, his jaw.
"I can't tell you more than that," his tone is apologetic but firm, "You shouldn't be involved."
She couldn't be involved. Not with such a seedy character. Not her. Not Maia.
When she speaks, her words are soft, as feather-light as her touch, "So, you aren't leaving?"
"Maybe not," in the most un-Levi-like move, he touches his nose to hers, "maybe I will stay."
Maia can feel her fingers start to shake. They leave little pitter-patter taps against the skin of his face. She dares to ask, "Why?"
Levi chuckles, a low and throaty sound that rumbles his chest. She can feel it in her own, pressed as it is against his.
"I think you know why."
"Lee…" Her eyelids flicker, too many emotions fraying her senses. "But Isabel and Furlan…"
"I'll figure it out," he tells her, shushes her calmly, "After the expedition, I'll figure it out."
Maia leans back just a little to take in his entire face. He is so devastatingly handsome, especially with the moonlight reflecting off his strong jaw and angular side profile. She knows without a doubt that even if he did go, even if he didn't stay, her heart would go with him. That was just the reality of it all now. She sighs as she takes him in.
"We can," she pauses, unsure and a little bit nervous, "we can meet up here, then," she nods a little to herself as if to convince the both of them, "after we come back. After the expedition. You can," she looks down at his chest, "you can tell me your plan then."
He feels her eyes on him again, her palm cupping his cheek.
"I think I deserve to know."
"You deserve a lot," he tells her, means it with everything he is, everything he has. "A lot more than I can give you."
She shakes her head, pulls herself closer, "Well, I don't want any more than that."
Their moment of heated passion over with, a new closeness settles over the pair. It's now expressed between them but it doesn't have to be. There's something physical there, though it may be invisible. Like a string, unbreakable and strong and red, that ties them together.
Maia unfolds herself from around Levi's waist, but immediately presses her left side to his. He settles an arm around her shoulders, tenderly and absently brushing up and down the length of her right arm.
"I don't know you at all."
Her voice from his nightmare echoes in his mind. Once the lusty haze of want and need has lifted, he hears those words again and again. Unconsciously, he grips her to him more tightly.
"After all of this," he says as the two stare out at the moon, shining above them with the stars twinkling like hung glass, "I'll tell you about it."
She knows he means the Underground. Her brows furrow as she looks up at him, "You don't have to—"
"I do," he is still looking out at the moon and the inky blackness of the night, "if you want to know me still, that is."
Maia surprises them both. A small grin spreads her pink lips as she leans up to press a kiss to the underside of his jaw. Levi reels from it, rooted to the spot yet feeling as if he has just dropped from a high height. He whips his head down to look at her and sees her big, amber eyes shining with warmth and an emotion he dare not put a name to lest he go right back to what they were doing moments ago, lest he admit that he feels the same way too, has for a while now.
"Of course I want to know you, Lee."
He smiles, genuine and real, and Maia feels something in her chest burst.
Gods, she thinks again, he is so beautiful.
"Then you will."
They sit there together until the sun peeks over the horizon, splashing the dark blue fabric of the sky with oranges and purples and pinks. Brilliant flaming colors follow, blazing in their radiance, as the arrival of the sun heralds the new day. At the end of the week, they will go beyond the Walls on a scouting expedition. The two remain next to each other as they think about the outing in their own ways, how they will prepare, what it will mean for the both of them, what it will be like afterwards, but both feel a small flicker of hope kindle inside them.
A flicker of hope that will die out before it even becomes a flame at all.
A/N: Thank you all for waiting. I appreciate it so very much. I think we can all agree that 2020 can go kick rocks. I won't make excuses or write too long of a thing here, but I do want to say I haven't stopped thinking of this story the entire time we've been in quarantine and trying to survive the fuckery that was and still is this year. I rewrote this chapter SEVEN times. SEVEN. In one draft, they went all the way, like explicit smut out the wazoo, and then that didn't fit my goals for them at all (I'm not opposed to smut, of course, but it's Maia and Levi, my friends, it's gotta be tasteful and at the right time. This just wasn't the right time.). In another they kissed. In another there was even heavier petting than here. Nothing really clicked. I was finally satisfied with this one and it sets everything up so well for the inevitable shit storm we all know is about to happen. Notice that they didn't even kiss here? Haha, my liiiiiife. This took so long to get how I wanted it.
I hope this chapter lived up to your long-waited expectations. Again, I cannot apologize enough for TheBigSad taking over and rendering me useless except for work (I'm a teacher and yes, it has been hell) and surviving.
The other news is that while I waited for inspiration for this story to hit, my hands have not been idle! Currently in the works are a Kakashi story from Naruto, a Renji Abarai short story from Bleach, a Shinji Hirako story (also from Bleach), and even a Shouta Aizawa story from My Hero Academia. Not sure if any of those are y'all's cups of tea too, but nonetheless, they may appear soon. Of course, Levi and Maia's story is my priority. I love these two stubborn idiots.
Anyway, chapter 15 should be up sometime this weekend (yay!) and we're moving closer and closer to not only Levi's first expedition outside the Walls, but also The Female Titan arc (...yay?). Also, fitting that I get this chapter out in time for Levi's birthday (December 25!). So, there ya go, some soft Levi for you all on this joyous occasion.
Love you, very very much, and i thank you for still being here. Stay tuned! xx