last updated feb 21, 2015. yikes.
Levi sat on the edge of his bed. He was severely dehydrated and the morning sun had yet to rise, but the beauty of getting up for another day was the fact that it was one step closer to being over. Humidity hung in the predawn air like a sweaty plague, gray clouds overwhelming an already gray sky. As he blinked the crust in his eyes away, there was a brief thought in his head. It would not be so crazy, maybe, to have the day off. Such a thought would have been absurd maybe a week ago to such a schedule-oriented young man, but despite the bleary day, there was a pep placed directly in Levi's step. It was a certain transpiration of events that occurred in the forest to cause such a shift in priorities, just maybe, but he wouldn't be so quick to admit that maybe Mikasa had anything to do with it.
Ah yes, so early in the morning and he has already let her name enter his head. There was a sour aftertaste in his dry mouth that was reminiscent of both whiskey and Mikasa. He hardly remembered the final moments of the evening prior, it had all been a drunken blur after a certain point, but he woke up alone in his bed in the castle without an unsettling anxiety for once in a very, very long time. He felt no urgency in his veins as he slid on his pants and went about his routine. Washing his face felt simple for once. He could feel the pores of his exhausted skin, he could really massage the tender muscles of such a rough demeanor. The cleanliness he so faithfully adhered by, it always had its purpose but now it felt like it was meaningful.
The strength of his own vitality ran through Levi's veins because he really felt comfortable existing for the first time. He was alive, for whatever reason. He was put here and he was still fighting. He was no longer alone. Mikasa had little to do with it but suddenly she had everything to do with it. It was fucked up, the story of her life thus far, as it was one of the few things that still radiated in his brain from the night prior. Trauma is a very isolating experience, and he felt the cold grip of loneliness on an infinitesimal scale. He could understand the pain of a child who was thrown into the cesspool of humanity, and in the tears she shed that fell onto his neck, he felt her. She was not ready for the world she was exposed to, and yet she was here. Mikasa took the very same earth she was cursed to live in, and she used it to thrive. She was strong, she was a killer, and she was unashamed of the person she was forced to become. Levi saw the way she valued life, and the confidence in her ability to survive, and he saw himself. Something stronger than himself, because Mikasa Ackerman still put value in others. Her love for the Eren kid and for her family, it was something so entirely foreign to Levi. It was intimidating, and he resented how she even got a taste of family, fortune, and the beauty of ballet fame.
Navigating the feelings he had for the girl, though, was slippery territory. She brought out some of his most intense fears, in that he valued her. He really did, and it was a dangerous game to want somebody to live in a world that will take anything away. He wanted her to live and to grow, to continue their work together because they were two of the strongest so it only made sense. It made sense to find her beautiful, to find her admirable, and to want all of her. Levi wanted all of Mikasa, and wanted to carry the burden of her pain and to feel the guilt of her sins, because in the end he really wanted her to do that for him. It was selfish, his attraction to her at the root of it. When braced with a beautiful girl with the emotional capacity to handle everything Levi had to offer, he wanted her, he wanted to pollute her with the absolute poison he had consumed throughout his life. He wanted her to feel the fears that kept him awake through countless nights, to taste the bitterness of hate that one could feel in a single mortal body. It was a partnership until the bitter end, how he viewed love, and he was also so deathly attracted to her. It was deeper than the conquest of sex, and darker than anything he had ever shared with another human being.
There was a shiver down Levi's spine. He patted his face dry, feeling the tautness of freshly washed skin, holding completely still as he tried fruitlessly to gather his bearings. To continue such thoughts, to even coherently express the things he felt for a girl who asked for none of it, Levi decided to go for coffee. The rest of the castle echoed with the lone steps of an early bird, his shadow nearly ten feet tall on the wall, slowly fading as the morning sun inched higher in the sky. The clouds ceased to give up, it was going to be a day without the sun, but for once, Levi felt the peace of the impending storm. Storms will destroy all in its path, but the beauty is in the fresh start. Levi felt resolve in the fresh morning air, and he felt less nervous about approaching a new day. Making his way down the hall, he passed by Mikasa's room. The door was tightly shut and he could hear her shallow breaths on the other side. She was asleep still, and he wanted to grant her the luxury of rest, since it was not one he could have the pleasure of experiencing often. Levi was inherently restless, as he was doomed to always be. There was a pull in his stomach as he stood outside her door, lips forming a lazy smirk because of a brief realization that he would always be the one awake to watch over her while she slept. He imagined the soft lines of her features, her silky strands of inky hair curtaining her eyes. Eyes usually so heavy with the burden of loss, finally closed and at peace, as if death finally would rescue her from this hellish landscape. He would get lost in the expanse of her rosy cheeks, he could spend sleepless nights memorizing every freckle on her face. It seemed a bit much to think about, and Levi would never verbally admit to wanting any of it, but it was a feeling that was both foreign and comforting to him, because he could always watch over her, even from a distance.
But it was all mental fodder, Levi finally decided by the time he reached the dining hall. His lifestyle was inherently that of a soldier and his only duty was to remain focused on the bigger picture. Yes, it was nice to have another person on this earth with misery comparable to his, but his misery was just a condition of living. A tumor that's neither benign or malicious, it would merely be a weight around his neck forever. It was one of the prices he paid to be the survivor he was, and to get caught up in the carnal mess of the opposite sex, he was doing his title and his lifestyle an injustice. Or at least that is how he recited it to himself as he stood over the stove, bringing water to a boil.
One of the few indulgences Levi liked was coffee, such a foul taste but something so revitalizing about it. A pound of the stuff was expensive and rare, but with the profits of his career of choice, such an exotic luxury meant nothing. From what Levi understood, the beans he was grinding came from a farm from outside the wall. Any life outside the wall seemed absurd, like a death sentence waiting to happen, but it seemed almost enticing. Levi was finely acquainted with the horrors capable going on within the walls, things only humans can take responsibility for. The massive human-like beasts, titans, were the stuff of nightmares, but it was exactly that: they were bumbling and too large and ultimately vulnerable. Their only advantage was sheer size, and with the gear Commander Erwin had readily available, it was child's play to deal with them. Life outside the walls seemed unconfining and isolating, which were two of Levi's criteria for a good life. But, again, Levi didn't want to cloud his mind with topics that lead to nowhere, because his life was here, and this is what he was destined to always do. He watched the boiling water on the stove, tinting a deep brown as the grounds of the beans frothed along the surface. This was going to be one good cup of coffee
All he needed was a cup to strain the brew into, and those were the cabinet along the northernmost wall. So he turned on his heel, reached up to the fourth shelf on the left side, fingers just out of reach of a white porcelain—
And then it was silent. Within a fraction of a second, the blast was so loud, he was reduced to a strident ring in his hears, so high pitched. Levi's eyes rolled to the back of his head, his vision getting blurred with specks of bright light as he could feel the jelly veins of his optic nerves bounce against his brain. There was dust everywhere, his lungs enflamed from taking so much in, spit pooling his entire mouth because he couldn't breathe. The morning sun was still infantile in the sky, but it didn't matter because he was reduced to his back, debris piling all around him. There was no sun for him to see, and there was no logic for him to deduce to, because what the fuck just happened, he wondered. By the time Levi blinked his eyes back in focus, that's when the bells began blaring. The bells atop the walls, many miles in the distance in all directions, were ringing with haste. Deep in pitch, the bells rang in a disjoined succession, never ending, echoing through the sky, ominous with a message of terrible news. And if Levi listened even harder, peering through the gaping three-foot hole in the wall that just appeared, as the dust settled, he could hear…screams. The screams of crowds, of people collectively, of families rushing through the city streets. The castle was farther back from any main road, so to hear a faint hum of panic in the distance, like insects whose colony was just destroyed, Levi tensed because they were insects and their colony really was just destroyed.
To confirm such a thing, Levi finally restored himself back to his feet, reeling from the sudden impact he just absorbed, and he peered through the crumbled wall, squinting to see the wall on the horizon. The Great Wall Maria sat in the distance, as it always was, the shadowy silhouette wrapping the border of everything Levi could see with his naked eye. He scanned as far as his eyes would allow, and yes, he could faintly see the bells that sat atop the wall, he could see them swaying back and forth. The bells were indeed signing their song, a song only heard in times of emergency. And then he saw the smoke, rising from a single point at the base of the wall. Somewhere far away, the wall had taken damage, right along the ground. There had been enough damage to send debris flying all this way into his impenetrable kitchen.
"Fuck," Levi hissed, knowing he had to begin the ascent to Erwin's tower in order to explain the source of the gaping hole in the recently renovated castle kitchen. So that's what he did, with a reaffirmed sense of purpose in each step he took. As he winded through the stone halls, up the southeastern stairwell, he noticed how everyone was awake now, bodies suddenly filling the halls and stairs, traffic flowing in every direction. Taking steps three at a time, traveling four flights upward, Levi could feel the burn of his thighs already, his heart elevating to an intense pace. He was already bruised, he could feel it.
The door of Commander Erwin's office was wide open, someone either coming in our going out at any point. Before stepping into the cobblestone cube of a room, Levi straightened his back. The news awaiting him on the other side of the archway would not be pleasant, and the orders he knew he was about to receive, they would not lead to anywhere safe. In this split second of resolute silence, Levi would come to grips with his presence on this earth. "Erwin," His voice was firm, and Levi stepped into the office.
"Levi," The man was standing over his desk, smoking a cigarette. A pen in his free hand, he was writing with sloppy speed on a notepad. "On time as always."
Before any questions could be asked, Levi saw through the window. He saw the heads of mountainous creatures mingling throughout the rooftops of the nearest city. The vantage point provided by the tallest tower in a castle on a hill, it allowed for Levi to really see the titans for what they were. An entire pack of them—twenty, maybe thirty of them—were littering the distance, all in a direct path coming from the smoking hole in the wall. It was a sight to see, really, because Levi was seeing the stuff of legends. A breach hadn't happened in hundreds of years, and to see entire buildings in crumbled ruins at the feet of such beasts, it was nauseating. Erwin was probably mid-sentence with orders, but Levi's trance was so strong. He could smell the blood of those eaten alive. The sharp metallic scent hang in the humidity, and there was the taste of something foul in his mouth. So much wailing in the distance, like a collective cry from humanity. The nuances in blood-curdling pitches, it made the hairs on Levi's neck stand. There were titans eating the flesh of his fellow mankind right outside his window.
"—and we need your squad out on the front lines," Erwin was saying, barely looking up from the scribbles he was producing on the paper. "This is the most opportune moment to use the chaos to harness the manpower we need."
Ah, yes, the Jaeger boy. Commander Erwin was a military man, and his own soldiers fighting for humanity was his mere civic duty, but it took his conniving genius to use this time as a frontal assault on capturing such an important human resource. Levi watched the thick brows of the older man before him, furrowing hard with deep concentration. His strong jaw was tensed, eyes somewhere in the distance. "Do you feel the ballerina is up for this mission? Her loyalty regarding Eren Jaeger, it unsettles me."
The thought unsettled Levi as well. It would be a difficult conversation to have with Mikasa, that was certain to Levi, but he was also not one to hold such conversations to begin with. These were orders. It did make his stomach twist in knots, though, thinking of Mikasa surrounded by titans and braced with the choice of either Eren or Levi. It was a situation that left fate out of his favor, and to think of the treachery he was bound to face—it was a problem. "It won't be a problem."
"Good to hear," Erwin finally looked up from his desk, shuffling steps as he took a drag of his cigarette. Bright blue eyes locked with Levi's inky sunken ones, and such pearly white teeth formed a less-than-regretful smile. "Since I sent her out on the frontlines already."
That was absurd to hear. Levi was stiff with something akin to panic. "By herself?"
"Yes, by herself. You like her on your team, I can tell," Erwin's harsh tone was somewhere halfway between bitter and disciplinary. "But liking something too much can be detrimental to said team."
The boiling heat of anxious rage festered within him, and as irrelevant to the situation as his emotions needed to be, they were oozing out of his pores. A mere child sent into a death sentence of a mission, to prove some arbitrary point on dominance to Levi. It made him rock with some form of hatred, but there was a gnawing obsession with catching up to Mikasa, to find her and complete this mission and find enough safety to make it through the night. "I will send a report before sundown," Levi said as he turned to make his exit.
"Levi," Commander Erwin ashed his cigarette and Levi watched the smoke float in ribbons through the air. The smell of tobacco was pungent in the air, and what a filthy habit smoking was. With no more than the raise of an eyebrow, Erwin positioned a fresh cigarette in his smirking lips. "At least I'm not making the girl fight titans with her bare hands. I'm not that cruel."
There were many things that Levi could list off, almost hundreds of accounts in his life where he saw unpleasant things. All sorts of blood and guts and trauma, it was not something to be envious about, and there was little at this point that could ever make the hardened man wince. But as Levi's heavy footsteps trudged through the alleyways of a city crumbling around him, there was a new contender to be the worst thing he'd ever seen.
So many bodies, and so much silence.
Limp sacks of flesh were hanging over fragmented pieces of concrete due to the destructive wake of 10-meter titans strolling through. So many spines were bending at fatal angles, all rainwater pooling on the ground were tinted a bloody red. Levi kicked a severed finger with the toe of his boot, scuffing it out of his path as if it were a pebble. Wind whistled through the alleyways, nothing could be heard except for the faint breathing of those still lucky enough to be living. Corpses of older men and women—someone's grandmother or grandfather—were slumped to the sides of the roads, and Levi knew why they were there. With impending rain overhead, he stopped in his tracks, looking over the limp old man, lying with blood leaking from his mouth and a distant stare in the lifeless eyes. This man couldn't keep up, to put it simply. In a time of dire circumstances, this old man, whose name Levi would never learn, was abandoned by those who can run faster.
There was a chill to being the lone person in an entire city. Silence was a source of comfort, but in this setting, it was a looming threat. An anticipation of the very worst kept Levi's stomach in a gentle knot, like a quiet anxiety weaving through his ribs. The vibrations of heavy footsteps, titan steps, could be felt through his shoes, and that was not a good sign because that meant that something was close by. Levi was brought back to reality. The weight of his maneuver gear around his hips, it was like lugging around a small child. He was not moving quickly enough. "To the rooftops, I suppose," He said to himself, trying to fill the void of silence, aiming the valve on his hip toward a point at the apex of a building. With a button on the sword in his hand, he fired a steel rope outward, hissing with speed, soaring many meters up before sinking into the concrete with a dull thud.
Levi's stomach was taut, sucked in and tensed, as he braced for the incoming yank. It was a feeling he lived for, the illusion of flight, as his weight was nullified when he soared to the top of the building. There was a tingle throughout his body as his mind tried to make sense of the sensation of falling, as gravity tried to rip him back down to the earth, he was moving so fast, but he tucked in his knees and barreled into a forward flip as he made his fall onto the roof. Mid-flight, he had to remember to disengage the hook that was sunken into the very same building he was about to crash into, so he did, and as if there was nothing to it, he landed with as little as a grunt, a human returned to his flat feet. With the vantage the rooftop gave him, the path he was to take was clearer to see.
"Straight ahead, along the roofs," He pointed the blade of his sword in the direction of north, where the cluttered rooftops of the city dispersed into a more residential formation. Levi smirked at his own unnecessary talking, he knew his nerves were radiating down to his bones. It was not a difficult decision to separate from his squad, but as he stood alone on the top of an empty city, he was lonely. Levi needed to find her, the one and only companion suited for him. Disobedient, yes, to send the capable members of his squad to carry out Erwin's Eren-focused orders instead, but there was a task at hand that he decide was much greater than himself. It was unlike anything he'd ever decided for himself, to go against something so definitely clear-cut. Levi was wading into territory that felt…emotional. This was a gut feeling he was carrying, and it was heavier than the gear around his waist. Many times he had to dispose of his own instincts for the sake of a team, for Erwin's team, and many times he had to swallow his own judgement because that was what he was doomed to do for Erwin forever. To nod to orders and execute them with unprecedented skill, that was what Levi did, and this was what he believed would always be.
But this was different.
Mikasa Ackerman was out there somewhere, alive and dedicated. Dedicated to her own sense of purpose, with her own motives and goals and hopes and dreams. He was not sure what they were, but she was capable of loving something and capable of wanting something enough to live to see the next day. It was the love for Eren Jaeger, or the love for her own sport of ballet, or something else that he had no right to assume, but regardless, there was something that prevented Mikasa Ackerman from being a shell of a survivor, and Levi wanted to know what it was. There was a glimmer of hope in that girl, and he wanted it. He wanted to take it from her, he wanted to rob her of whatever filled her heart with the notion that there was anything on this earth worth dying for. Because, really, at this point he was ready to die for her. It was different, and it was worth facing his own fears.
The fearless man, he wasn't so fearless, because as he soared through the cloudy skies, hopping from rooftop to rooftop with an apathetic energy, he knew he was inching closer to answers he might not be ready for. Levi was putting all his proverbial eggs in one Mikasa basket, and he knew that there was nothing akin to love with the way he'd been treating her. Erwin was right because Levi was heartless, and he put her in those drastic situations because she was just a pawn for him to use. Of course he had to use her, as it was his duty to complete the missions he was given, and it was a guilty chain that rusted around his blackened heart. He was infected with a tightness in his chest because there were so many existential questions plaguing him. It wasn't necessarily the fear of rejection he was facing, but the fear that she would single-handedly confirm his heartlessness. And he would be alone once more, except with a more permanent resignation, destined to retreat to his duty as squad captain, living a life that will never be for himself, aspiring to nothing bigger than a perfect killing record, aspiring to nothing more than to survive enough to see tomorrow.
The air was so humid, clinging to exposed skin like an unshakeable sweat, but Levi had never felt colder.
Finally, he reached the forest outside the city, taking a minute to perch on the branch of a tree and scout his surroundings. To call it a forest was a bit exaggerative, as it was mostly a cleared neighborhood with a dozen trees separating each lot, but it was as quiet as one. Levi knew that the Jaeger household would be the two-story home at the very end of the road, but he also wasn't stupid. Titans were still within the walls, and with the predatory instinct he knew like a fitting lover, he knew to wait. All homes seemed abandoned, with not a single light coming from a single window. A lone dog was running with no destination, but with an unwavering urgency, looking as small as a bug from the height he was at. He would come around the bend in the road, one tree at a time, and he would scout the perimeter of the Jaeger home before breaking his way inside. The wrinkled bark of the trees were too wet from the rain to properly penetrate with his maneuver gear, as he learned the hard way with a misstep and a fall through the wetness of the leaves. The slimy mud on the ground helped with the impact of his fall, but he was filthy which further set him on edge. So this left him to proceed on foot.
It was not even a half-mile walk, in agonizing silence as the wind whipped against his soaked clothes. Levi kept his eyes forward, ears perked to attention, waiting for something to emerge from any of the crevices around him. Fog was hindering his ability to see into the nooks and crannies of the trees, and the rain was starting to fall harder. Birds were nowhere to be heard, the little implications of natural life were abandoned as he continued to trek through the soggy path. Footprints speckled the ground, pointing in the opposite direction of where Levi intended to go, as if these families were herded to get as far away from the house on the end of the road as possible. The completely shattered remains of a once gorgeous Jaeger household was where this path led him.
This would not seem so uncommon, considering the damage titans were capable of producing, except every other house—every single one of them—was untouched, pristine in their condition. No bodies, no blood. The soil of this neighborhood was soaked with rain, as nature intended, and not with the fluids of humanity. So Levi was especially careful, approaching the front gate of the home with bated breath, analyzing the destruction of this home to try and deduce to the cause. The middle portion of the wooden home was crumbled all the way down to the first story, with a bath basin hanging precariously over the edge of the second floor, threatening to slip off any moment to crush the fire mantle below it. This was the same mantle that nearly roasted Levi's head, the same home that he had the pleasure of meeting Mikasa Ackerman in, and he recalled the sight of having her hover his near-enflamed body with such disregard. Her wide eyes were held in such a narrow gaze, he remembered, and he especially remembered her stare if unforgiving hollowness that curdled his nearly dead blood, and he knew he'd met his match. These weren't necessarily fond memories to reflect on, but they were poignant and they were all Levi had, and it was hard to realize how long ago all of this really was.
Charred wood dirtied his hands as he began the work to uncover the debris, in hopes of finding a sign of, well, anything. He wanted a clue as to where to look next because there was not a single person to be found, let alone Mikasa. The soot of a burnt home stained his icy white hands, blackness getting under the fingernails of a man digging with such disheartened intensity. He was grasping at straws, he knew this for a fact, because he was merely wasting his time with this useless hunt. She was not going to be found, he knew she was a smart girl. A titan breach allowed for the perfect distraction while she slipped into obscurity, and to get as far away from Erwin's clutches as she could, because it takes conniving genius to do what she did. It suddenly made sense, and Levi saw her motives as clear as day. Not once did she ever express desire to stay with Levi's squad on her own accord, that much was obvious, and there was no need for a goodbye or any of that sentimental bullshit. She was a survivor and she was using this disaster to her advantage to get anywhere but here.
Mikasa was gone and Levi suddenly felt the futility of the search with each beat of his racing heart. Even in those very rare times of defeat, Levi always knew to keep going because a mission would never complete itself. There was always someone he needed to report to, always an order to say he completed to his full capacity. In his life, quitting was never an option. To admit defeat and retreat, it was a humiliating sensation that he'd never give Erwin or any living mortal the satisfaction of seeing. Yet Levi was in the ruins of an old home, with plenty of strength and enough light of day to continue the search safely and effectively, but he didn't want to. It would be a cold, cold day in hell when Levi would let another human hold such control over his life. He was not put on this earth to find Mikasa, he was here to survive, and to disgrace himself with such a time-wasting mission, it was not easy to stomach.
It was time to reunite with his squad, because that was the original task at hand, and he swore on his insignificant life that he would bring Eren Jaeger back to Commander Erwin, and he'd make the punk kid suffer all way down to his toes because it was finally time to see Mikasa's seams rip.
With such a strengthened resolve based in his own hateful heart, Levi turned his back on the house where it began, ready to make up the distance back to the down. That is, until he heard it. Those were the heavy breaths of someone sprinting, the muddy ground sloshing under frantic footsteps. It took a fraction of a second to unsheathe the swords from the gear around his waist, and even quicker to prepare himself with whatever threat was running straight for him. And, as if there were some universal meaning to his exact timing and location on this pathetic walled-in excuse of an earth, it was Mikasa he recognized in the distance.
"Hey!" He called, unsure of which direction to take this. Levi just wanted her to not recognize him as an immediate threat because, honestly, Levi himself had yet to decide if he'd be a threat to her or not. "At least you're alive," He said more to himself, sighing at the sight of a girl whose body seemed unharmed.
There was no response on her part, though, as she just continued to let those long legs carry her. The distance between them was rapidly closing, there was no way she didn't recognize him at this point. Mikasa came up the path that would take her to the backside of the house, eyes not even registering Levi standing in the yard beside her. In the instant she blurred past him, he saw a flushed red face that was stained with tears and blood and a quivering hysteria that was severely out of character for the girl he grew to know.
"Mikasa!" Levi holstered his swords once again, picking up a brisk pace to keep up with her. "What's going—"
Mid-sentence, he realized there would be no conversation possible in this moment, so Levi decided to follow her lead. The maneouver gear clanked hard against his thighs, hitting him with a dull thud in every stride he took. Levi then noticed how she had no gear of her own, and how particularly odd it would be for her to be sent out on the front lines with nothing to defend herself. He was unsure of what destination she had in mind, or worse, he never really thought she was running from something. In a time of fight or flight, Levi knew she wasn't one to flight for the very same reasons he wouldn't. Running was for the weak.
So why were they running?
The woods became dense as they absconded farther from the neighborhood, leaves squishing under their boots, twigs snapping with piercing echoes against the trees. He knew he could outrun her if it came to that, so he used a reserved burst of adrenaline to get within reaching distance of her arm. Mikasa's elbows were bent, perfect form for the hobbyist runner, but this wasn't a pleasant midday jog. There was an unsettled desperation in the way she was running, so he reached his fingers out to snag the fabric of her cloak, tugging her to a forceful stop.
"Stop it!" Mikasa finally acknowledged the fact he was there, violently ripping herself from his grip. She was sweating profusely, silky black bangs matted to her forehead. Her eyes were piercing through Levi with such hate. "Get the fuck away from me!"
Before she could take off again, Levi extended his leg to clip her shin, sending her toppling gracelessly into the filth of the wet dirt. It was somewhat shocking that Mikasa was reduced to her stomach so easily. She was so unfocused, bitter emotion beaming from her pores. He honestly couldn't tell if she was panting from the exercise, or if these choking gasps were actually sobs. "What do you want from me, Levi!?" She was screaming, letting everything within her flow out. "I need to go!"
"Go where?" He asked simply over her quaking body.
"Eren—" She managed to muster between gasps, rolling onto her back before sitting up. She had yet to stand. "I need to find—"
Mentioning the boy's name didn't come as a surprise to Levi, of course it had to do with him, everything always did, but he was more concerned as to what was making Mikasa so hysterical. He hadn't seen such uncontrolled outburst from her since that night at the gala, when she was nearly violated by those men. Levi felt ice cold because it finally made sense to him, and he finally understood the unresolved trauma of her past that she was currently wearing on her sleeves. This was something hitting her so deeply in the heart, whatever it was.
"I can help if you just fucking calm down," Levi crouched beside her, watching the way her eyes never left an arbitrary point in the distance. She was quivering as if they were in a blizzard, her teeth clattering in an erratic rhythm. Like a viral hivemind, he felt those very same shakes in his own bones, and he could do nothing but watch this girl ride out her wave of hysterics. She was such a pasty pale color, the bags under her eyes were heavy with a deep purple. He'd always wanted to knock her off her pedestal, to establish dominance and prove to himself that someone else was so capable of suffering, but now that she was knocked off into the mud, off her proverbial pedestal and choking out incoherent sobs, he no longer wanted it. "What is it, Mikasa?" He actually managed to utter out a gentler tone, something that she could absorb through her cries because he was prepared to jump off his own pedestal to meet her at her level. It was an unprecedented feeling.
In the distance, something managed to knock a tree down, leaving a loud snap of a thick log to echo through the air. Branches were snapping in random frequency, but what Levi noticed were all the birds in the surrounding area taking flight to somewhere safer. Mikasa noticed these things as well, suddenly jumping to her feet. She didn't take off running but Levi was slightly startled by her sudden alertness. "Eren!?"
There was a screeching yell that shook the earth, Levi's eardrums strained to absorb such a violently loud sound. Like something of an animal, it had to be a titan. "Mikasa, you don't have any gear so we need to get out of here," He rearmed himself with his swords. "Now."
"Eren!" Mikasa sounded almost elated with relief, which confused Levi because there was no sight of the boy anywhere close. Worse than that, Levi could see the outline of a very massive being in the distance, one of the more muscular titans was ripping the forest to shreds, letting out those unbearable howls. His insides were recoiling from such intense sound waves, every hair on his body standing on edge in one shiver. This titan, nearly at fifteen fucking meters tall, was proportionate and muscular to that of a human.
"Eren!" She screamed again, taking off toward this titan with full speed. He could do nothing for a brief second but to watch such a suicidal display of mere stupidity, as he could not begin to fathom why she would think that was a good plan. Eren Jaeger, although a tall kid, was nowhere to be found in their immediate surroundings, so Levi was so utterly confused as to who she could be yelling for. But the brief second ended and he was overwhelmed with an instinct to follow suit, to save her from herself and whatever logic was distorting her judgement. It was really unlike any tactical decision such a smart girl could make, and Levi was generating more questions in his head than he could answer. There was a good twenty meters separating them from this abnormal titan, for one, so Levi knew that distance was still on their side. However, with Mikasa so adamant on closing said distance, nothing good was about to come to this situation. He held his breath, unsure of whether to yell after her and further risk startling the beast.
The titan, scouring the forest floor with a scrutinizing focus, continued its roaring. It was displaying signs of intelligence, to Levi's sunken-stomach dismay, as if it were searching for something small. Mikasa noticed none of these things, stopping midway to the titan, and waved her arms as high as she could muster. "Eren, right here!"
The blood coursing through Levi's hot veins suddenly froze, chilling him to the very core. Was she trying to attract this monster?
"Eren, I'm right here!" She managed to signal the titan's full attention, craning her neck higher to his massively approaching body. "Down here!"
She was, Levi soon realized. Piecing the slightest glimpses of passing knowledge together, he realized that just maybe this fucking titan—these tall-tale monsters with no purpose but to trap humanity within these walls—this titan with the chocolate mop of brown hair, with perpetually enraged yellow eyes and an uncharacteristically muscular body, was somehow the Jaeger boy. The earth shook as violently as an earthquake, trees breaking under the stress of the vibrations, as the titan—as Eren—found its prey, and Mikasa fell to her knees, succumbing fully to her role as the prey.
Electricity ignited his comatose body, a guttural blood-thirsty instinct reawakening his body to his spot on this earth. His severely chapped lips tightened into a hard line because it was time to act. Mikasa, in whatever disillusioned panic she was in, decided not to act, therefore it was time to Levi to do it for them. As he sprinted to close the few yards between them, the branches on the floor smashed into every step he took, the arches of his feet swollen from every pounding stride he took. The titan continued its hunt, moving slower than his body was capable, but there was no time to spare as Levi reached Mikasa, crouching down behind her. The trees were not a good option for escape, as the bark of these precarious trees were thoroughly saturated with the heavy downpour of rain, coupled with the titan's weight uprooting the trees in a domino effect, but although it was not a good option, Levi knew it was the only option.
With frantic aim as the titan's beastly height began to tower above them, Levi shot the steel cable of his maneouver gear, sending it with a whistle into the massive tree beside them. It pierced snugly enough as he felt the tautness on his hips, the cable stretching almost infinitely in the fog, and it would only take the pull of a trigger to send them to the air. He spared no rough treatment, forcing his forearms around Mikasa's torso, his entire frontside getting soaked from the rain dripping down her back. His chin nestled into the cold goosebumps of her neck, it seemed as if the hot skin of his cheeks would brand her shivering flesh. Levi knew he was squeezing her so tightly it would leave bruises, but he could not afford to lose his grip on her once they'd soar up to the treetops.
In the moment that his gut fell into the pits of his loins as the gear pulled at his waist, coiling them upwards of ten meters with such a sudden velocity, the claw-like hand of the titan swung for their position on the ground, narrowly missing them through its fingertips. This left the titan with an unbalanced forward momentum, sending it toppling into the ground. Trees crushed underneath the huge body, echoes of the snapping ringing through the air. Levi held Mikasa so tightly, biceps burning as he felt only the top half of her weight, her legs heavy with the pull from gravity, as it so desperately tried to return her to the earth. He noticed her quivering silence and the resignation in her dead weight, offering none of her own strength to hold onto Levi, however, she was not resisting either. He'd accept her lack of fight, as the slightest slip would send her the full ten meters down.
"Grab my left arm!" He spoke loudly and clearly with authority, no room for argument. And, for special measure, in case the universe decided this would be their demise, or at least hers because obviously her sense of self-preservation was null, he pressed his chapped lips to her searing-hot ear, voice a notch above a harsh whisper. "I won't live with myself if you slip from my arms, so please—" Holding her dead weight took such intense cardio, he gasped in more air. In his line of sight as he carried them through the high heavens of the wet treetops with a sentient beast tearing away the roots of the forest in their wake, he could see premonitions of her stubborn, stupid limp body falling away to certain death. Such a pretty face hitting the forest floor with a fatal impact. One more gasp of air, through his strained mouth. "—Please grab onto me."
As if like magic, or maybe she felt the desperation in his bones, or likely she felt the cold grips of death snaking around her mortal body, but Levi could almost instantly feel the moment Mikasa's abdomen muscles tighten, the core of her inner equilibrium finally pulling its weight as the heaviness of her limp legs were alleviated. Harsh, wet wind whipped in his face, the insignificant specks of rain in the air suddenly hitting his cheeks like sharp debris, yet his narrowed eyes remained focused on the path before them. Like a hungry animal out for blood, the Eren-titan beast was unrelenting in its hunt for the two absconding figures. Mikasa was at peak physical aptitude, and fucking finally her arms wrapped around his neck, he felt the long expanses of her hard biceps press into his collar-bones.
With the girl finally in touch with the urgency of their present situation, Levi was finally allowed the ability to accelerate the pace of his tree-swinging with the steel cables. Almost like a child playing in a tree, swinging from branch to branch, but on a much more detrimental scale, he used his gear to flow with the rise, and then the fall, and then the rise, and then the fall. Releasing his left-handed grappling hook and retracting that steel cable, swinging with the right-handed grappling hook sunken into the next tree five meters ahead, rinse and repeat. The flight of his life executed with textbook perfection. Mikasa with her arms locked around his neck and shoulders, legs tangled around his waist. She held him so tightly because she was smart enough to realize that she could not afford to let go of him. She held him so tightly, and he held the cables that held them.
What a glorified hug he considered this.
"Eat," He said firmly to the stone-still figure leaning against the wooden wall of the petty shelter they found. They were in a semi-destroyed market, the front windows had been completely shattered, shelves knocked over like dominoes and bare from what Levi could only assume was ransacking in the wake of a crisis, but there had been an office space in the very back of the store with no windows and a lockable door, so suffice to say it was certainly they best they could do for the time being. After escaping the forest, Levi continued their run onto the rooftops of the town he first passed through. However, the peculiar thing was that the Eren-titan beast seemed to lose track of the two of them—or more realistically, it lost its interest once the chase left the forest. It was beyond anything Levi was presently capable of rationalizing, but he'd consider this a small victory in the fight for survival, hence the decision to play it safe and take their shelter for the night.
In this back office with two chairs, a desk, cabinets full of useless business-related files, and someone's—someone who could safely be presumed as dead from the titan breach—someone's leftover packed lunch as their only resources available to them, Levi extended out his arm with a bruised apple and slice of bread, which was such a sad excuse of a meal, and a sadder excuse of a peace offering. When her eyes made no movement upward, let alone her motionless body, Levi heaved a breath and took the liberty of biting into the apple for himself. "Unfortunately, you don't get to have the luxury of an appetite right now. You don't eat because you crave, you eat because you want the strength to get out of this alive."
Chin atop her kneecaps with a look of absent disdain, Mikasa stared into the embers of their dying campfire. It was as if Levi was conversing with a void, teaching a black hole the basics of sustenance and survival, but of course it was just classic Mikasa at this point—ignoring him and wallowing in her own head. He was trying to look out for because obviously he decided he cared about her, it was as simple as that, however it wouldn't be Mikasa without feeling like he was pulling teeth. It was fucking frustrating, to say the least. Regardless, she contoured to stare into the campfire as if it were whispering unpleasant secrets to her. To call it a campfire was generous, since it was mostly a halfhearted roast of scrap wood salvaged from the very furnishings of the building they took shelter in, but night had snaked its way over the earth, titans were still in abundance, and the distance back to the castle was much too far. This was also assuming Mikasa would be receptive to returning back to Erwin's prison, and that was a conversation Levi was not eager to have.
However, they did have to have that conversation at some point and he supposed there was no time like the present. "You're cut pretty bad," He stated obviously, narrowing his eyes at the almost three-inch gash running from her ear lobe, along the highpoint of her right cheekbone, under the curve of her swollen eye, almost reaching the bridge of her nose. The blood had crusted over, the skin surrounding the injury was so inflamed, so he could only guess how deep the cut ran. It would leave one hell of a scar, assuming she'd get herself to survive long enough to see it heal. He'd think it make her natural beauty that much more palpable, but his opinion really didn't matter. He knew his opinion didn't matter because Mikasa was still not fucking responding to him. "I suggest we get that wound sanitized."
No response, no shock there, so he tried a new approach. He unfolded his arms from across his chest, picking his weight up from off the wall he was leaning against, and closed the three-step gap between them. Crouched to her eyeline, extended a gentle touch to the afflicted area of her beautiful face, fingers slow and steady. He was barely able to sweep a chunk of inky black hair from her face before she, with her trademarked lethal quickness, grabbed him by the wrist, freezing him in his place. Levi didn't even get the chance to touch that supple, injured skin of hers.
"Do not," She looked up at him. He was surprised she still had eyes at this point because clearly she was doing nothing with them besides a staring contest with the fire. "Do not touch me."
It was a step forward and four fucking steps back with this girl. He was anything but gentle when he yanked his hand back to his side. Levi remained crouched at her level, peering into her eyes as she peered right on back, and he looked through her pupils, down her optical track and into her fucking black hole of a soul. Eyes so dark, so gaunt. He was livid. "What is it this time, Mikasa?"
She let go of her knees, rolling her weight back onto her feet. With the momentum of shifting off her ass, she shoved him hard by the shoulders. It was a very enraged shove, he could tell that much, but she was sloppy and unfocused with her rage, so it wasn't like Levi was sent flying. When her attack was as ineffective as a strong gust of wind, she tried again—harder. The palms of her hands drove right into the highpoints of his collarbones. "Fuck you, Levi!" This time, that shove kind of hurt. Levi returned the action of grabbing her wrists, but she thrashed with halfhearted intensity. "Levi, how fucking could you!"
He was unsure if this was a legitimate question or if she wanted to curse at him for cursing's sake. Regardless, it had been too long of a day, and his patience for this insolent bitch was wearing mighty thin. He was unrelenting in holding her arms to prevent another shove, but the girl kept trying to shake herself free. "Mikasa!" He squeezed his wrists harder the second he noticed the tears streaming down her face, silent but deadly. "Mikasa! Please," He lowered his voice. "Please calm down! You just need to get some fucking sleep. Sleep first and then we'll—"
"Why would you do all of this!?" Her voice ricocheted in the tiny room they were in, the venom in her voice bouncing around not only in audible echoes but through the hollows of Levi's chest. Rage was fueling her strength and she was reaching right for his neck. "How could you, Levi!? I was so close to—"
"Close to what, Mikasa?" Levi all but hissed, arms quaking with the strength to prevent her skinny fingers from successfully grabbing his throat. "Why are you trying to kill me now?"
"I was—" She was openly sobbing, the intimate sort of sobbing reserved for when there's nothing left. The ugly kind where snot was trailing from her nose and her pretty face scrunched up in such a hideous way. It was an honest sobbing, one Levi would never imagine the cold, deadly Mikasa could produce. "I was—" Another choke and gasp. "I was so close to getting Eren back! And—" She was screeching sobs in between labored gasps. "And you fucking took it away from me!"
With one final adrenaline-surged shove, he threw her against the wall to her backside. The impact was a dull thud, it kind of knocked the wind out of her already hard-working lungs but it was enough to defeat her for now. "Think about yourself for once!" He reclosed that gap between them and with such unrestrained frustration, grabbed her by her shoulders and just shook. Like a ragdoll, he was brutal with his shakes, her neck bobbing like it would snap like a twig. Levi was never one to get emotional, never one to scream, yet here he was, voice raw from such a rough tone. "You were asking to be killed! And I thought I was doing you a fucking favor! I got you out of there and got you here and this is all you have to say to me!?"
"Don't act like my savior!" She was beyond sobbing, her dingy black eyes narrowed and hardened, voice suddenly as chilled as ice. "I never, never, asked for whatever it is you think you've been doing for me. You're sick. I never wanted anything but Eren's safety. So fuck you and your fake savior complex."
Levi couldn't keep shaking her. Rage overtakes, yet it only gets to a point. Then it leaves a person haggard and exhausted and out of anymore willpower. He had no more willpower with this fucking girl. He released her like a washing of his hands, returning himself back to his cross-armed position, but this time against the only door instead of the wall. "You signed up for this. I never wanted you either. I was never tasked with retrieving you. You've been nothing but a distraction to a greater goal. It was Eren I was supposed to take all those weeks ago, but it was you and your pretty little face that inserted itself into this picture. So fuck you and your thinking you're worth more than what you are."
She was so noxiously quiet and Levi was hit with an instant stomach-sickening feeling of regret. He was afraid that there was nothing left, because there comes a point where too many harsh words are said, and it was only human nature to have a limit. His words were more-or-less honest and unforgiving, and he regretted them, but he could not bring himself to apologize. Instead, he looked over her slumped body, the way her eyes stared at that fire and nothing else. Back to square-fucking-one.
He didn't know what to say. "Mikasa—"
Somehow, she did. "I need him."
In that statement, Levi was seeing red. It was an entirely new shade of red, one he was unsure how to navigate. It was not a white-hot jealousy, which was a more pure, more simple form of rage. No, this rage was messy and vulnerable and, for once in all his years of living, a selfless rage. How could she not see her own fucking worth? Sure the Jaeger boy rescued her all those years ago, it was a tragic dependence born out of a tragic situation, but for her to go jelly at the knees over a kid who had yet to come to her rescue? She made the selfless choice to work for Commander Erwin in his place. She was the one with a fruitful career with a prestigious ballet, with a second chance at a happy life, and Levi witnessed her give that up. She gave it up for a kid who had yet to come back for her. He saved her once, sure, but to love someone—to truly love them—it was a sacrifice to decide to save them time and time again.
Levi would always be there to save this annoying fucking girl, no matter how unresponsive to his help she'd ever be. Whether she'd see this or not, he had somehow formed an instinctual, auto-pilot response to her turmoil. He'd drag her up from the pits of hell by the hair on her scalp if it came to it. Because, at this point, he supposed he loved her. He could feel it in his aching, empty soul. He'd always be there to save her. She needed Eren, but he needed her.
"I need him," She repeated softly, defeatedly, with silent tears rolling down her cheeks. The salt of her tears loosened the caked blood of that very gash he found as beautiful as her. It was more as if she were quietly mourning a loss, the loss of a person she thought she needed. Voice barely a whisper, she bit her bottom lip. "I need him."
"He never came for you," Levi finally said, factually and quietly. "You know that. I am tired of listening to you bitch and moan over some teenage boy whose love for you doesn't run as deep as you think. You already realize this way more than you'll ever let on."
Mikasa wasn't even reactive to such a statement. It was as if Levi was merely saying her own thoughts out loud. "His priorities—They're just elsewhere," He couldn't tell if she was speaking more to herself than him. After all, she needed way more convincing than he did. "He has powers that are greater than mankind. I'm just not worth the distraction."
"You're worth more than you'll ever understand," Levi said after a long while. "More than he will ever understand."
The fire was near the end of its life, the orange glow of embers barely illuminating a foot's radius around the back office. Neither one of them moved to rekindle the flames.
Just when Levi thought that there was really nothing left to say, right when it was time to call it a night before he bundled up in his cape and await the sunrise in lieu of an attempt to rest, his lips twitched with one last sentiment. "You drive me crazy, you know that?" He didn't bother pausing to try to get a reply from her because obviously he would not get one. "You're so powerful and so aware. You're smarter than you let on, and in my opinion, that's what makes you brilliant. I never thought I'd meet someone as cold-blooded and ruthless as me. I thought I was alone in that miserable title. Yet," He took a careful breath. "Yet selfishly I've used this opportunity to really try and understand what your company means to me. You've been teaching me, Mikasa, in ways I can't really begin to articulate."
The exhaustion finally hit Levi. He was rambling and spilling his guts out because titans had breached the walls and the promise of tomorrow was no longer a guarantee. The world was getting smaller and smaller, and in a reactionary panic to an existential claustrophobia, he couldn't help but take this time in this back office to be honest for once in his goddamned life. He was so tired. Maybe he'd sleep better if all this clutter was out in the open and not festering in his brain.
"I don't know if the word I'm looking for is chemistry, but I just feel like we're one in the same. I get so passionately enraged by you, but it's that same passion that makes me look forward to tomorrow, as selfish as that sounds. You just drive me so fucking crazy, you know that?" He was repeating himself at this point. "And the worst part is that you're right. All that time ago when you said I wanted you because I could never have you—somehow, someway I've managed to love you in a way that's completely unwarranted and makes no sense," He licked his lips one last time because he could not bear to keep going past this. "I want you so bad, Mikasa, and you're right because I'll never have you. Because you need him, right? I don't matter, not that I expected to. The point is, I guess...I'll never get to have you."
The embers were as good as dead. The room was so dark, he could barely make out her figure at this point. It was probably for the best, though. He probably would not be able to read her reactions and that'd drive him into a fresh rage and he was too fucking exhausted to open yet another can of angry worms. So he decided he might as well have a seat finally and close his eyes until morning came.
"Just take me."
At first he thought he hallucinated her voice, it was so low in decibels. Like a gust of wind whispering something it might regret.
"What?" He tried his best to mutter in his lowest pitch yet the room made his voice sound so harsh, so…scared. Scared that she really did't say those three words he desperately wanted her to say.
Yet, the universe had a sense of humor because she spoke more clearly this time, just so Levi could hear with his own ears her equally exhausted, honey-dripped voice. "I said take me."
Levi could not be elated with her invitation. He was not rushing to her side. In fact, he didn't even raise any eyebrow. There was a war against humanity out there, with titans and monsters and horrors fit for legends. Their only shelter was the wooden back office room, a mere six-inches of wooden wall surrounded them. "Now could not be a worse time for that, Mikasa. I should say no."
In the darkness where Levi could see nothing, that's when he could see everything. He could see her long, lean body in between the teeth of a titan. The blood gushing from her soft, pink mouth as her internal organs are mashed to a paste. Those charcoal-black eyes would be as pale and lifeless as her snowy velvet skin. In a world where anything could be taken from him, it was time for him to accept that it was time for him to take her while he still could.
"But you're not going to say no, are you?" She whispered one last time.
He felt warm breath in the crook of his neck, a kiss so tender on his pulse point. He never even heard her clear the gap between them. Like magic, she materialized in his lap. For the first time in all their encounters, he held her. He traced his fingers along the expanse of her exposed skin. He was savoring her, holding her. This was the first time kissing her, as he could recall. It was gentle and intimate and anything but carnal, it was honest and scared and everything in between. She kissed him back, sweetly and shy like the vulnerable girl she was.
"Never," He replied.
And so, for the first time in Levi's life, he made love with someone, with Mikasa. And afterward, he held her—and she held him back—until the sun came up.
it's been quite a long time.
i was in a lot of pain at the time of beginning this fic back when i was seventeen, and much like it came time for me to mature and grow, it's time for levi and mikasa and this story to do the same.
it's overwhelming to think that i've captivated at least one person's attention with a fictional piece that i projected a lot of personal inner demons into.
it's humbling and i owe to myself as a writer and to any readers still out there to finish this fic.
there are many things i want to mention about the nature of this story, but i'll wait til the end.
we're almost to the end, and i'll see yall there.
thank you so much.